09
de Març
de
2017
Act.
09
de Març
de
2017
"I was laid off on January 14 2008. I decided that I would never again work for anyone but myself." The cofounder of HolaLuz, Carlota Pi,gives many talks explaining the story of how after her maternity leave "no one was expecting her back". A mother of three, she is one of the many women who every day show that there is no need to renounce motherhood or a professional career. And many of them choose to be entrepreneurs. On International Women's Day, VIA Empresa learned their stories, those of the mumpreneurs.
Projects born at the same time
Anna Sala combines her medical practice in the Vall d'Hebron hospital with entrepreneurship. She is the cofounder of Adan Medical Innovation, the creator of Anapphylaxis, to improve the lives of those suffering from allergies. "The idea for the project appeared in 2013 and as we wanted to go ahead with it and find funding I applied to Imagine," she tells VIA Empresa. Just as she was selected to go to San Francisco to take part in the programme set up by Xavier Verdaguer, she found she was pregnant.
"I was in Silicon Valley during the second and third months of my pregnancy without saying anything. I didn't want anyone to treat me any differently. What's more, in 2015 she had her second daughter. "You can balance everything, but only with a lot of effort and sleeping very little," she says. In the end, both the company and motherhood are projects "you are excited about. Getting funding and beginning on the first prototypes is not a moment you can stop and wait for your daughter to get bigger," she says.
The founder of Social Car, Mar Alarcón, is also proud of being a mumpreneur. She has three children, 10, 7 and 3, who were all born alongside her business projects. "We were in China and the opportunity arose to set up a project with my husband," she tells VIA Empresa, about the moment she learned she was going to have her first child. "Working for myself allowed me to balance my time and spend more or less a year working at a lower rhythm," she points out.
With the arrival of her second child she decided to give up the project and set up another, Social Car. "We set it up when I had a four-year-old boy and another who was one. And after Social Car had been on the market for a year I became pregnant with my third, which I had with the growth of a new startup in full swing," she recalls.
Flexibility
If there is one factor that all of these women mention it is flexibility. "You have to classify the time and see what it brings you. For me, the time moving around brought me nothing," says Mar Alarcón. "For all that it is fashionable for startups to go to Poble Nou, if I am far away from home it is not worth it," she adds. In her case, she lives near her children's school and her office. "When you are an entrepreneur you can decide where to work. I waste no time on transport and if anything happens at school I can go there straight away."
"Working for yourself is a huge advantage. The children have doctor's visits, festivals... and I can almost always work something out," says Sara Serantes, who has now been a mother twice. For her part, Anna Cejudo points out that "you have work commitments that you cannot ignore, but you can adapt it to your needs. If you have to go to the paediatrician you can organise it without asking permission from anyone."
For Anna Sala, "it is true that being a cofounder allows you to better organise your timetable. But being the head of the company also means that you cannot drop the pace at any time, and less so in a company that is being set up." In the end, she stresses, "the investors put in the money because they believe in you and you have to show it to the maximum."
Whatever the case, all of them look for the best way to do everything without losing effectiveness. "If there was a meeting I had to attend I would try to make sure it was when the child was sleeping. But I have also been on Skype with the camera turned off because I was breastfeeding my child at that moment," recalls Anna Cejudo. Skype is also a regular tool for Anna Sala, who is in constant contact with a team in San Francisco. "We did the meetings with them in the evenings, when the girls were asleep. You sleep less, but at least you can participate," she says.
In short, as Mar Alarcón argues, "these days we are very connected and it is not always necessary to go to the office. I also set up meetings at home, they came here and while we went over things I was breastfeeding my son."
Sharing responsibility
"You need to make sure your partner is aware that it is the child of you both," insists Mar Alarcón. The founder of Social Car laments that "when you go back to work you continue with a 100% of the burden of the children and the house, but you are also working. You have to stop yourself and delegate it at 50%." In her case, as with the other mumpreneurs consulted by VIA Empresa, she also shares the business project with her partner.
"In some presentations that both of us had to go to we took the girls with us. The eldest is already used to seeing how we talk and what we do," recalls Anna Sala. For Anna Cejudo, "starting a business with one's partner has a good side in that he is aware of your workload and family commitments." It serves, she says, for "supporting one another in complicated moments and deciding who will stay with the child."
In the case of Sushifresh, Serantes' partner joined after it had been operating for two years. "He had stable work and thanks to that we could pay the bills. It was very important at the beginning to have him at my side to compensate for my absence; in the first year I didn't take a single day off," she concludes.
Projects born at the same time
Anna Sala combines her medical practice in the Vall d'Hebron hospital with entrepreneurship. She is the cofounder of Adan Medical Innovation, the creator of Anapphylaxis, to improve the lives of those suffering from allergies. "The idea for the project appeared in 2013 and as we wanted to go ahead with it and find funding I applied to Imagine," she tells VIA Empresa. Just as she was selected to go to San Francisco to take part in the programme set up by Xavier Verdaguer, she found she was pregnant.
