Building a Startup Inside the Axel Springer Tower
Theodora Both Founder, alea
Theodora moved from Romania to Germany at nine without speaking a word of German. She grew up in Halberstadt, at times as the only foreign student at her school. On a trip back to Romania she survived a serious car crash in the Czech Republic and woke up alone in intensive care, unable to communicate with anyone and convinced she had been kidnapped, while Interpol showed up at her family's home in Romania trying to understand where she was. At 16 she started reselling sneakers. A few years later she walked into her first Berliner Börsenkreis event without knowing what M&A meant and eventually became its chairwoman. She went on to co-found SheLeads, then travelled to San Francisco, realised at TechCrunch how little she understood about AI, and decided to spend nine weeks learning to code instead of following the standard consulting path. Today she is one of eight fellows in a ten-week Gründerszene programme at Axel Springer, where she is building Alea, a dating app for ambitious people. This conversation is about the path between those worlds: learning to build, using social media to validate ideas, deliberately polarising to get attention, and why Theodora would rather be the least knowledgeable person in the room than the smartest.
Why this episode matters
Most founder interviews open with the product. This one opens in an intensive care unit in the Czech Republic, where a teenager who has just survived a car crash cannot make herself understood in any of her three languages — while two countries away, Interpol is knocking on her family's door.
Key moments
- 00:57
Why a dating app for ambitious people
A thousand signups sound like a lot until they scatter across Munich, Berlin and Cologne. What the number actually has to be.
- 03:32
AI matchmaking and the psychology behind it
Word choice, image association, and a therapy exercise used with children, turned into an onboarding flow.
- 12:52
Nine years old, from Romania
Her father had built several companies, got tired of it, moved to Germany and started selling ice cream from a van outside a Rewe.
- 15:33
The only foreign student in the school
A parents' evening in Saxony-Anhalt where someone said she couldn't be trusted, because she wasn't German.
- 17:11
The accident, the ICU and Interpol
She woke up in a Czech hospital where nobody spoke her language and was convinced she had been kidnapped. Interpol was at her family's door in Romania at the same time.
- 22:43
Sneakers at sixteen
She won a Supreme Dunk, listed a screenshot before she even owned the shoe, and had the money in her account the same day.
- 27:06
“You all know what M&A means”
She didn't. She stayed anyway, and eventually became chairwoman of the Berliner Börsenkreis.
- 33:14
“What do I want, Theo?”
Why she cancelled the consulting internship everyone around her was working towards.
- 39:31
Start a non-profit
Her advice to anyone with something in the back of their mind: you can put anyone you want to meet on a panel.
- 44:45
San Francisco: “I don't understand anything”
At TechCrunch she realised she understood none of it. Nine weeks of Le Wagon instead of the internship.
- 57:32
Polarise or disappear
The post about learning to code without AI, over a million views, and an argument in her own comments.
- 69:06
Eight places, two hundred applications
The Gründerszene fellowship, ten weeks inside the Axel Springer tower, and the first day with seven strangers.
- 79:02
In five years
San Francisco, entrepreneur, young mother, and a kindergarten inside her own office.
Best quotes
“As a Romanian citizen, Interpol was at my family's place in Romania, because they thought I had been kidnapped.”
“The first sentence was: you all know what M&A means. And I thought, no. I have no idea.”
“What do I want, Theo? The thing you're doing right now, is that what you want?”
“This is the most relevant place in the world and you don't understand anything. I felt really shitty about that.”
“To go viral you just have to say things that bother others. Otherwise you don't evoke any emotions.”
Founder lessons
- 01Walk into the rooms where you are the least knowledgeable person. Theodora went to her first Berliner Börsenkreis event not knowing what M&A meant, and ended up chairing it.
- 02A waitlist is cheaper validation than a business plan. Hers had 800 people on it three days after launch.
- 03Mildly polarising beats agreeable. Saying she was learning to code without AI sounded unremarkable to her and passed a million views.
- 04Nine weeks of learning to build changes what you are able to ask for. The consulting path stayed open, she just stopped needing it.
- 05Early on you can afford to fail, precisely because there is nothing yet for anyone to take away.
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