“Hi, I’m Paula and I’m running my first half marathon in April and my training starts today”: With these words, Paula Enzweiler uploads a reel to Instagram in January 2024. She ties her blonde hair into a braid, puts on thick gloves and starts running. Your first goal: five kilometers. Also included: your smartphone. Enzweiler films herself during the run, comments on her run and counts the kilometers.
Looking back, this video was not only the starting signal for her half marathon training, but also for a new career path: as a creator. Today Enzweiler is 26 years old and has more than 570,000 followers on Instagram. She is followed by more than 118,000 people on Tiktok (as of March 2026). “Hi, I’m Paula” has become her signature phrase. She is also the founder of the Fahrradmaus brand – and she works on a sports app called Enduco.
One of the first 15,000 followers
Enzweiler started running because her gym closed for renovations in 2024, she says. She also once did athletics, the 400-meter hurdles, but that was a long time ago. She uploaded videos of her training to keep friends and family up to date on her progress – literally. At that point, Enzweiler already had almost 4,000 followers, as she says. Quite a bit for a private account on which she actually only shared vacation photos and her first sports videos.
Enzweiler then trained for her first half marathon using a 12-week program from the Internet. She made a reel of it almost every day. The 4,000 followers became 15,000 in just a few weeks. Marcel Heinrich was among these 15,000 followers. He is the founder of the creator and athlete agency Fyndafit and is now the manager of Enzweiler. “I saw Paula on Instagram, found the videos catchy and immediately had the feeling that there was a lot of potential,” he says.
What Heinrich means by this: Enzweiler records her videos as one-takes. She says what’s on her mind at the moment. The videos do not appear staged, but rather approachable. Enzweiler doesn’t sugarcoat her training. Effort? Show them. Fun? As well. Enzweiler combines various scenes with quick cuts. It’s not about perfection, it’s about getting to the goal. No matter how. Just start. Just do it. Just start walking.
From Vodafone to full-time creator
It was this authenticity that led Heinrich to write a message to Enzweiler. She was still working full-time as a project manager at Vodafone. “When I read Marcel’s message, I didn’t know what a manager wanted from me,” says Enzweiler. “I thought that was kind of strange, but the message was very motivating and nice and then I listened to what he had to say.”
How the message was written? “Personally,” says Heinrich. From original Berliner to original Berliner. No standard text like “You fit into the team so well,” he says.
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What Heinrich had to say? “Marcel believed in me more than I did in the first call,” says Enzweiler. “He said I could quit in a few months and make a living. If that wasn’t the case, then I could work at Fyndafit and get exactly the same salary so I could concentrate full-time on being a creator and get started.” Job offers instead of promises about follower numbers. That was crucial for Enzweiler.
“I didn’t try to close the deal directly in the first call,” says Heinrich. “I also think that’s inappropriate in this business.”
The plan worked: Enzweiler worked part-time for another week – and then quit her job at Vodafone to work full-time as a creator. And that despite the fact that she always thought she would have a career in a company. “I actually always wanted to be a corporate mouse,” says Enzweiler.
Instead: Videos in which Enzweiler repeatedly faces new challenges – 400 meters up a ski jump, 24 kilometers through the Wadden Sea, training with Olympians and in between cycling races, marathon runs, participation in triathlons and a bit of private stuff, such as videos about her engagement or how she furnished one of her brothers’ apartment. Coming up with new ideas is not a problem for Enzweiler. “I get bored easily,” she says. “That’s why it’s super easy for me to always find new challenges and just do it.”
Heinrich doesn’t want to talk about a strategy behind Enzweiler’s social success. But of course he relies on a certain approach. For example at live events in the form of community runs. At the first run, 50 people came, now there are 500 to 1,000 people coming. Streets would have to be closed for this and the organization would have to be carried out together with the public order office, says Heinrich.
Another principle that Heinrich and Enzweiler follow in their creator business: a few, selected advertising partners – but for the long term. And the same applies here: Enzweiler does her thing. She doesn’t read out advertising scripts and the videos are one-take, says Heinrich. “Anyone who has 20 different discount codes every month will be burned out after a year and a half in the industry.” In addition to the image factor, the long-term approach has another advantage: financial planning security for Enzweiler.
But not only is their content varied, but also the other pillars that Enzweiler is helping to build. “My business is to motivate people to exercise,” she says. To achieve this, in addition to being a creator, she has built up two other pillars:
“Bicycle mouse” instead of “corporate mouse”
The first is the fashion brand “Fahrradmaus”. While training for the half marathon, Enzweiler started training her endurance through cycling, while protecting her joints, as she says. “That’s why I once said in a video: ‘Hi, I’m Paula and I want to become a bicycle mouse’. I didn’t even think about the word.”
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But the word became a trend, says Enzweiler. “There were people who put out merch with it.” Enzweiler and Heinrich therefore had the word “Fahrradmaus” protected as a trademark in order to turn it into a fashion brand themselves. In the online shop you can find cycling socks, T-shirts and drinking bottles. For this she works with a supplier. Above all, Enzweiler wants to use the brand to show that cycling is for everyone, she says. The racing bike bubble is very judgy – especially for beginners.
In the long term, Paula would like to turn the “Fahrradmaus” brand into a family business run by her fiancé Dorian. Enzweiler can imagine her father in the back office, she says. But the brand also needs more products. “When we produce, we are immediately out of stock,” says Enzweiler. “We can’t yet estimate how many people really want the products. I want us to have at least eight products in the shop in the future that are always available.” Warehouse and logistics should be set up so that the goods reach the customers in three to four days. According to Enzweiler, “Fahrradmaus” is already profitable.
Training plans with Enduco
With the merch from “Fahrradmaus” Enzweiler wants the community to recognize each other. Because that is the focus. This is also how Enzweiler’s other pillar came about: the sports app Enduco. “I was constantly asked about training plans,” says Enzweiler. “But developing an app from scratch and bringing it to market would take too long.”
So Heinrich looked for sports apps that were technologically good but didn’t yet have their product-market fit, he says. That’s how he came across the startup Enduco, with which they are now working. “The basis was in place. We then further developed the app according to our ideas,” says Enzweiler. In July 2025 there was a relaunch of the app with Enzweiler as a cooperation partner and another sports creator, Maren Schiller, who is also under contract with Fyndafit. Using AI, the training plans in the Enduco app are individually adapted.
And Enzweiler also has goals for Enduco: “If I can get a total of 10,000 people to have decided to run a half marathon and train for it with Enduco by June, that would be awesome.”
Two awards in one year
Even though Enzweiler’s motto is “just do it,” a crucial factor for success is “sticking with it,” she says – and finding a niche. In 2025, Enzweiler received two awards for her work as a content creator. In September, Forbes put her on the list of top creators as a “Rising Star” and in November 2025 she won the Tiktok Award in the “Sports Creator of the Year” category.
All through a running video that began with the words “Hi, I’m Paula.” By the way, Enzweiler’s bio on Instagram now says: “I’m Paula and I AM a triathlete, CEO of Fahrradmaus.”
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