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Honest conversations with working mothers about how they really "do it all"
Join us on Substack - https://substack.com/@leaningmyway
04.09.2025 Cecilie Episode 1 FINAL
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[00:00:00]
Hello everyone, and welcome to the first official episode of Leading My Way, a show where I have honest conversations with working mothers about how they really do it all. I'm Mackenzie Ginsburg and I'm so excited to be embarking on this journey with you.
Now, one of the reasons I decided to start this podcast is I think so much of what we believe is possible when it comes to navigating career and motherhood is shaped by the women in our immediate network.
Luckily for me, one of these women is Cecilia Jacobson.
We actually met at a music festival last summer of all places, and she happened to share her story with me right as I was beginning to ask myself these big questions.
. Hearing her story had such a lasting impact on me, and I'm so grateful She agreed to be my first guest on the podcast.
Cecilia is a true embodiment of leaning her own way.
She's a lifelong entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Wawa, a VC-backed fertility software startup.
She's also a single mother to her son and [00:01:00] stepdaughter originally from Denmark. She now splits her time between Copenhagen, London, and increasingly the us. We covered a lot in this conversation from fertility challenges and taking maternity leave as a founder to navigating the shift into single motherhood and the realities of running a global business while raising a child.
What really stood out to me in our conversation is Cecilia's grit, creativity, and her ability to turn challenges into opportunities. She's incredibly inspiring and made me rethink how entrepreneurship can actually enable flexibility in motherhood rather than limit it. So let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Cecilia Jacobson.
Mikenzie: Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for inviting.
Mikenzie: How's the day starting?
It's been a very busy day. I am doing great, but I think a very classic startup.
You came to the office and expected one thing and everything else just happened. So exciting and [00:02:00] stressful. \
Mikenzie: Oh man. Well, hopefully all good things.
Mostly good things. Good? Yes. Good.
Mikenzie: so as we know, you're an entrepreneur. And I can just tell from getting to know you have this entrepreneurial spirit and I was curious where that came from and when it started. Like were you little Cecilia having the lemonade stand and selling cookies to your neighbors when you were young or did this entrepreneurial spirit start as you got a bit older in life?
Very good question. I actually never thought about it like that. Mm-hmm. I did definitely sell a lot of different things when I was a child.
I remember that. We were actually, yes, but no one ever asked me about it before, so I haven't been thinking about it. So, yes. And the funny thing is that I grew up at a farm and so I was trying to sell things, but there was not really anyone to buy it. So that was probably my first time experiencing that.
You have to be very resilient, uh, when you're starting a company and trying to sell something, which is. Now good that I'm doing B2B sales. [00:03:00] Resilience is definitely, uh, good to have. Yes, I, I definitely actually did that my entire childhood. Like I think it actually more comes from my family loves competition, so competing and not in a bad way.
Actually, I would say from my perspective, healthy way has always been a really big part of my life when growing up. I have a older sister, she's one and a half years older than me, so we are quite close to each other. We've always been doing a lot of different sports, horseback riding, handball football, a lot of different things, and both my mom and dad's families are quite competitive.
This has always been a big thing for us, and I think actually a lot of it comes from that, like starting a company is in many ways like a competition, not because I feel like I'm today competing against others more with myself, like. Doing better. Improving. Improving very fast. That's something you need to do to run and build a company.[00:04:00]
So my mom actually, when I grew up most of my lives, he was self-employed. So there's definitely something coming from my mom. My dad was not self-employed, but he is actually very entrepreneurial. So I think it can also be something coming from him.
Mikenzie: Yeah, I was going to be my next question if your parents or entrepreneurs themselves, which it sounds like had at least the entrepreneurial spirit there, and it's so interesting to think about the competitive side of things. I do find that a lot of entrepreneurs are very competitive, and I guess it's this thing of just like setting the bar, setting that challenge for yourself and making sure you can accomplish it and then having that confidence and resilience to get through it.
Exactly.
Mikenzie: So that makes a lot of sense. And I love that image of you, trying to sell things as a little girl on a farm. I just picture you selling to chickens or something, like selling the animals on the farm because no people nearby to buy your stuff.
Exactly. Yes. Yes. I think there was like a few people, obviously there [00:05:00] was a few people working at the farm, but it was like. Men mainly focused on driving big machines. And I remember that my sister and I, we made our own perfume out of roast leaves maybe and, and tried to sell that. They also exploded at some point.
So it was not a very good business.
Mikenzie: That's so impressive. And also, , I would not see there to be a market for rose perfume for farmers driving tractors, but I love that. And then when you were young, what was your perception of you as having children one day or being a mother one day? Was that something you thought about?
Or was it just like, let's stay in the present. We're selling rose perfumes to farmers on tractors.
I don't. Recall that I was thinking a lot about it when I was a child. I remember some of my friends were really focused on they wanted to become mothers when they got older. I actually was not spending that much time thinking about it. I think I've always been more like my best friends, mainly [00:06:00] boys, and I don't recall that I was spending a lot of time thinking about kids and also into my twenties.
I also remember that I was actually mostly thinking about, I don't think I want kids. Hmm. Yes. It came quite late. It was actually not before I met the father of my son, where I was like, okay, I actually really do want kids. And at that point I was also like, I want one kid. And fast forward today, I would love to have like five or six kids.
