EP 19 – Diversity in Entrepreneurship with Gesa Miczaika

EP 19 – Diversity & Entrepreneurship with Gesa Miczaika

Gesa Miczaika

Episode Stream

Biography

In this episode of season 3 of the Most Awesome Founder Podcast, we are sticking with stories highlighting the importance of diversity and entrepreneurship. Today, we introduce Gesa Miczaika, entrepreneur, investor and partner at German’s first all-female VC firm Auxxo.

Of course, we discuss diversity in the startup world, but also the disparity of capital deployed to male vs female founders, the competitive advantage of leading an all-female VC and so much more.

Gesa is truly an advocate for equality and an inspiring voice in the German startup ecosystem. There are so many takeaways from this episode, so I hope you enjoy it.

Chapters 

Gesa Preview Intro (00:04) 

Part 1: Gesa’s founder story (03:02) 

Part 2: The opportunities for Auxxo as an all-female VC-team (06:31)

Part 3: The focus sectors of Auxxo (09:10)

Part 4: The Power of Diversity as an competitive advantage for Auxxo (09:42)

   Music Interlude (11:26)

Part 5: Only 15.7% of founders in Germany are female – Gesa’s view on the “Female founder monitor” study (12:02) 

Part 6: Structural and cultural aspects of gender bias in funding (14:58)

Part 7: Throwback to episode with Franziska Leonhardt: More female-founder role models needed (18:52)

   Music Interlude (22:20) 

Part 8: Female founder networks – What opportunities to look out for? (22:50)

Part 9: Gesa’s suggestions on how to curate your network (27:02)  

Part 10: “Be resilient in everything you do” – The one piece of advice from Gesa (29:16) 

Part 11: What book is on Gesa’s bedside table? (31:21)

Part 12: What is Gesa listening to these days? (32:53)

Part 13: How to reach out to Gesa (33:46) 

Episode 20 Preview (38:30)