It becomes a pivotal second for Maria Mattsson Mähl. She sat on a panel inside the Swedish town of Visby and changed into intended to talk about her experience as an entrepreneur. It became inside the summer of 2017, whilst several politicians, businesspeople, and media representatives sat collectively for a panel discussion organized via the “Alemedalen Week” — a prestigious annual networking event in Sweden named after the eponymous public park. But Mattsson Mähl felt very much by herself because, during the dialogue, she becomes faced with figures she couldn’t accept as true. Apparently, there were only 17 Swedish companies with a turnover of more than 50 million Swedish kronor ($5.Forty two million, €four. Seventy-nine million) founded by way of ladies.
The start of the 17 Network
“I could not believe it,” she advised DW in an interview. “Together with every other girl entrepreneur, I quickly started out a shoutout. We desired to perceive more organizations that had girl founders or majority proprietors and additionally had a minimal turnover of fifty million kronor.” In just a few weeks, the 2 entrepreneurs released the Swedish girls’ network “17 Nätverket” (“The 17 Network”), an ironic connection with the reality that there had been allegedly so few female founders and entrepreneurs in Sweden.
Within 12 months, 17 Nätverket identified over 45 businesses, both based with the aid of girls or with lady majority stakeholders, and sales above 50 million kronor. Since then, the number of agencies that match the criteria of the one has grown to greater than 50%. “We want to encourage other lady marketers to dream massive and construct large businesses,” the 44-12 months vintage says approximately the network’s aim.
Mattsson Mähl also stresses how much less difficult it’s for a larger agency to establish a functioning IT infrastructure. She believes length is a measure of success because it guarantees sustainable commercial enterprise and stability. As for her very own employer, she aims to boost sales to one thousand million kronor in the next 5 years. The organization’s principal cash spinner is training packages which she desires to expand similarly and sell in markets outdoor of Sweden.
Creating any other SAP
The startup of Melanie Stütz is alternatively small as compared with that of her Swedish fellow founder. Her aspirations are massive. “We need a 2nd SAP in Germany, an international employer within the software area. Why haven’t we managed to acquire that yet?” Stütz wonders. She and her husband Andreas run IDEASCANNER — an organization that uses artificial intelligence to assess commercial enterprise ideas with the help of a set of rules. The software allows startups to test their enterprise thoughts or increase entirely new ones.
“Of path, in principle, any concept has a threat if it unearths a customer. But if an idea earns a score of extra than 70 factors, it has the potential to emerge as a simply huge concept like Google and the likes,” Stütz is satisfied. But her agency offers extra than records evaluation as it additionally provides workshops to assist businesses to expand their thoughts. IDEASCANNER is primarily based in Munich and has its own experts and companions, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). But the place of the enterprise doesn’t virtually be counted, Stütz stresses, because operations will be run from everywhere inside the international, so long as there may be suitable get entry to the internet.