That would be amazing. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah, so it's definitely been changing quite a lot. I think the reason why when I was younger, the reason why I didn't want kids, probably I was afraid of, um, losing my freedom. I really do appreciate freedom, that it's something I still do a lot and obviously becoming a mother changed that quite a lot.
I still believe that I can do whatever I want, but there's now a new context [00:07:00] into doing whatever you want. The most important thing in my life is obviously Wilfred and he comes before everything else.
Mikenzie: Yeah. That makes sense. And we're going to get into that a lot more, in a few minutes. , but going off of that. So I guess. Timing wise, you go to Copenhagen Business School, you do a bit of data analytics, but pretty quickly , become a founding partner of this consultancy, which gets acquired.
At that point, were you with, , your future partner, father of your child, or was this pre relationship, and were you thinking about kids at all in that transition period?
Hmm. I met him when we sold the company. So just around that time actually. And it went pretty fast from, we met each other to like a year, a year and a half.
So a lot quicker than expected. I'm not very patient, I just created a lot of mess, but also very often that enables me to, to do a lot of things [00:08:00] at once. So I think we met each other right about when, uh, we sold the old consultancy at the same time. I had to stay there for a year, a year and a half. And then when I got on the other side of that, I definitely started thinking more about kids.
My ex already at that point had a daughter. She was not very old. So I've known her from, she was born actually, and she very quickly became one of the most important things in my life. And today she is 100% like my daughter. I obviously, I know that her biological mother is her mother and she is. Very amazing and very inspiring for me.
That definitely changed a lot in me from only thinking about I, I don't think I want kids. I don't think that's a good match for my life to getting attached to this little cute human that was kneeling my own daughter. Biologically at least. That was a big change for me. One thing was me, but also actually seeing [00:09:00] my entire family and how everyone loved her from the minute he came into our lives.
And that changed a lot. So I think from that moment, I think I was pregnant quite fast after that. At that point, I've. Lost one pregnancy. Mm. That was not a planned pregnancy. Uh, no matter what, when I lost it, I was definitely very sad. So that was my first experience with the female bodies really changing, uh, when you're pregnant, I think this is one of the most fascinating things.
I actually went from. Still not wanting kids to the moment I got pregnant and I found out I was pregnant, everything changed. I was like, this is amazing. Pregnancies are amazing. I want babies. Like this is what we are here for. So I think there's definitely something about the hormones and like when I'm not pregnant, I'm like.
Jesus Christ. It's horrible to be pregnant and not horrible, but it's, it's definitely changing a lot of things and changing a lot of what you can do. Yeah. But the moment you're pregnant, it is the most [00:10:00] amazing thing in the world, and that must be some kind of trick your body and mind are, is playing on you.
No doubt about that.
Mikenzie: Oh, for sure, you have to have some magical thing trick you to be like, yes, I love having this thing growing in my body
morning sickness. Yes. More of it. ,
yeah.
Mikenzie: yeah.
That moment when you switched from being like, I never want to have kids to having experience with your, I guess, kind of stepdaughter and having that transition.
yes.
Mikenzie: Was it that disorienting at all? Because obviously you're also thinking about starting your next business at this point and it's a pretty big change, right? Like, okay, now I don't want kids and I want my freedom to actually, I do want to have kids and what does that mean for my life? Or were you just very, you seem like someone who's very present and just like, I'll make everything work.
So I'm curious what your mindset was in , that transition in thinking. ,
spot on. I think that's actually back to what I [00:11:00] said earlier about. I am impatient. I want everything at once and I'll make it work. So to be honest, I was probably not thinking that much. I really think that if there's something you really want, you can make it work, and it just felt like the right thing to do.
So it was more me not thinking. And I really wanted to do something where I was not after the old company, we got it sold into a, a part of the stories that was a big company who bought us and I ended up being in a company with. A few hundred people, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of you can't decide everything yourself.
You have to be a part of this bigger company and, and, and how we do things. And that was not a really good match for me. So when I got them on the other side of that, I wanted to go back to just working more independently and not fully alone. I, I worked with a partner and we had a lot of good [00:12:00] people around us, so I did that.
It wasn't like the biggest challenge, to be honest, because we've already done it one time before we had a good network. We knew how to sell in the projects. My partner at that point, Caleb, he was like amazing. My business partner Caleb, he was amazing at products and he was really good at wowing most people that we were speaking to.
So it went really fast and we got some really big projects in quite, I. Early on was like this small consultancy where we did digital projects for larger organizations or SMEs where they wanted to innovate or they wanted to make some of their current workflows easier and better. We did projects for them like that, and it was an amazing time.
Something that's when you're working as a self-employed, you also have more flexibility. Yeah. I can basically make sure that my day is good for what I want to do. So if I wanna make sure that I go to the gym today, I could go to the gym. 10:00 AM. [00:13:00] And that was kind of the same, I was thinking about like being on maternity leave or not, not being on maternity leave.
