Anna Kaiser is in summer mode after her million-euro exit. Just a few months ago, the 38-year-old sold her start-up Tandemploy and is now helping the new company with its integration. Instead of hip Berlin, however, she has made herself at home in a small town in France, where she has bought a house with friends. The walls of the stone house have a yellowish glow, while Kaiser smiles into the camera in her summer dress. We are ready to go.

Ms. Kaiser, what have you done recently?

I actually bought a private chef recently, for myself, my family and friends here in France. I can't cook at all and don't enjoy it and my big goal in life has always been to have my own chef so that I can get rid of the annoying issue. It might be too expensive in the long run, but for five weeks it was just a dream to have 3-course meals cooked for me.

You are currently in France instead of Berlin. What drove you there?

Some time ago, we bought a house here with friends that also has fiber optic cable. Since then, we've always spent our summers in France to get away from hectic Berlin for a bit. Especially during the pandemic, when I didn't have to show up in person for appointments, it was great and we spent a lot of time here. It's just nice because there are lots of artists and creative people living here, but without the hustle and bustle of Berlin.

You seem to have taken a liking to France. Does the connection to the neighboring country stem from childhood memories?

As children, we hardly ever went on vacation with our parents. My parents had a farm with lots of fields and a horse breeding farm, so it was impossible to go away for any length of time. The fields need a lot of care, especially in summer. We would go away for a few days or over the weekend, but otherwise we didn't have any vacations with my parents. However, we were allowed to go away with friends, with relatives, to language courses. My parents always allowed us to do that while they stayed at home.

Did you have to do a lot of work on the farm?

I helped out a lot, that's just part of being part of a farming family. I also earned my first money there by mucking out horse stables. Back then, I used to grumble about it when all my teenage friends went to faraway countries and we worked in the fields in the heat. I cursed and complained about my terrible life and existence that I had to eke out. It's funny, of course, because today I think it was a wonderful time and I think I learned a lot.

What do you learn on the farm that is important later as an entrepreneur?

I learned the most important thing when I was little: external circumstances cannot be influenced and you can only react to them skillfully. Weather, storms, a disease among the animals: I learned about these dependencies early on. But I also quickly realized that I had a lot in my own hands. You can really influence whether the plants thrive if you look after them every day and put in the work. Nothing happens by itself. And of course, hard work pays off.

Hard work on the farm and later matching algorithms for job sharing. Do your parents understand what you are actually doing?

I always tried to explain to my parents what I was doing. Even during my studies, I was always starting a business. But when a friend asked my father what I was doing, he just said: "You'd better call her yourself, I don't even know if what she said two weeks ago is still relevant." Nevertheless, my parents always supported me and gave me all the freedom I needed, without any prejudice. That was of course a great help.

Didn't they want you to take over the farm?

There was never any obligation for us children to take over the farm. In the end, however, it was like something out of a textbook: my older brother took over the farm and turned it into something very special and beautiful.

As a farmer, there are both good and disastrous seasons. Did your parents talk to you about this?

My parents were very transparent and explained what the financial situation was like. If we could afford something because the current season was going badly or we perhaps needed to save up for a major investment, they explained it to us in exactly the same way. They also showed me early on what machines we had and how much they cost so that I could get a feel for how long I would have to work to buy a new one. In hindsight, that was absolutely right because I learned so much about the value of money.

You later took off with Tandemploy. The start-up matches people within a company for job sharing, projects, mentoring and so on. How difficult was it to find investors for this?

Extremely difficult. Luckily, we got the Exist grant early on and then slipped into one or two funding programs. But everyone always wanted us to build great pitch decks with business plans that changed every week anyway. The investors were mostly ex-McKinsey men who were used to field hockey stick graphics. We wanted to talk more about the big visions and then went our own way.

What did your own path look like?

We took the list of the 500 richest Germans from Manager Magazin and tried to find out where the people live. Sometimes we drew this from the descriptions in the interviews, sometimes we used Google Maps or Streetview. In the end, we sent handwritten letters to all the addresses with our idea and asked for money. I didn't think it would work, but in the end we got a lot of responses. Many turned us down very politely and nicely, but some were also interested. That's how we raised our first millions in financing in less than three months. We later applied for an HR award and didn't submit a business plan. Instead, I wrote about why we still deserved the award. We didn't get it, but a jury member became aware of us and so we later raised another three million euros, including from former SAP CFO Werner Brandt. So we were always very creative.

You sold at the beginning of the year and still collected money beforehand. Why did you do that?

We wanted more diversity in our group of shareholders. So we did an all-female round. Great women like Angie Gifford from Facebook or Elke Eller, ex CHRO of TUI, invested again. Of course, this was only possible because we had the network in the meantime. I then co-founded encourageventures, a large network of female investors, to increase the visibility of women in the startup world and bring more diversity to the startup and investor landscape!

You already have new plans. So you're not retiring yet?

No way. Retiring now as an artist in France would not be my thing. I still have far too many ideas.

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Thank you very much for the interview.

Personal details: Anna Kaiser, 38, built up the start-up Tandemploy and sold it at the beginning of 2022. She continues to work there as Managing Director and is also Vice President at Phenom, which bought the company. She advises players in politics and business on topics such as digitalization, female leadership, tech and new work, for example as a member of the "Young Digital Economy" advisory board of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, founding member of the HR-Tech Ethics Advisory Board, Chairwoman of the "Future of Work" department at the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft e.V. and as a member of the Council of the Working World at the BMAS."

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