How These Founders Are Disrupting the Software Landscape

1. How the foundations came about
2. Always keeping the vision in mind
3. How the female founders pass on their knowledge now
4. The founders in brief portrait

Still too few women are founding start-ups for software - this is also shown by a study of the Female Founders Monitor (2020). The causes for this are manifold and refer in part to culturally established reasons.

But there is hope that these prospects will not persist. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck recently published a start-up strategy, in which women are specifically supposed to be supported by a new funding line. In addition, a look at the network of the software rating platform OMR Reviews and the OMR Initiative 5050 reveals several successful examples of female founders who have already established themselves in the software landscape. They themselves want to provide a model and draw attention to their roles with courage and valuable experience.

We introduced you to the personalities of Anna Kaiser from the HR software Tandemploy, Hanna Asmussen from the start-up Localyze and Susanne Krehl from the finance app Fabit in this article in more detail. We show how they discovered their passion for the software world and what insights they drew from it for their further career path.

How the foundations came about

In the case of all three founders, their own professional experiences and challenges played a major role in what their product is about today. For example, Anna Kaiser was inspired by the Jobsharing model for the final implementation of the Tandemploy software. She and her business partner Jana worked in a recruitment company before they founded, where two women applied for the leadership position together in a tandem model. “We found that so exciting that we researched this topic the same evening and recognized how much flexibility this opportunity provides”, says Anna Kaiser. Inspired by this idea, both of them quit their jobs two days later to introduce this topic in many other companies again. Out of the idea, a talent marketplace was born, where companies like Lufthansa give their employees the opportunity to find other colleagues for a Jobsharing model or project teams. “In our tool, the skills and interests of an employee are in focus”, summarizes Kaiser.

Hanna Asmussen also recognized a great challenge early on through her many international stays, such as in China, South America or Portugal: “I noticed how extremely complicated a move to a new country can be.” Her software Localyze has provided better support in such situations for about four years, supporting workers in all matters for a move to a new country. Both the HR departments and the employee can view a to-do list within the tool. “Each list is displayed individually depending on the family situation and country”, explains Hanna Asmussen. Localyze's clientele includes companies like FreeNow, Personio, or Peek and Cloppenburg, whose employees can change their positions within international offices.

For her still very young product Fabit, Susanne Krehl brings over 10 years of experience in the finance sector. With the financial product Barzahlen (now viacash), she not only dealt with the start-up sector early on, also in an international context, but also with a target group that has little financial background. “And that's why I know the Fabit users very well”, Susanne Krehl says. “There are now so many events and further training on investing. But I always knew that I wanted to found something for the group that has a greater need in the financial sector.” Fabit's goal is to change financial habits by acting. The app calculates fixed costs in advance and shows users how much money they can still economize within a month or day.

Always keeping the vision in mind

“We want to be the home of our users”, Susanne Krehl explains the vision behind her heart project Fabit. “Therefore, the finance app should coach people so that they can make healthy financial decisions.” In the future, it will not just be about content and financial education in general, but also about retirement provision, insurance, or investments.

Anna Kaiser, together with Jana Tepe, took a step further and sold Tandemploy to the tech giant Phenom at the beginning of the year. “The main reason for this merger was that we want to bring our software to as many companies as possible, both internationally and globally”, Kaiser explains the step. “Phenom, as a rapidly growing HR tech company from the USA, is a perfect match for us.” Her role changes from CEO to employee, in this position Anna Kaiser can focus more on New Work and AI.

For Hanna Asmussen, the step into the software industry was particularly new with Localyze: “We all had little idea about the tech sector before and worked ourselves in step by step - you always need role models from whom you can learn.” The future should also continue at a global level for her start-up, because the idea behind Localyze lives from this development.

How the female founders pass on their knowledge now

All the experiences that Asmussen could gather in the past years with her start-up, she now wants to share. “Especially in the B2B software sector, there is still a relatively small female community, but things are looking up and I find that exciting to watch”, Asmussen summarizes the situation of female founders in the software world.

Anna Kaiser and Susanne Krehl also share their knowledge with others. The founder of Tandemploy has created the association Encourage Ventures, which hides a large investor network. With currently 460 participating start-ups and 470 female investors, over 80 start-ups were supported in the first year through investments, mentoring, and sponsorship. Up to 300 workshops are held a year to encourage and support investors or consultants in their business ideas.

Susanne Krehl is also active in initiatives as part of the FinTech Ladies in order to pass on her experiences and valuable insights from the finance sector: “Women have become much more present in the FinTech sector in the last 10 years”, Krehl finds. In the future, she expects to focus much more on professional competence and not only on gender: “When we want to talk about diversity in our industry, it is not only about that, but also about social diversity and backgrounds.”

The founders in brief portrait

Anna Kaiser from Tandemploy

Tandemploy is an internal talent marketplace for companies, where employees can be networked with each other based on their specified skills. The aim is collaborations for project teams, onboarding, or mentoring programs. Anna Kaiser founded Tandemploy about 10 years ago together with Jana Tepe. At the beginning of 2022, the software company was sold to the American tech giant Phenom, with whom Tandemploy's focus will now increasingly lie on New Work and AI.

Hanna Asmussen from Localyze

Together with Lisa Dahlke and Franziska Löw, Hanna Asmussen has developed Localyze, a solution that makes companies easier to hire international employees. The software assists these e. g. in applying for visas, work and residence permits, and in finding an apartment. Localyze was founded in 2018, since then the company has grown to almost 100 employees and is now planning to expand outside Europe.

Susanne Krehl from Fabit

The finance app Fabit helps users to adopt financial habits and manage their entire financial life sustainably. The target group is mainly young people who have consumer debts and who have little or no financial experience in their life so far. At the end of 2021, Susanne Krehl founded the app together with Dr. Ralf-Michael Schmidt and Robert Heim. At the OMR Festival, Fabit made it into the Top 5 start-ups at the female founders pitch from 5050, EMOTION, and the partners Deloitte and IONOS.