Are you ready for your own company?

There is a smell of cloves, of chilli, and there is a hint of cinnamon in the air somewhere. On the wooden table there is a flat bowl of white porcelain, the currywurst is subtly spiced and tastes of fennel. Bianka Habermann looks expectant, but says nothing. She knows that her sausage creations are good, and for a year she has tested and improved her recipes. And then the "Curry Queen" opened, a wonderful sausage stall with good wines, modern furniture and festive lighting. Since the opening a year ago, the store is buzzing like a scene bar. Evening after evening. "I believe in my idea, but even I did not expect such a success," says the 45-year-old.

Your former colleagues at a Hamburg music label can hardly believe it. They thought it was a joke when the marketing chief told her plan to swap her desk for a barbecue. Now Bianka Habermann stands between the fully occupied tables and glows with enthusiasm. She uses sausages and drinks, as if she had not done anything else during her life. Instead of a white apron, she wears a translucent black blouse like a pop star. Unusual. Just like her shop.

Especially women over 40 bring the right experiences

The secret of Bianka Habermann's success lies not only in the (secret) recipe of her sausages. Add to that their enthusiasm, the lust for the cause - and a sense of what's trendy: Everyone wants to live a healthy life, but they are always in a hurry. Healthy fast food, as the "Curry Queen" offers it, does justice to both.

But the highlight of the business is Bianka Habermann himself. With all her knowledge of marketing, accounting, personnel selection and the flair of the music business, which idea can be a hit. This woman has tailored her business and it fits perfectly. Just the right strategy to start a business: "Especially women who are late in self-employment, should use their years of professional experience and their expertise," says Kristiane von dem Bussche. The founder consultant and initiator of Netzwerk40plus is convinced that many women over 40 have a well-filled toolkit for self-employment: specialist knowledge, insider knowledge from their own industry, contacts, additional qualifications. With that, they have something ahead of the younger ones, and that has apparently gotten around in the women. The founders start later today, at an average of 44, a few years ago the average age was 35.

Seasoned women with ten or more years of professional experience do not need a "hip" business idea or a deliberately youthful start-up enthusiasm. Better, they let their skills guide them and draw on their know-how. Bianka Habermann, for example, has a digital address book with cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses of company bosses, artists and media people. She speaks to them now, makes them curious about their place. And she brings back the time she spent with studying "exhaust air regulations" and meetings at the public security office. And with visiting empty, dirty snacks, because she could not understand the broker, what a shop she was looking for. There was a lack of her tools, the vocabulary of the catering industry, which she now gradually learns like a foreign language.

Ncht always starts something new when women start their own business

Two thirds of experience, one third of new territory, can be a promising mixed calculation for a business idea. This is not good news for many potential business start-ups. Surveys show that many who have been in business for a long time, above all, want one thing: something completely new. Because in their previous job, they are dissatisfied, burned out or bored.

A hotel, a small café, a boutique are the most popular business ideas - especially for women from other industries. Gründerberaterin vom das Bussche then persistently asks. For example, if the former HR manager can really imagine baking up to 10 or even more hours per day under the pressure of time, huge baking trays full of cakes and tidying up piles of used crockery until the end of her working life. Often the first dreamy vision is then tilted in favor of a more realistic business idea. This is usually one that ties in more with the previous job. Because a businesswoman is more successful when she is perceived as a professional - and not as a woman who is currently mainly in the process of self-realization.

Some have to recognize their special knowledge for a business to become. At Gisela Busch it was experience with products that make everyday life easier for babies and children.As an au pair in the USA, the tourism specialist got to know car mirrors for babies and other useful little things 20 years ago - and she missed them when she herself later had a daughter. During her parental leave, Gisela Busch started to import products from the US, and last year she had an online store programmed, initially with only four items. With the baby on her knees, she has packed the first packages with baby shoes and children's songs CDs, now the child can run long, and the online shop is getting better and better.

Ingenious is the simple

The plan of the 40-year-olds has worked out: not everything is left up and down, but start with the safe workplace in the back of a test balloon - and then expand the offer. This does not have to be expensive, often enough, as with Gisela Busch, a website and some space in their own apartment for the goods.

Many good business ideas are so ingeniously simple that anyone could have come up with them. For example, the toe sandals, which are distributed millions of times as a flip-flop. Or the organic brew, the flavor of elderberry, whose no-name offshoot is on the shelves of every discounter today.

Some founders develop an idea because they lack something. The social pedagogue and body therapist Gabriele Wander has yearned to get rid of her back pain. The furniture on which this is possible, she has invented herself: "Mi Shu", a kind of stool with upwardly curved, movable seat.

You helped her with her experimentation and her well-trained body feeling. Colleagues were spontaneously enthusiastic, the first orders came quickly. Today, the 46-year-old manages her own business with twelve employees and sells more than 700 chairs a year.

At the beginning Gabriele Wander was not sure if her new chair would also carry a new existence. Start-up consultants know this. Some women have a convincing business idea and a well-conceived concept, but are reluctant to take the step into self-employment. Talking about their plans, promoting their product, promoting it confidently - they are almost embarrassed by this. Not a good prerequisite for venturing into the market with a company.

Then it is better to take some more time and ask yourself what is stronger: the desire for a new beginning or the fear of risk. And to visit an information event too much rather than too little.

Gabriele Wander, the inventor of the ergonomic stool, has done that. She participated in an intensive seminar for founders, the plans for the "Mi Shu" chair she had already in the luggage. There, in comparison with the other women, some of whom did not have a business idea yet, but still wanted to be self-employed, she realized, "If I do not do it right now, quit the employee job and start my company, I'll do it all my life to regret."

What matters is the impulse

When a tingling sensation is there, a blaze of departure and this thousands of cocktail of fear and courage, as on the eve of a trip around the world - then is a real entrepreneur at the start and not just a competent, life-experienced woman with a good idea. And then almost everything can be successful, the shirt ironing service, the Beethoven praline, the children's travel agency.

"Half of all women who come to the consultation are willing to take risks to become entrepreneurs," estimates Gründerscheider von dem Bussche. "And with a few hours of instruction, they also find a viable business idea in which they can become an expert." What matters is the impulse, the little melody of the new beginning.

Bianka Habermann has her in her ear all the time. Every day in her new life as a landlady is an adventure for her. She makes plans, feverish with joy, works like crazy. "That's exactly how I wanted it," she says - and welcomes new guests.