Child from a frozen egg?: “Social freezing is a way of prevention”

Child from frozen egg?
“Social freezing is a way to take precautions”

May 21, 2024, 5:09 p.m

With just a few clicks, fill out the questionnaire about your own clothing style, then receive personal advice from a style consultant who will put together suitable outfits and send them conveniently. That’s the idea behind the startup Outfittery Julia Bösch founded twelve years ago. Outfittery is now the European market leader for so-called online personal shopping, is active in ten countries and, according to its own information, is profitable with more than a million customers. At a time when the German fashion industry is not necessarily doing well: Since the end of the corona pandemic, people have preferred to spend money on travel and experiences instead of fashion. In addition, Chinese low-cost suppliers are entering the market. The 39-year-old founder is currently making headlines with the topic of “social freezing”. In the ntv podcast “Startup – Now be honest” She speaks openly about how she fulfilled her desire to have children by freezing her eggs.

ntv.de: You talk very openly about the topic of “social freezing”, i.e. the possibility of late pregnancy. Why is this important to you?

Julia Bösch: The topic is close to my heart. My daughter was born exactly a year ago and since then I have woken up next to her every day, looked at her and thought to myself: We were so lucky. I see that as women we are more free and independent than ever before, but at the same time nature has not changed at all. It only allows us to have children within a very specific time frame. I would like to raise awareness of the fact that, especially as a woman, you should deal with your fertility early on and see it as part of your health care. Social freezing is one way to take precautions.

Why do you think this is still such a taboo topic?

Artificial insemination and support in the desire to have children are totally taboo in Germany. When I went to a fertility clinic in my early 30s to find out about social freezing, I met many people who were depressed, pulled their baseball caps over their faces and didn’t want to be seen. This has to do with many factors. It is emotionally challenging and difficult when I realize that my desire to have children is not working. But this is above all a German issue. A business partner from the UK said to me: Julia, I have to reschedule our appointment because we are in the middle of artificial insemination treatment. I have to take care of my wife. Unfortunately, no one in Germany would say that. This is also motivation for me to share my story because I would like people to deal with it more openly and get help sooner.

There is a study by the Startup Association in which many women say: The lack of balance between family and career is an obstacle to founding a startup. Is social freezing the solution to getting more female founders?

There is a misperception that social freezing is done for career reasons. Like in my case, most women choose this because they don’t have a partner and want to increase the likelihood of having children later. Since I had my daughter, I’ve known that it’s challenging to run a startup and have a family at the same time. But it also offers opportunities because, as founder and CEO, I can shape Outfittery’s culture and make my own rules. This is even easier for me as a founder than if I were a manager in a large corporation and had to adapt.

In the USA, social freezing is partly paid for by the employer – presumably also to keep the women’s focus on the job for as long as possible. What do you think?

I am in between. I also thought about whether I wanted to finance this for my employees. This is extremely expensive. I paid about 10,000 euros for the different cycles, egg freezing, storage and insertion. But I decided against financing this for employees. Because for me the question of whether someone wants to have children and when is so intimate and probably the most personal of all… As an employer, I don’t want to create any incentive in any direction. I find it difficult when companies finance this. On the other hand, of course, companies make it accessible to more people. That’s great too.

As an entrepreneur, you are also faced with the challenge that the German fashion industry is not doing well at the moment. More and more traditional fashion retailers are filing for bankruptcy. Why is that?

There are mainly two factors: Since the end of the Corona pandemic, people have been taking parts of their fashion budget and spending it on travel. In addition, Chinese companies in particular are currently pushing hard into the market with lower prices and are therefore incredibly successful.

How do you deal with it?

As an entrepreneur, I find such disruptive phases incredibly exciting because the cards are reshuffled and there is the opportunity to reposition yourself. The online shopping experience has not changed since the invention of the Internet. I’m still looking at a huge catalog and checking out. Under this disruption there is an opportunity to reinvent that. We now have examples of how the shopping experience of the future can work. The other is the low-price competition from China. This doesn’t affect us because we have a different customer segment. Rather medium to high priced, that protects us.

With Julia Bösch said Janna Linke. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for clarity. You can read it completely in the ntv podcast “Startup – now to be honest” listen.