She worked as a dancer in nightclubs, founded several companies, but would not get any outside money, says Eileen Liebig. The reasons for this are very personal.
The series founder Eileen Liebig doesn’t want to spend money that she hasn’t earned herself. “I already put enough pressure on myself.” Mias Dias
There are good reasons not to want investors. You don’t have to give up any shares, you don’t have to discuss decisions, you have less pressure from outside. But there are also very personal reasons for speaking out against investors, as the story of serial founder Eileen Liebig shows. She comes from an over-indebted family and has therefore decided not to receive money from outside.
“When I was 12 years old, my mom cried because she didn’t know what to do financially because she couldn’t get a loan,” said Liebig in a podcast conversation with Gründerszene. “As a child, that caused me incredible panic. That day I manifested to myself that I would never want something like that. And that’s why I don’t have any loans. And that’s why I haven’t founded a company yet where I got money from outside.”
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Founder doesn’t pay herself a salary because her startup Clap didn’t do well
Liebig has founded several companies: the event agency Mias Dias, a box for online events at the start of Corona and most recently the startup Clap, which sends employee appreciation packages, such as packages for birthdays or onboarding. While the online event box was very successful during the pandemic, its successor, Clap, did not work well last year and caused high costs but generated no income.
“We were just able to stay afloat,” says Liebig in the podcast. “We founders didn’t even pay ourselves a salary. I’m not used to this. I was used to black numbers. I couldn’t handle the fact that all the money was going.” When the numbers get closer to the red, her mood changes.
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Stress puts the founder in the hospital
This put the founder under so much pressure that she had to go to the hospital in the middle of the year. The first signs of excessive stress appeared early on, says Liebig. “But I just ignored it and carried on like a steamroller.”
She then pressed the “reset button,” as Liebig says. This means: only do the bare minimum at work. Tackle where it burns. Think about how things should continue in the long term. “Stress is a real asshole,” says the founder. “Stress can wreak havoc on your entire body.”
But at Christmas business – the most stressful time of the company year – she got back into full action. “As a founder, I have harvested the rewards for the first time from what I have built throughout the year. I sat back in the engine room and fell in love with the company again,” says Liebig. Even if that may sound contradictory: not all stress is the same.
Work has to be fun, says series founder Eileen Liebig
According to the founder, work has to be fun for her and work financially, then she can function under high levels of stress. “For me it’s not about how much I work, but what I do. My energy level is incredibly high: I have several companies, four children, I have fun doing it.”
She is a person who gets a lot of energy from outside. “So I don’t feel empty when I go on adventures. Rather, it stimulates me and makes me happy. I like this hype,” says Liebig.
She now seems to have mastered the difficult year with Clap. When asked, Eileen Liebig says that costs have now been reduced, processes have been optimized and the company is now in the black. Without investors, as I said. So it could soon be time for the next business adventure.