Mm-hmm. But getting pregnant and, and having a child. I was actually just thinking that it was manageable. I'm a really good project manager, so, uh, I was pretty sure that I could make sure that I could do everything at once. So I, truth be told, I was not thinking or planning a lot when I got pregnant. It was one more case of me wanting to do a lot of things at once and being pretty sure that I could make it work.
Mikenzie: Yeah. Because it was interesting, one of my questions was going to be, why didn't you just stay at the big consultancy to have Matt leave and some stability versus leaving, knowing you want to have a kid and starting a business? But it's interesting that, yeah, obviously the other side of that is you do have a lot more flexibility if you're self employed and you already had the confidence of I've done this before and the network to be able to get it off the [00:14:00] ground, , maybe more easily than if it was your first time around.
Yes. And then I think actually I love working. So I've always, no matter if I've been employed or if it's been my old company, I've always been working a lot, like a lot of hours. 'cause I'm very passionate about work. I, I guess it's back to being competitive or wanted to do something. And in the old company I was not happy.
A lot of things happened in the community. That's a long story, but I was very much not happy. That made it very difficult for me to actually do my work the way I wanted. So I think that's one side of things. It was, it is not an option. It's not an option for me to stay in something where I'm not happy. I am very quick at being actionable with things like that.
So I will change things if it's not feeling good. Um, and then something else you mentioned, I think probably the same for a lot of other people starting a company, but I don't think I see this as a risk. I. Like, I'm not looking at what I'm doing right now [00:15:00] or my old company and think about it is a risk to have your own company and then go on maternity leave.
I think that's back to the mindset of I can fix it. I can 100% fix it. It's not a problem for me. The only problem in my life would be if I'm not happy, if. Me or someone I love is not happy, that is something I'll then immediately fix. But for me, didn't feel like at all at risk to start something new and go on maternity leave.
I think something very important to mention is that I never went on maternity leave, so it, uh, the, uh, it wasn't really a thing. I just used my, uh, flexibility to make sure that I was working when, uh, was sleeping. And then when he was awake, I had the stroller with me in the office, or I took my meetings when walking around the legs in Copenhagen when he was sleeping.
I also had a puppy at that point, Norman, my amazing dog. Mm-hmm. So I was walking a puppy and a [00:16:00] a baby around while having, uh, calls with customers.
Mikenzie: Wow. I love that. Do you think that was like a, you can make it work in Denmark thing because people are very, thoughtful around making sure that work and family work so they're okay with like customer calls with the child in the background and working maybe more flexible hours or do you think that could also work in London and New York and other places?
I definitely think there's a lot more understanding and flexibility for parents in in Scandi or in Denmark. No doubt about that. But I think in this case, I was never showing anyone that I was walking around with my baby. He was good at sleeping.
I think that's very important to mention. I remember when he was just born the first few nights already from then, he slept like five hours in a row, so I was really able to get some sleep in. He slept three, four hours naps, so I can actually do meetings and just walk around with him [00:17:00] without anyone noticing that I was with my kid.
I actually remember that I gave birth a wet mistake and the Monday after. We had a workshop with a larger company in Copenhagen, and they've seen me a few times before I gave birth, so they knew I was pregnant, and we did the workshop and I spoke to the customer a while after and they actually thought I lost a baby.
I was there and I was like, obviously not pregnant anymore. And they just couldn't believe that I was actually there after giving birth. So they didn't say anything. And one of the project managers in, in the company mentioned it for me like months after, like what actually happened with the pregnancy. So I don't think it's a normal thing to do.
I think it's a mix of, again. My flexibility. And then also Wilford was, um, you, you're not allowed to say easy baby. No. Babies are easy, but, but he was a good sleeper and that definitely made it easier for me to manage.
Mikenzie: Yeah. [00:18:00] So maternity leave sounds, well, you know, your version of maternity leave, which is working post baby sounds like actually you handled it quite well. And Wilford for as babies go, , we're pretty easy on that front. What about, you know, you spoke briefly about some of the challenges of getting pregnant and going through some fertility challenges, which led to your next company, Wawa.
, that must be very emotionally challenging to go through while starting to build and, , run a business.
Yes, so my first pregnancy loss was before Wilfred and I basically did not know that much about it. My doctor told me that this is normal. One out of four pregnancies are lost. Do not worry about it. Just go home and try again, yada, yada. So at that point I was actually like, well, okay.
I'm very like logically thinking. I was like, okay, this is normal. If it happens that often, then nothing is wrong. When I then [00:19:00] became pregnant with Wilfred, I went for this scan in week, like six or seven, and the doctor told me one more time that the pregnancy was lost. And that was very difficult for me.
'cause now it was like two times in a row. I remember I was completely not, not even like mentally, like emotionally, uh, it was like physically completely drained my body from everything. And I went to my TP again, and this time it was a, a female doctor and my body never really gets rid of the pregnancy automatically, unfortunately.
So I have to go through a medical process, sometimes surgery to get out the pregnancy. And she said, let's just wait. I don't know. She scanned me. There was something like that and she was like, let's send you to your. Gino and let's let him do some extra scans and some blood work used to like, we wanna be 100% [00:20:00] sure before we continue down this road.
And he did that like over two weeks. He did blood work on me like every second day to measure my HCT. And they also scanned and I see one and a half or two weeks after the scan where someone told me that this was another lost pregnancy. It was actually a little heart blinking on the scan. Mm-hmm. That was amazing.