"I was in Silicon Valley during the second and third months of my pregnancy without saying anything. I didn't want anyone to treat me any differently. What's more, in 2015 she had her second daughter. "You can balance everything, but only with a lot of effort and sleeping very little," she says. In the end, both the company and motherhood are projects "you are excited about. Getting funding and beginning on the first prototypes is not a moment you can stop and wait for your daughter to get bigger," she says.
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| Anna Sala shares children and doing business with Adrià Curran. Ceded |
The founder of Social Car, Mar Alarcón, is also proud of being a mumpreneur. She has three children, 10, 7 and 3, who were all born alongside her business projects. "We were in China and the opportunity arose to set up a project with my husband," she tells VIA Empresa, about the moment she learned she was going to have her first child. "Working for myself allowed me to balance my time and spend more or less a year working at a lower rhythm," she points out.
With the arrival of her second child she decided to give up the project and set up another, Social Car. "We set it up when I had a four-year-old boy and another who was one. And after Social Car had been on the market for a year I became pregnant with my third, which I had with the growth of a new startup in full swing," she recalls.
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| Source: Eurostat |
"I got pregnant soon after we set up Idea Foster," says Anna Cejudo, who has recently launched StepsLife. "During my four months of maternity leave I did what I could from home and combined them. They are four months that you are not at the office working hard, but you cannot completely disconnect when the company is yours. When the child is sleeping and everyone tells you that you have to take advantage to rest is when you end up working," she admits.
Sara Serantes is the founder of Sushifresh, an idea from her time spent in New Zealand, travelling with her partner. "I returned 26 years old, pregnant and at a time of the greatest credit restriction. I put the idea off and began working in a shop," she says. "If you are wearing a suit and tie there is no problem, but a young pregnant woman... Everyone said no to me. All I managed to get was Enisa, who said yes after finding out about me on paper. If they had actually seen me…," she wonders.
Once her maternity leave was over, she took up the idea again. "I signed up to programmes at Foment Emprèn and I took a pram with me to the first meetings," she recalls. In fact, the business plan for Sushifresh began when her little girl was only four months old and opened when she was 16. The business times, which at the beginning was only in the afternoon and evening, led to "the hardest part, leaving her at six in the evening and not returning until 12 at night, when she was already asleep," says Serantes.
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| Mar Alarcón in an interview with VIA Empresa. Lali Álvarez |
Flexibility
If there is one factor that all of these women mention it is flexibility. "You have to classify the time and see what it brings you. For me, the time moving around brought me nothing," says Mar Alarcón. "For all that it is fashionable for startups to go to Poble Nou, if I am far away from home it is not worth it," she adds. In her case, she lives near her children's school and her office. "When you are an entrepreneur you can decide where to work. I waste no time on transport and if anything happens at school I can go there straight away."
"Working for yourself is a huge advantage. The children have doctor's visits, festivals... and I can almost always work something out," says Sara Serantes, who has now been a mother twice. For her part, Anna Cejudo points out that "you have work commitments that you cannot ignore, but you can adapt it to your needs. If you have to go to the paediatrician you can organise it without asking permission from anyone."
For Anna Sala, "it is true that being a cofounder allows you to better organise your timetable. But being the head of the company also means that you cannot drop the pace at any time, and less so in a company that is being set up." In the end, she stresses, "the investors put in the money because they believe in you and you have to show it to the maximum."
 |
| Sara Serantes is the founder of Sushifresh. Ceded |
Whatever the case, all of them look for the best way to do everything without losing effectiveness. "If there was a meeting I had to attend I would try to make sure it was when the child was sleeping. But I have also been on Skype with the camera turned off because I was breastfeeding my child at that moment," recalls Anna Cejudo. Skype is also a regular tool for Anna Sala, who is in constant contact with a team in San Francisco. "We did the meetings with them in the evenings, when the girls were asleep. You sleep less, but at least you can participate," she says.
In short, as Mar Alarcón argues, "these days we are very connected and it is not always necessary to go to the office. I also set up meetings at home, they came here and while we went over things I was breastfeeding my son."
Sharing responsibility
"You need to make sure your partner is aware that it is the child of you both," insists Mar Alarcón. The founder of Social Car laments that "when you go back to work you continue with a 100% of the burden of the children and the house, but you are also working. You have to stop yourself and delegate it at 50%." In her case, as with the other mumpreneurs consulted by VIA Empresa, she also shares the business project with her partner.
 |
| Anna Cejudo with the cofounders of StepsLife. Ceded |
"In some presentations that both of us had to go to we took the girls with us. The eldest is already used to seeing how we talk and what we do," recalls Anna Sala. For Anna Cejudo, "starting a business with one's partner has a good side in that he is aware of your workload and family commitments." It serves, she says, for "supporting one another in complicated moments and deciding who will stay with the child."
In the case of Sushifresh, Serantes' partner joined after it had been operating for two years. "He had stable work and thanks to that we could pay the bills. It was very important at the beginning to have him at my side to compensate for my absence; in the first year I didn't take a single day off," she concludes.