Founders come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors
When I speak to female bachelor or master students, they often ask me how I had the courage or even the idea to start a company. Many of them tell me that they do not know how you would go about starting a company, that they have never considered being an entrepreneur as a career path, and that they frankly could not imagine being a founder. That always makes me pretty sad – probably largely, because until the second half of my twenties I myself could also not have imagined any of this.
In my early twenties, my “big dream” was to become a legal counsel at a social enterprise and perhaps someday the general counsel of a small or medium-sized company. Founding a social enterprise or a company of my own was not something that registered as a real or possible career path for me during my time at university or at the start of my career. That is really weird to think about now, because I grew up in the (fairly emancipated) Nordics and I literally spent a huge chunk of my teenage years dreaming about co-founding a renewable energy company together with my siblings.
I think a lot of what later “convinced” me that starting a company was not for me boils down to the public messaging about what a successful leader or founder should look like, as well as the generally lacking representation of (non-celebrity) female founders in the media.
In my late teens and early twenties, I therefore somehow thought that …
🔸 if you were not super extroverted and “stereotypically pretty”,
🔸 if you had a more shy and introverted nature,
🔸 if you preferred to listen (and write) rather than speak,
🔸 if you were a bit hypersensitive and very empathetic,
🔸 if the spotlight was not a place you enjoyed being,
🔸 if you had a strong moral compass and a more altruistic approach to life,
🔸 if taxation and accounting were not things you liked, and
🔸 if you wanted to stay true to yourself,
starting a company was not something to consider.
I cannot claim to have been the most successful founder to date, but I can tell you that all of the factors I listed above do not mean that you cannot successfully start and lead a company. To be honest, a lot of those traits and quirks are what I now consider as my “real-life superpowers”.
And so, if you are reading this and you doubt if starting a company is for you, because you tick a bit different than the very loud and flashy entrepreneurs the media loves to present, I will just say that we founders come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and flavors – and that it is important that we do, because the world needs companies and social enterprises that cater to very different needs and operate in diverse ways.
At The E-Waste Column, we have always made a point of highlighting female entrepreneurs and creating resources to make it easier for women to enter the raw materials, electronics circularity, and e-waste sectors. If you would like to share what impact this has had on you, you can submit your #impacttestimonials here.
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