And apparently I have pregnancies. I still to this day, don't know why, but I've had several pregnancies where it's a slow starter. Wilfred was also a slow starter, so this is probably a part of my problem. I. I'm hoping to one day figure out what the actual problem is. But yes, it's very emotionally draining, especially the one with Wilfred that didn't turn out to actually be a pregnancy with the most beautiful baby ever.
But it was horrible that, that me into the fragility space. After giving birth [00:21:00] to Wilfred and when he was born, I started looking into the fertility space more. I had a few friends. Going through IVF, they were trying, they were starting just before we started trying to get pregnant. And when I had Wilfred and he was like maybe four, five or six months, they still were not pregnant.
And, uh, they've been in IVF for a while at that point. And I remember talking to them about like, it's not only the fact that they have now been waiting years to actually become pregnant, it was just as much they spent their entire savings. Yeah, on getting pregnant and at this point everyone else had their first child, they started buying apartments or houses and this couple just ended up spending all of their money on fertility treatments.
And I remember to be completely, it was so unfair, like not a big enough word, I think, but it was so unfair. Um, yeah. That got me interested in the fertility [00:22:00] space a while after I was pregnant again. I lost that pregnancy, and after that I started in a clinical trial called COPL Couple. That is a trial, doing research into recurring pregnant loss, pregnancy loss overall, a especially for women losing more than one pregnancy.
And I just remember that amazing people, the researchers, the clinicians, the nurses on this trial, they're amazing. But it was a weird, as a, let's call it a patient, it was a really weird experience because I had to ask a lot of questions or put pressure on the doctors seeing me for the pregnancy loss to get into that trial.
Another thing was like the way that they were collecting data. They did their best, no doubt about that. But it was like, for me, coming from a digital background, working with data, it was a very old school way of collecting data, paper questionnaires or questionnaires by email, but in a very unstructured format.
And then there was just [00:23:00] so many people working on this trial on data collection, and I was just. Thinking about thousands of ways that could be optimized. One of them being like, why don't you just take all of the data from my phone? I have my cycle data, right? You could see how much I've been exercising, what I've been eating, like I'm tracking everything to make sure that I know how my cycle is because I wanted to get pregnant.
Yeah, so I think like with everything else that I'm doing in my life, instead of spending too much time being sad about my situation, I put all of my energy into figuring out how to solve the problem. Basically. That's, I guess, another way of dealing with. Emotional pressure,
Mikenzie: No, I love it. You literally take an incredibly challenging situation for yourself and turn it into this business opportunity that's going to help thousands of women globally. That's amazing. And I think one of the takeaways on that is, you know, it's really a mindset [00:24:00] on these things of Obviously they're incredibly emotionally challenging, but it actually is probably quite therapeutic to take it as an opportunity and run with that and be like, I'm going to solve this and I'm going to help other people along the way as well.
Yes, 100%. And then also, just to be honest, like because I've been working for so many years in like looking into workflows and how digital tools can optimize how we do things today, I also choose to love. Smart people. Like I love spending time with people who is experts in a field and needing all of these people in fertility care and IVF Care, they really care about the people that they're treating.
Yeah. They really wanna do something about it. And just also like, I love optimizing workflows. I love fixing problems. I love if I can be a part of making something like that better. So for me it was a perfect match off. I know how big this pain are. I've seen it. I've [00:25:00] experienced it. I've seen my friends in this situation, but also on the other side, like, we can optimize this, this, this could be really fun.
We can do good things here. I think it was the perfect mix of those two things.
Mikenzie: Amazing. So yeah, you take that opportunity and you end up starting a new business, which is a current business, Wawa, which is the modern operating system for fertility clinics. , What was that like? Because I think it's quite a different approach to business. And maybe I'm wrong, but like one thing is the consulting style where it's mostly your services.
And then there's another thing. It's like, I'm building a software business and I'm building out a team. And I'm particularly curious on, I'm raising VC funding and I am also raising a child.
Yes. So I actually don't think I, I was thinking that much about, again.
So many people when you're thinking about starting a company, someone last week asked me about like, how are you dealing with the risk? And again, to be [00:26:00] completely honest, I'm not even seeing the risk. So that's never really been a big thing for me. It's more been about I wanna do something that excites me.
And this is definitely very exciting. I knew from the old company I knew that I wanted to do something that was not just selling my own time anymore. I felt like I needed something more. I think it was after working for, I don't know, eight years, 10 years on producing something, but not. Being the person who finished it more, just like solving an issue and giving it to someone else.
Mm-hmm. There's so much more in building digital tools. There's the marketing like go to market there is making it work, improving it over the years, making sure that it's the right people working on the product. So I think at that point I've had for, I've been thinking about for at least. Six, eight months that [00:27:00] my next company would definitely be something where there was a product of some kind.
I also knew that it would never be a physical product because I'm definitely better on the tech side of things. So I think I had that kind of urge in me that I wanted to try something new that was not just the consultancy beds. Then again, I was not thinking that much ahead. So when we started the company, I actually started it with a few others who for different reasons wanted to look into a fertility.
