Accept Failure and Succeed!

Anja Whitehead
FemGems
Published in
5 min readAug 18, 2019
‘Shield of Perfection’ created by the amazing FemGems’ illustrator Rozalina Burkova

Women share a lot of character traits world over as a result of socialization, gender politics, societal pressures and expectations. The idea of needing to be ‘perfect’ in all that we do, as a means to validate and affirm our skills, experiences and achievements both inside and outside the home, inhibits more women than it inspires. Waiting for the perfect timing? Wanting to ‘know everything’ required before starting? Scared of making mistakes? It’s disheartening to think we only feel confident in our capabilities after an accomplishment or achievement of recognition. Listen closely to FemGems’ motivating interview with a mother and founder of an NGO making a social impact in the health sector while challenging her own perfectionist beliefs.

Nina Formanek, sole founder of Sifty, an NGO committed to breaking down complex health data in a simple and reliable way, struggled with similar feelings before the launch of her company. With a passion for helping others, whether volunteering, studying social policy in health or working for the European Commission, Nina came to realize there is an overwhelming amount of important health data online, but few trusted and well-sourced websites to turn to. Also startling was her realization that few people know the basics regarding health and the importance of prevention before an issue rises.

It became clear that, “we don’t really care about health until we’re not healthy” and as a daughter of two doctors this wouldn’t do.

This marked the beginning of her challenge of providing an overview of the options and the state of health in the EU, with the hopes of increasing the public’s interest both in health topics and in their own health. By combining education and health data Nina seeks to “raise awareness about the importance of health status, regular check-ups and understanding the importance of reliable health data”.

Before the launch of Sifty Nina aspired to find the elusive balance between family life, work life and her own personal aspirations. Knowing she wanted to maintain financial security and develop her growing ideas, she took the leap of asking her boss if they could trial her working in the office only three days a week.

It’s worth emphasizing that this leap of “just go and ask for what you want” was a mental hurdle she needed to acknowledge that many women, including herself, struggle with doing.

Fortunately though, with the support of her husband and her boss, this left her two days a week for herself as well as the peace of mind of knowing she could develop and establish her specific goals for Sifty with no deadline.

It was around this time that Nina soon fell pregnant and was granted maternity leave. Even though maternity leave is considerably longer in the Czech Republic, she was determined to not forget her education or knowledge while at home raising her family.

A person who is used to doing a lot, she also knew she needed to do something else for herself outside of motherhood.

She’s extremely honest about how difficult and long it took her to make the decision to be a sole founder. Up to that point she spent a lot of time trying to find a co-founder that would complement her skills and ideas, but choosing to go at it alone finally freed her and gave her the confidence in her capabilities and vision to do it on her own.

As Brene Brown says, “Perfection is a twenty ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that is really preventing us from taking flight”.

Soon after Nina found a number of people who wanted to help her after identifying with Sifty’s purpose and she got to work with a web designer and graphic designer to get her logo, brand and website started. A trusted friend who has been with the project from the beginning, also offered invaluable feedback and opinions and still works with her now reading through all the data-heavy EU studies and policies. Taking the time to work through and test the right tools and programs and determining the structure and timeline of the various roles and responsibilities of the people on her team made it possible for Nina to launch the Sifty website six weeks after giving birth.

These days, with the help of an assistant, her decisions and goals are much clearer as she is able to work one day a week outside of her home with the help and support of her in-laws who take care of her son. She spends a lot of time working on crowdfunding campaigns, applying for grants and looking for partners. Nina is optimistic and confident in the opportunities for startups to receive money in numerous ways, whether it be through competitions or grants and gets additional support and insight from startup mentors she has met on her entrepreneurial journey. Keeping track of her monthly goals and writing a newsletter of events help her remote team members stay up to date with developments and her website and Instagram account are full of clear, simple informative articles and infographics that detail important developments in the world of health. The team of health and data enthusiasts elaborate further,

“We all seek for bigger purpose in our daily lives and we believe that combining education and health is the key to a better state of society.”

Being scared of failure in Nina’s opinion is counter-intuitive to being an entrepreneur. Finding the confidence to make and embrace mistakes has allowed her to temper the inner struggle of keeping a balance of her own demands on herself. While still striving for high, but realistic standards, she now walks and talks with the confidence of knowing she is capable and on a learning path that inspires her daily. In her own words, “Just go for it!”.

Tune in to this educational and motivating conversation to learn more about Nina’s thoughts of her entrepreneurial journey.

FemGems features rising female entrepreneurs from all over the world.

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P.S. Oh, and if you’d love daily motivation to keep you pumped and on track, you will find it on the FemGems Instagram channel.

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