Only one in ten start-ups is really successful, this statistic has haunted all kinds of media for years.
Anyone who wants to found a company knows them;
It is not uncommon for industry skeptics to repeat it like a mantra.
This is what happened to Nina Julie Lepique: Her idea was one of those that would quickly disappear again, a journalist told her when she told him about her plans for an interview.
Together with her partner, Lepique wanted to start an audio erotic company.
Sex for the ears, so to speak - at that time, around four years ago, a largely unknown market in Germany.
Lepique was 23 and had just given up her secure job in the corporate department at Xing for the idea that the journalist was trying to defeat.
Today Lepique is the head of »Femtasy«, a start-up that produces erotic short stories to listen to.
Lepique and her partner want to create what is already in abundance for the eyes as a subscription offer in a sensual form - only for the ears.
More than 30 employees, one million euros in sales
"I didn't have the feeling at the time that it was such a crazy idea," recalls Lepique.
She noticed in her circle of friends that sexuality and masturbation were "big issues".
With the first money that she borrowed from her father, she commissioned market research, created Excel lists of supporters who she had already met in a professional environment, and continued to develop the idea with her partner.
Today, Lepique's company has more than 30 employees and has long since reached a million in sales.
On the one hand, this is confirmation of what she and her partner have achieved, and on the other, it is also a work assignment, she says: "The effort to keep our product attractive and to keep developing it - that is a lot of work."
In the podcast, Nina Julie Lepique tells how her path from the idea to her own company looked like, how she deals with increasing pressure from investors and why it is important, as a founder, to speak directly to users.
You can hear the current episode here: