Tanja Prinzessin zu Waldeck

CEO

Cologne, NRW

The day after my partner and I left the hospital with our first daughter, I met a notary at home to officially found our company.

The day after my partner and I left the hospital with our first daughter, I met a notary at my home to officially found our company. That week changed my life and made it in all aspects more exciting than my previous career working full days at McKinsey & Company.

At the start of our family and our business, our relatives supported us heavily and helped to take care of our kids. But when we had the second and third babies, the arrangement was killing us. So we decided to "invest heavily" and get a wonderful nanny. She is now part of our team and plays a fantastic role in our family.

Later, after having a fourth child, I decided to take all four babies to the office. It allows me to lean in and work to make our parenting website into one of the biggest websites in Germany. People around me shook their heads, but I decided to concentrate on our business while also focusing on our family.

Another key to our happy family lives has been to prioritize clearly what needs to be done in the office and at home—and to live with these decisions, even if they mean missing some things. And  we delegate everything else, which is absolutely necessary to not crack up!

Over the years, so many people have tried to tell us what we should do and how. At some point my partner and I started to ignore everything else, deciding simply that the only opinions that really matter are our own.