A few months ago I found out about a unique coworking space in New York City. In Good Company caters exclusively to women business owners and provides them not only with an extremely convenient and elegant working environment, but also with valuable support and collaboration opportunities.
I visited the space last April during a trip to the city and had a chat with co-founder Amy Abrams.
How did you get the idea for In Good Company?
My business partner Adelaide Fives and I worked together for about three or four years in a consulting practice with women who were in career transition or women business owners who were experiencing problems. Over the years we found these women kept articulating the same challenges. They had this tremendous sense of not knowing anybody else who was doing this and when they had to see clients they didn’t have a place to meet them. We always wanted to give them a resource to solve this sense of isolation. We couldn’t find that resource so we decided to create it on our own. We thought that what these women were missing was a community of peers, and a place to work at when they needed it. A lot of good resources were getting lost because people didn’t know how to share them.
We knew we wanted to have a physical space and allow people to rent it when they needed it. That already existed, but the key component to what we wanted to do that was different was this sense of community. So we described ourselves as a community membership and a community workspace. In order to ever use our space you have to be a member of our community.
Can you tell me more about this community aspect?
By becoming a member of our organization you get to be part of our community in person and online. We have about eight events a month: lunchtime meetings where we have a specific topic that we’re discussing, panels, evening events, holiday parties and cocktail hours. Sometimes we invite successful local entrepreneurs to speak about their experience. We also have smaller affinity groups, like mother business owners, women consultants, women over 60… We also have an online component, with a membership directory and several ways for people to communicate with each other.
What would be different in a community like this from a mixed community where you have men as well?
I have to speculate on the answer because I’m not involved in a mixed community. What we find in working with women is that there seems to be some significant things that they had in common with one another. Some of them wanted more balance in their lives, whether that be family balance or otherwise. The flexibility of our workspace seemed to really appeal to them. Sometimes they wanted to work at home, sometimes they didn’t, sometimes they wanted to work three days a week, etc.
In terms of the community, there are a lot of workers organizations that are mixed and I think that they’re great, and many of our members belong to lots of organizations. What was missing was an organization of women business owners in New York that could meet in person and offer a variety of things.
Do you think that women do business differently than men?
Yes and no. I think that if you’re smart, talented and successful it doesn’t matter what your gender is. The women in our community really love to help each other. They look to connect with other people and they have some need to not be isolated, but there’s plenty of other people who like to work by themselves, plenty of men who like to work by themselves and plenty of men who like to work around other people. I think people just self-select for this community’s offerings.
You say that your members have a lot to exchange even if their businesses are different. Can you give me some examples?
Our members tend to collaborate all the time here, if they need a resource, a web designer, a lawyer, a health insurance provider… They make a lot of introductions on behalf of one another. Sometimes they are redesigning their logo and they just want some feedback from people who aren’t related to them.
A lot of time people miss going somewhere and having people that they know they can chat with, where they can see some friendly faces. Humans are social beings. People really crave that and they don’t realize when they start their own business that it’s something that they will miss.
What are the challenges that women face that come back regularly?
Sometimes women entrepreneurs need to be more specific about the amount of money they want to make, and they need to be very clear about how to make that money. They should be very clear about what they do well, and make sure that they’re doing that the majority of the time in their business. People come here a lot of times and they’re very isolated, that is very detrimental to your business. If you’re not around other people who are doing similar things, it just makes it that much harder.
I also think you have to take yourself very seriously and have a professional identity. In some cases it’s totally acceptable to meet in a coffee shop, but in other cases people won’t take that seriously. You need to think about what your goals are in business and make sure that your decisions reflect those goals.
What about family?
For the women who have younger children, this is a perfect blend, because they can work a few days a week. A lot of women go into business for themselves at certain career junctures so that they can have more balance with their family life. Others are taking care of aging parents. Our community allows them to meet other women who are in the same boat and get support from them.
Amy Abrams
What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to start a business?