So in the beginning we started out with this more like content driven, very patient focused company, but the operating system was 100%, not the first idea that came in much later as it is with companies like this. You are basically pivoting. I don't know how many times the mission has always been the same, the visionary, and I think that's my favorite part about the company.
Wawa is here to make fertility treatment more successful and more [00:28:00] accessible. And it's been like that from day one. I. My initial angle to this was we need to make it possible for patients to participate more and if they want to as me give away that data, if that can improve treatment, if it can improve research, if it can make better medication, whatever this needs to be an option for patients.
And after a year or so, we split up because I was definitely more interested in building. Tools, software. At that point, I spent more and more time with fertility clinics and I started to see, uh, that, um, fertility clinics, current tech, the solutions EMRs or e hrs, it doesn't matter. It's electronical health systems.
You are using them to basically take care of all of the patient data. I don't think this is very unique for the IVF space, but overall in healthcare, many of these EMRs is software developed 20, [00:29:00] 30 plus years ago. So the tech is very old. I've almost never seen a good looking UI in healthcare. And one thing is like, not just that it's good looking.
It's easy to figure out, it's easy to know what to do in the tools. There was also things like, I was spending time with this Danish clinic and, and literally their tool, the tool that was like making sure that they can operate their business was breaking down like six or seven times per day and it was.
Not funny of course, but it looked funny because the way it's breaking down is that you can sit in there and you can have a consultation with a doctor and, and have in mind, you've paid a lot of money to be in this meeting. All of a sudden the the doctors to fertility doctor screen with the system managing all of your data, says error with a big red sign, exactly what you wanna see.
That is the most insane thing. And I remember like pointing at the screen, I was like, what is going on? What is this? Oh, this happens [00:30:00] six, seven times per day. It will be up and running again soon. And I've started asking questions and I found out that, okay, so, so this is definitely not modern tech s. You would expect when you're paying a lot of money to actually get that kind of treatment.
It was like on-prem servers, very old. Just being on-prem. That's not very secure. This is some of the most private data you could give away. Yeah. It's very intimate data. It's everything about you as a person, your health, uh, and your partner if you have a partner when you're in treatment. It's also something that's for you very intimate, like infertility is still unfortunately a bit taboo.
So many people are in treatment without telling friends and family about it. So it felt very unsecure that clinics today were strong. That data and systems like this, diving more into it. We also figured out that basically the systems are not working for the clinicians and the care teams. They're [00:31:00] basically working against them.
And we did a survey with like. I think around 20 clinics and for every time they spend half an hour with a patient, they had to spend three hours in the system. Wow. And that is, for me, the opposite of what digital tools should do to support people in their workflows.
Mikenzie: Wow. , definitely room for innovation there and I've seen these old EHR systems and I mean everyone goes through it when they're logging in to sign up to go to the doctor, whether it's a fertility clinic or just a regular doctor and it's just always such a painful experience. So definitely opportunity there.
What was that working experience like transitioning from the services business to, okay, I'm building a software business. And did you feel like you had the same flexibility then of bringing Willie around with you, , to different client meetings and things like that? Or did you have to bring an additional support at that point?
No way.
I think this was also co like at this point we started having more in-person [00:32:00] meetings. So what I actually did, again, Denmark is definitely an easier country to have children in.
So in Denmark or in Copenhagen, I actually don't know if it's uh, all over Denmark. If you don't get a seat for your child in a kindergarten, you are allowed to find a private sitter. You will actually get support to pay for this? No way, Denmark. Amazing. That's. So we actually, me and also a friend and his son, we found a private sitter and she was taking care of Vian and my friend's son every day, which then made it very flexible because he was still quite young at this point.
So I wanted to spend time with him, but I had to go out and actually do things, work, have meetings, figure out how too busy clinics were working and so on. So at this point, we could flex grind a lot with her, the sitter, she was amazing. And I could text her like the day before, Hey, tomorrow it's just from 10 to [00:33:00] three, and then I'll be back home.
And everything was actually in my house as well. So it was very easy and very flexible. I remember that when we lived and started in Kutu, as it called when, when they're very young. We are very lucky again in Denmark, amazing institutions, a lot of flexibility. I think that the kindergarten is open from.
Is it like 6:30 AM or 7:00 AM You can come with your kids and there's amazing people taking care of your kid. They're doing so much fun things during the day. I've so many times picked him up and then he could do something new, like put on his own shoes or. Say new things or whatever it could be when he was very young.
So it feels very safe, obviously, to do this in Denmark. So that gave me a lot of flexibility to actually work more. I remember you mentioned the VC funding. We figured that out, that we wanted to raise money. When the company was like, if you're a bit more than a year [00:34:00] old, because we knew now what we wanted to build, but we also knew that we needed people to actually build the product.
I'm obviously not a developer, so we raised money. The first round was easy enough. I think we raised like from a Danish fund, 750,000 euros, and that gave us enough to actually be able to hire the first few employees, one of them being our founding engineer of who's amazing. And I worked with him previously, so I knew what he could do and I really wanted him to be a part of the project.
To this day, I'm very happy about that. He is still amazing and powering through. All of the challenges that is getting thrown at us. The first one was not a big thing, but at that point we started looking into going live in other countries. It's B2B sales, so I had to travel a lot, and I remember that [00:35:00] being a big challenge.
