On Thursday, July 8, 2021, VCM once again hosted an exciting Let’s Talk. This time Farina Schurzfeld was there, entrepreneur, co‑founder and former CMO of Selfapy. Farina is among the Forbes Top 30 and has a huge passion for digital health and building impactful brands. If that doesn’t sound like exciting insights and experiences!
Farina’s journey started with a business administration degree in Hamburg. She continued it in Sydney, where she also began her startup adventure. After working in Australia with the venture builder Rocket Internet, at Groupon, Airtasker, and Sydney’s largest co‑working space, Tank Streams Lab, she headed back to Germany.
Selfapy
There she founded Selfapy in 2016 with two psychologists – today Germany’s leading therapy provider for people with mental illness. Selfapy offers psychological online courses and enables it so that those affected get quick and flexible access to professional help. It all started with an online course for people dealing with mild to moderate depression; in recent years, additional courses on generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder have been added. With its new business model in healthcare, Selfapy aims not only to make psychological support possible for everyone, but also to destigmatize mental health and mental illness.
As you can see, Farina Schurzfeld has already gathered a lot of experience. What she took away from it, the lessons she learned, and the tips she has for us, she shared with us digitally.
Getting Started in the Startup Scene
At the start of her journey she was basically thrown into the deep end, and team overwhelm was not uncommon. Since then she’s looked for a stronger identification with the companies she’ll work for in the future. That way she can better immerse herself in a topic and convey that feeling to the target audience. Later at Selfapy, one of the biggest challenges was finding a suitable business model. Who, when, where, and how will payments be made? Conversations with health insurers helped pinpoint the right model. After her time at Selfapy, she wanted to keep growing and reflect on what she wants for the future. Curiosity and joy in exploring other topics and piecing together business ideas brought her to where she is today.
Tips for Aspiring Founders
Through her experience in Australia she built a “toolbox” that, among other things, helped her when she returned to Germany and still does today. Upon returning, she deliberately chose an employee position so she could spend about a year and a half in Germany building a solid network at a relaxed pace. Not only is a good network important, but nurturing it is essential for a healthy dose of entrepreneurship. You also have to learn how to handle criticism. Criticism will always be part of founding, whether it’s positive or negative, loud or quiet—you need to develop your own strategy to deal with it.
One of the most important tips she gave us was to continuously build a network, to know people who communicate their opinions clearly and from whom you can learn. A network that supports you is worth its weight in gold and can take you a big step further on your own journey.
Don’t want to miss another Let’s Talk, are passionate about founding, and want to help push the startup scene in Münster forward? Then become part of Venture Club Münster here: https://ventureclub-muenster.de/mach-mit/
