Bibifotima Zukhurova is 15, comes from Harsewinkel near Bielefeld, and is developing a financial education platform for Gen Z – parallel to school. Her platform is “in principle like Duolingo, only it’s not about languages, it’s about money,” she says.
The young founder describes her everyday life like this: Her alarm goes off at six in the morning. School starts at seven. Classes usually last until 3 p.m. “After that, startups are the thing all the time,” she says. In between: food, exercise, time with the family. Zukhurova usually works until 8 or 9 p.m. – sometimes even later, as the founder tells us.
This year the 15-year-old also has her final exams coming up. To ensure that school and starting a startup work, she consistently structures her everyday life. Zukhurova works with time blocking, a method that was recommended to her by the startup scene, she says. She organizes her appointments via Notion, coupled with Google and Apple calendars. She also uses a reminder app. Everything is connected. “The various systems are integrated because otherwise it would all be too much for me,” she explains. Without this structure, their everyday lives would not function.
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Still studying on the side?
In addition to school and startup, Zukhurova is studying economics as a young student at Bielefeld University. She is enrolled there as a guest student and attends introductory modules in business administration and economics. “I have access to all the slides and resources and I actually teach myself most of it at home,” she says.
In terms of time, she places her studies behind school and startups. She can take notes on exams, but she doesn’t have to. She deliberately schedules the lectures during quieter periods when there are neither school exams nor important startup dates. If possible, she does her homework at school so that she can concentrate on her business in the afternoon, says Zukhurova.
She doesn’t find the constant switching between math lessons, business model and conversations with friends a burden. “I need a bit of diversity in everyday life,” she says. She finds it more difficult to focus on just one topic all day. The different topic blocks help her to stay focused.
Between the playground and the pitch deck
Nevertheless, she moves between two very different worlds every day. At school she is “a completely normal 15-year-old,” as she says. There she is simply Bibi. In the startup scene, however, she is usually the youngest in the room.
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She initially assumed that people would automatically speak at eye level there. “That’s why it was more of a step back from my expectations,” she says looking back. Sometimes she was given the feeling “that I couldn’t or wasn’t allowed to have a say because I was still too inexperienced.” Nobody says this openly, “but you notice it.” Instead of clear criticism, there were more indirect control questions. Situations in which she felt that they wanted to test how much she really knew.
This picture shifted as a result of a pitch to a larger audience. After her presentation, she was told that she was not expected to have this level of professionalism. Since then she has been perceived differently. For her, it’s less about proving things and more about being taken seriously.
From third place to a setback
A formative moment was taking part in the Startup Teens Westfalen Challenge, a start-up competition for young people. There she achieved third place at the regional level.
For Zukhurova it was the logical next step to take part in the nationwide challenge. She spent weeks revising her business plan, making it more detailed and structured. However, she did not make it into the top 5 in the national round and was therefore not in the final. “I really invested a lot of time into it, and when the rejection came, it was tough,” she says.
After the success at regional level, she expected a similar result. The disappointment hit her harder than she expected, she says. This showed her once again how involved she is in her startup.
Suddenly responsibility
For about a year, Zukhurova has been moving in a world in which most founders are ten or twenty years older. Competitions, conferences and network meetings are now part of their everyday lives. At first it felt like a new, exciting parallel world. But at some point she realized that founding is more than just pitch decks and ideas. “There’s a lot that happens legally and you have to fulfill certain obligations,” she says.
With every competition and every program the project became more binding. Contracts, deadlines, structures – these are all things that most people their age don’t yet have to deal with. The step from trying things out to taking responsibility came slowly but noticeably.
Where the pressure really comes from
From the outside you can see stages, programs, networks. Zukhurova pitches in front of juries, is also involved in initiatives such as the Female Entrepreneurship Summit or “Startup in School” and was part of the eight-week Young Founders Network incubator with a finale in Stuttgart.
However, the pressure comes less from individual events than from the interaction of many factors, she says. There is her own ambition. There are expectations that grow with each participation in competitions or programs. “I am very ambitious and want to achieve my goals,” says the 15-year-old. And there is a startup culture that often suggests that you have to be constantly available and sleep as little as possible.
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She quickly notices when she is reaching her limits, says Zukhurova. “If I sleep two hours less, I definitely notice it the next day.” That’s why she tries to take breaks, even if important calls or deadlines don’t always make it easy for her.
And then there is FOMO, but not in the classic sense. “FOMO is with me every day,” she says. What is meant is less the missed party than the constant weighing up of priorities. Every hour for the startup is an hour that she doesn’t spend any other way. She makes this decision consciously, she says, but the feeling that she is missing out on something else remains.
Theoretically she could stop at any time. “I could say tomorrow I’ll stop the whole thing.” In practice, however, the project has long been more than a hobby. Her alarm will go off again at six o’clock tomorrow morning.