It was kind of like, yeah. Suffering from when I was a child. I remember my sister was having sleepovers with friends. I did not do that. I prefer to sleep at home. I got homesick pretty easily and then that kind of came back when I started traveling. Like I hated being away from Mila. I cried when I had to leave.
Yeah. Even though I was away from like one night, it was horrible. So that was definitely a big learning for me. I'm still practicing, to be honest, even though Villa's five now, especially because I'm alone with him. I hate being away from him and when I'm away he is with my parents. My mom, especially my mother, is amazing at taking care of him when I'm away, but still it is.
Painful to be away from your child. Yeah, so when that started and when we raised a second round, at that point, we're working, I don't know, around 80 hours or something per week. [00:36:00] I've always been good at prioritizing, but I think as a parent, especially as a solo parent, you really need to be good at prioritizing.
So I have a very strict schedule. I know when I need to pick up my son. I'm definitely not. A parent who's picking up the earliest, I'm probably one of the late pickups, but when we are together, from when I pick him up to when he goes to bed, he has my full focus and then I get back to work when he's sleeping.
Something I've learned over the past, especially four years, is priorities, and that's something I think most mothers are really good at. You have to be good at that when you wanna work and be a mother at the same time.
Mikenzie: Yeah, that's one of the most common things I've heard is just it's a constant reprioritization minute to minute basically with working and having kids. . So if you're comfortable talking about it, I would be curious to hear more about going [00:37:00] Being with your partner. So co parenting to splitting.
, when did that happen in this journey? And what was that transition like? Because that just adds another layer of complexity and prioritization and emotional challenge on top of all of this.
Yes, definitely, especially on the planning and emotional challenges. So we split. It happened quite fast and it was not something that I expected. So emotionally I was in a bad state at that point. It was very, very difficult for me, and I remember. Spending the first two weeks, not saying a word. He was one and a half, almost two years at that point.
And he actually, he was speaking quite a lot. And then for two weeks he was not saying a word and that was. Painful. I think I was crying constantly every day. And I, uh, remember that I was trying to not cry in front of the kids. I still had Noah at this [00:38:00] point, or I still have her today. Uh, luckily, but I remember every time we were together, like in the weekends or after work, I felt like crying, but I could not cry because I was so afraid of.
That having a bad impact on the kids. I think at the same time, I went through some very challenging things in the company. I was just finishing the fundraise and I also split from the person who was a part of co-founding the company. And that was also a not easy situation. So I remember being very emotional.
I remember trying to make sure the company was. Running around. We were very this in the company. I had to make the new investors happy. It was investors based in UK and at the same time, I had to figure out how to be alone. And I had to also figure out both in private life, but also in running the [00:39:00] company.
So this is probably one of the most stressful periods of my life. It took maybe a year or so before I actually. Figured out I was in survival mode obviously, so I was pure survival. I, a year after looked at myself and that period and I found out that I actually, I was suffering from anxiety. I had so many anxiety attacks like in the streets when someone called me to say something about the company or something happening, or a customer or, yeah.
I think I'm actually still processing that part of my life. But I think what really saved me in that was being a mother, maybe also actually being a founder. I had so much responsibility. I. Alone now for, for my son, but also alone for the company. I was alone in managing these things, so there was really no way around it.
I just [00:40:00] had to continue. I had to stick to all of my day-to-day tasks to make sure that Wilford and nor were feeling great, but also that the company was running around. When stuff like that is happening in your private life, it's not like. You're telling your investors and you're telling your team. Yeah, everything.
So I was managing it has definitely been one of the most stressful things in my life ever. Probably the most. But at the same time, now that I'm on the other side of all of that, I know I'm a better mother than I was before. I am so much better at making sure that when I'm with the kids. I'm fully there.
I am 100000% sure that the most important thing in my life is Wilfred and Noah, not my job. And I also know that I can probably manage the worst and most horrible, stressful [00:41:00] situation that being a mother or being a now solo founder will throw at me. So I've learned a lot and I'm very happy about it today.
It was a big change. As I mentioned earlier, I am a good project manager and that is very useful when you're alone with kids, but also very useful when you're alone running a company. I also learned that if you ask for it, you can get a lot of help. So someone like everyone on my team today, I have a lot of amazing people around me and they're very supportive in everything.
What we are doing. We are definitely building the company together. It's not a. One man army or anything, so that's amazing. The same with being a mother, I think when you're a solo mom, you need other people, so me, myself, but also my son, we are closer with my parents, my sister. We are closer with friends because [00:42:00] we are now a part of their day to day.
When you're a family, you're very much. Your own little circle. You can spend a full week not seeing anyone else. We are traveling with friends, like I need friends, help to pick up Wilfred sometimes from kindergarten. Same actually with Nora, my stepdaughter's mom, she was obviously spending the first few years being a solo mother, so she's been a huge inspiration for me.
She's a very strong person and we are very, very different people. But the way that he was. Raising Noah the way that she was doing it alone, seeing how amazing of a kid that Noah turned into, I think that was very inspiring. So it definitely opened up my world, I think, from being someone who was used to doing everything alone, managing most things alone, to actually being better at asking for help and.
