The Hot Seat: Anna-Lena Gerber
This Hot Seat is part of a joint Impact Shakers & Maze X effort to promote the impact ecosystem and its entrepreneurs. In this series, we put our guests in the hot seat. We fire away questions about the hard things about hard things and make room for vulnerability in entrepreneurship.
“It takes a village to raise a child” and an awesome team to build a company
How SitEinander got started
Anna-Lena Gerber had been working in babysitting agencies and started her own one together with her sisters while still in university (book series, anyone?). No wonder, the original idea behind SitEinander was to be a digital version of a babysitting cooperative, where parents organise an “I sit for you — you sit for me” system. But, as it goes with company building, it became clear pretty quickly that the problem they wanted to solve was much bigger and their solution would only tackle a tiny part of it.
According to a German health insurer, 40% of all parents suffer from exhaustion every day and 80% of mothers feel lonely. And these are the pre-COVID-19 numbers… Thanks to extensive user testing and market research they pivoted to become a digital space where parents can find, connect, and exchange with other parents in their neighborhood. With the app, they want to provide them with the tools they need to create a strong support network.
What has been the hardest decision you’ve had to make as an entrepreneur?
All team-related decisions have been hard, from choosing the right people to start with, to parting ways with some of our team members. Fortunately, I haven’t had to make people leave the company yet, so far it has happened in a natural way, where people who no longer fit in, just left on their own initiative.
The decision of who gets shares of the company and when, is a very tough one, because you want people to feel ownership, but you also really want to be sure they are the right people, they will fit in and remain in the company long enough. And then, how many shares does everyone get? What about new employees? Very hard decisions that impact the company’s reality in the long term.
What is the most valuable thing you’ve done to increase the impact of your business?
Attracting and choosing the right team members, although somehow the right people seemed to appear randomly. Our head of product was supposed to only give us a Design Thinking workshop and we ended up having so much fun together, instead of staying just 4 hours he never left and has been with us for more than 16 months now. Our CTO, we met through a networking forum and our UX/UI designer at New Year’s party. With all of them, we started the working relationship on a freelance contract / trial phase, but they are all full-time employees by now. I learned that trusting your gut feeling and at the same time building in an ‘explorative’ phase can help you to make sure you’re making the right decision.
What makes you proud of your company’s culture?
I’m extremely proud of my current team and so grateful that they all have bought into the idea of helping families to find their village with our app. All of them are very capable, smart, and intrinsically motivated people. We 100% trust each other and are all motivated to create something that has an impact on our society. We share the same values of freedom, trust and mutual support and that’s why it’s easy to give each other the liberty to work whenever we want and wherever we want as long as we get our work done. It works amazingly well.
What is something you have learned and would like to pass on?
We truly believe “It takes a village to raise a child”, and in the same way that it’s essential to have a support network for families, I’ve learned, that the same goes for building a company. As a founder and CEO, I learned how important it is to build out a support network, especially with people who have been in your position already and who can share their past experiences with you. In my view, there is nothing more valuable than advice from people with more experience than yourself.
Want to connect and grow together with other value driven entrepreneurs? Apply here to join our global online impact entrepreneurship community.
