Allure and Reality in FemTec Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of a Female Entrepreneur Who Struggled in the Mechanical Engineering Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Germany

Abstract

The following case study describes the founding process of a female engineer who, frustrated and discouraged by her years of work experience, was attracted to the benefits of self-employment. Associating self-employment with being freed from the specific constraints she had experienced in her everyday working life, her notion of self-employment was based on role models from her private surroundings. Her dissatisfaction with her former working life was especially the cause of the decisions by her direct superior and the lack of opportunities to effectively participate at her job. In her self-evaluation, she saw the reasons for her company’s failure most notably in the lack of competence and qualification when it came to e.g. customer acquisition. She was also frustrated by the wrong advice she had received by start-up consultants. She found helpful advice only from self-organized, private consultants and mentors, as they (unlike the “professional” start-up consultants) had specific knowledge and experience in their technical fields. The drama in this case lies especially in the fact that the female foundress’ product idea was in fact implemented and capitalized upon by one of her clients when the market entry of her own company was delayed by a few months. As a result, she lost the promising starting point of her own founding, while unintentionally placing an experienced competitor onto the market. The interesting aspect of this case lies in the confrontation with the reality of entrepreneurship and the conscious experience of “walking the path” of entrepreneurial work, especially the organizational work of getting the own company up and running. In this instance, it ultimately represented the foundress’ downfall.