Being okay about not being able to do everything alone.
Mikenzie: that's [00:43:00] amazing, because it's obviously can feel like a quite isolating experience, both from losing the business partner and the life partner, , and at the same time. So it's I really like how reflective you are on everything that happened, and that it has made you a stronger person and a better mother and, , business leader as well.
I was gonna ask about support, and I guess more on the mentorship side. It sounds like you have amazing support from family side, and obviously your team is incredibly supportive for you, and very much. an equal part of building this company. What about female mentors in your life? Especially as you're going through this incredibly hard time where there's not many probably single mother entrepreneurs in your immediate network, but did you have any mentors to help you get through that time, especially from the business side of being this single mother, if that makes sense?
[00:44:00] Yeah, that makes sense. Unfortunately not. I still today. I told someone about it recently. I struggle like would be great to be able to talk to someone who's been in this situation. I can see I'm comparing myself sometimes to my friends who also are founders of companies.
And they are either without kids, mainly, uh, male founders and with kids. Then they have a partner at home. So their flexibility is something different. I, I'm pretty sure they also miss their kids, but it's something else that when you're traveling and at least you know that the mother is at home with your kids, you don't have to worry about that.
I have to figure out how to make sure village is in a good unstable situation every time I travel. Like you can probably imagine the stress when you are in another country and the kindergartner is calling you to say, oh, he's sick. Can you pick him up now? And I just have to figure out something really [00:45:00] fast, even though I know my mom is amazing.
My sister's amazing. Uh, we have friends living next door that's been very helpful in this. It is. So stressful every time, and it was definitely not helping on my anxiety. I've just been in over the past like four to five months. Considering. Okay. Right now Wawa is expanding. We have another coken, but the headquarters in London, most of the businesses in London, but now we are also opening up in US, and this is definitely a big market.
Where do I want to live? Like I cannot just travel constantly to us because I don't wanna leave Wilfred for that many days constantly. So I have so much more of a puzzle. I have to figure out this my most important priority. So can I make sure that he's doing great and he feels safe and have a great everyday life, even when I'm gone for a few days?
Is that in London? What about then when I'm in London and I'm traveling [00:46:00] because I need to go to US who will take care of him because my mom, my dad, during Copenhagen. Yeah. So, uh, that has been and still are a huge, huge pain for me, a huge challenge. And I have no one else. I don't know anyone else in this situation.
Mikenzie: It's a very unique situation, but it's why I find it so inspiring. It's amazing. And I love just the mindset of , yeah, you just make it work. Like you figure it out and you've done this 10 times over, so I have no doubt you're going to figure it out.
Yeah. Huge.
Mikenzie: I seriously, I genuinely mean it and I guess, you know, it's a series of trade offs and you have both of the trade offs from the company and from being a mother in the sense of like, yeah, do I travel a lot or does Willie move to London or to the U.
S. with me, but then we don't have the family support. So there's just so many [00:47:00] factors to weigh . .
there.
Yes. Noah's mother, she was alone for a few years.
He has an amazing boyfriend now, but for a few years he was alone. So she was the only solo mom I had around me, and she was. Amazing. The number of times where I was like afraid of, oh, now Lily will grow up like this. Is this bad for him? Is there something he's missing out on? I could tell her and she had 10,000 good things to tell me, and she was so, yeah, she never tried to be anything else than a solo mom at that point.
So she was that great inspiration mentor and also like I could see Noah being the most amazing, wonderful. Kids happy. Yeah. In the world and he grew up like that. So that gave me a lot of comfort. I now have a few of my friends who was divorced and still obviously co-parenting, but are alone when they have the kids.
It feels really good to be able to be there for them. [00:48:00] I know what they're going through, and it is not easy to figure out what the life will be when you're alone with kids. I will say though, I am so happy about my situation today, and as mentioned previously, I actually feel like I'm a better mother, so it is a very good thing.
Mikenzie: Yeah. And so , how are you thinking about this next chapter? Then you obviously talked about it a little bit of , right now you're planning where you guys are going to live and you're entering both this new phase for Willie, who's I think starting school next year and a new phase for the company where you guys are.
Gearing up for expansion, you know, potentially raising another round, really accelerating growth. So how are you currently thinking about that from a prioritization standpoint?
Oh, that's such a good question. So right now, Wilfred and I, we are splitting our time between Conet and and London. And when we are in [00:49:00] London. He is with his nanny. He is five. Almost five and a half now, and he needs more than that.
So Willie is actually going to start school in May or preschool if we stay in Denmark. If we go to uk, obviously we'll go to school immediately because they started a year ago. Basically, I finally decided. The most important thing for him is to grow up with people that loves him. So we will stay in Copenhagen actually, and he will go to school in Copenhagen with all of his friends and family around him.
And then I will just have to travel more Soho. I will do more trips. Obviously I'm in London every week. When I'm in London for a few days. My mother is living in our house, taking care of him. He can continue his normal every day while I'm working and trying to fly out after I put him to bed one night and then get, get back the [00:50:00] night after.
So he's not spending a lot of time away from me. At the same time. I do see he loves when my mother is there. They have so much fun together and there's no doubt about he is the best thing in her life. So everyone is very happy. So I think this is for now the best solution. And then obviously if we need to go to us, we will move for a period and then that will be an amazing adventure together and I'm also looking forward to that.
Mikenzie: Amazing. That's news because last time we spoke, you're still deciding, um, between London and Copenhagen.
That sounds like a great decision.
Yes.
Okay. So
Mikenzie: Now that you're running a business as a mother, Do you have any policies or, , even just like cultural ways of being that you think are particularly important for supporting mothers at work?
To be honest, no, I, no, it's, mm-hmm. This is the [00:51:00] difficult thing, right? This is a starter. We're VC funded starter, so we are working a lot, but everyone, no matter if you're a mom or a dad, I. Have full flexibility. So in this company, we are expecting everyone to be responsible for their own tasks, for their own time.
So if you need to go and pick up kids, you go and pick up kids. I have a few guys. It's actually both of our designers right now are going on their second paternity leave very soon. For me back to being a project manager, this is just something we'll make work like this is such an important thing. Life, family life.
And if someone is doing that on the side of a startup, it can definitely work. It is just something we need to plan for, but we don't have anything. In place. Obviously we're supporting them with leave paternity or maternity leave and everyone is structuring their own [00:52:00] time. So I think we have the flexibility perspective, but, but people are working a lot in a company like this.
Mikenzie: Yeah, that's why I said like policies or cultural kind of ways of being, because the flexibility sounds like it's key from your side, like, okay, you have responsibilities, but you don't necessarily have to be seen in the office nine to five every day. And if you're going to take leave, then that's great.
But also, you know, this is a startup and this is the culture.
Definitely.
Mikenzie: Great. Well, I want to end just quick fire round of questions. So just first thing that comes to mind, , first, I've heard a lot recently that women can have it all is a fallacy.
Do you believe it's a fallacy?
I, I feel like we can have it all. Yes. I want to be able to have it all and I think that I'm pretty much doing that right now.
It doesn't mean like obviously you have to deprioritize something when you're prioritizing [00:53:00] something. Right now we're sprinting in the company. We have a lot of customers that is onboarded right now. We have a lot of traction, so I am not very social these days. To be completely honest. I am splitting my time between the kids.
And the company. But that is okay because that is for a period of time. And then I will hopefully get back to having a social life again. But yes, I do think we can have it all. I, I think you need to plan it and you need to, uh, be able to prioritize and accept that you cannot do everything every day, but over time you'll be able to have everything.
I definitely feel like I have everything right now. I.
Mikenzie: amazing. Okay. Right, debunk one fertility myth for us.
Oh, okay. One very big and very, very, very important. One. Wawa and all other fertility companies is not fantech because in fertility or fertility issues is not a female [00:54:00] problem. It is very much a. Couples problem in 50% of all of the cases, it is actually related to the male partner.
So unfortunately, for many, many years this has been seen as a women's health problem. That's also why it's pretty underfunded. Very often I'm getting asked about us being a FinTech company. It's so important to say this. In most cases or in half of the cases, it is actually male related. It is definitely not a female problem, unfortunately.
It's just the only disease in the world where you are actually treating the woman always, no matter if she's the the cause of it or not. Mm-hmm.
Mikenzie: , that's really interesting. . Okay. And then the last one is, if you could go back and tell your pre mother self one thing, what would it be?
Okay. And the last one is, if you could go back and tell your premo self one thing, what would it be? Oh, so many things. So [00:55:00] many things I, I would tell myself that I'm doing okay.
I think most mothers the system. Most difficult thing about being a mother, I feel I have bad conscious constantly. I never feel like I'm doing enough. I never feel like I'm doing good enough. And I see the same for all of my friends, absolutely. No matter if I have one of my most amazing friends, she's a, a, stay at home mom.
She feel bad constantly. I think she's amazing. I, I basically don't know any of my friends who are mothers that don't feel bad constantly. And I've been spending most of men's life in one's life feeling like I'm not doing good enough. And I see two very happy. Amazing kids, and I think I, at least for periods of time, did okay.
So I would tell myself that before becoming a mother, that would've made everything much easier.
Mikenzie: Uh, that [00:56:00] classic female guilt. We all
Have that together over Yes. It's horrible. .
Mikenzie: Well, this is gonna help, right? You incept it into people's minds and they hear it from other people and it gives them permission as well, right? Just talking about it, so. I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your story so openly.
It's really such an inspiration to me and I know it'll be an inspiration to everyone else.
, it's such a unique and interesting story, and I just love your mindset on things. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much.
. I did as well, and thank you so much for making this podcast. I needed this a few years ago.
Mikenzie: Oh, yeah. I hope we help the next Cecilia.
Yes.
Mikenzie: Amazing. All right. Good luck with all those tasks. I hope you get them all done.
Cute. I'm peeking up kids in a bit, so that is my first priority.
Mikenzie: First priority, always. .
That's all for today's episode of Leaning My Way. If [00:57:00] you're enjoying the show, please follow us on Apple Podcast or Spotify and share it with friends and family who would also find these conversations helpful. Know someone with a unique story about balancing career and motherhood, or maybe you have that story yourself.
Reach out. I'd love to hear from you. Okay, until next time, friends.