If you want to start a business, I would be very clear about what you’re good at, and I’d be very aware of what you’re not good at. For example, let’s say you know that you’re really good at sales but you’re not a great accountant and that’s going be a part of your business. What you should do is find some type of software or keep all your bills organized and give them to someone, but you don’t have to be good at that to do you own business. I would be very clear about what your goals are; do you want to have flexibility, make a lot of money, be the biggest this…
I would also talk to a lot of people in the industry that you’re interested in. For example if you want to sell a product, do your research and make sure that it doesn’t exist or that there’s a market for it. If it’s a service, you want to know what people charge in that industry.
You also want know your peers in that industry, so even if you decide to be a financial consultant, you want to know other financial consultants. They’ll give you leads or they’ll refer people. You should also make sure that you find a community of people who are starting their own businesses so that you have support along the way.
Photo credit: Flavie Halais
A visit to In Good Company Workplaces
A few months ago I found out about a unique coworking space in New York City. In Good Company caters exclusively to women business owners and provides them not only with an extremely convenient and elegant working environment, but also with valuable support and collaboration opportunities.
I visited the space last April during a trip to the city and had a chat with co-founder Amy Abrams.
How did you get the idea for In Good Company?
My business partner Adelaide Fives and I worked together for about three or four years in a consulting practice with women who were in career transition or women business owners who were experiencing problems. Over the years we found these women kept articulating the same challenges. They had this tremendous sense of not knowing anybody else who was doing this and when they had to see clients they didn’t have a place to meet them. We always wanted to give them a resource to solve this sense of isolation. We couldn’t find that resource so we decided to create it on our own. We thought that what these women were missing was a community of peers, and a place to work at when they needed it. A lot of good resources were getting lost because people didn’t know how to share them.
We knew we wanted to have a physical space and allow people to rent it when they needed it. That already existed, but the key component to what we wanted to do that was different was this sense of community. So we described ourselves as a community membership and a community workspace. In order to ever use our space you have to be a member of our community.
By becoming a member of our organization you get to be part of our community in person and online. We have about eight events a month: lunchtime meetings where we have a specific topic that we’re discussing, panels, evening events, holiday parties and cocktail hours. Sometimes we invite successful local entrepreneurs to speak about their experience. We also have smaller affinity groups, like mother business owners, women consultants, women over 60… We also have an online component, with a membership directory and several ways for people to communicate with each other.
What would be different in a community like this from a mixed community where you have men as well?
I have to speculate on the answer because I’m not involved in a mixed community. What we find in working with women is that there seems to be some significant things that they had in common with one another. Some of them wanted more balance in their lives, whether that be family balance or otherwise. The flexibility of our workspace seemed to really appeal to them. Sometimes they wanted to work at home, sometimes they didn’t, sometimes they wanted to work three days a week, etc.
In terms of the community, there are a lot of workers organizations that are mixed and I think that they’re great, and many of our members belong to lots of organizations. What was missing was an organization of women business owners in New York that could meet in person and offer a variety of things.
Do you think that women do business differently than men?
Yes and no. I think that if you’re smart, talented and successful it doesn’t matter what your gender is. The women in our community really love to help each other. They look to connect with other people and they have some need to not be isolated, but there’s plenty of other people who like to work by themselves, plenty of men who like to work by themselves and plenty of men who like to work around other people. I think people just self-select for this community’s offerings.
You say that your members have a lot to exchange even if their businesses are different. Can you give me some examples?
Our members tend to collaborate all the time here, if they need a resource, a web designer, a lawyer, a health insurance provider… They make a lot of introductions on behalf of one another. Sometimes they are redesigning their logo and they just want some feedback from people who aren’t related to them.
A lot of time people miss going somewhere and having people that they know they can chat with, where they can see some friendly faces. Humans are social beings. People really crave that and they don’t realize when they start their own business that it’s something that they will miss.
What are the challenges that women face that come back regularly?
Sometimes women entrepreneurs need to be more specific about the amount of money they want to make, and they need to be very clear about how to make that money. They should be very clear about what they do well, and make sure that they’re doing that the majority of the time in their business. People come here a lot of times and they’re very isolated, that is very detrimental to your business. If you’re not around other people who are doing similar things, it just makes it that much harder.
I also think you have to take yourself very seriously and have a professional identity. In some cases it’s totally acceptable to meet in a coffee shop, but in other cases people won’t take that seriously. You need to think about what your goals are in business and make sure that your decisions reflect those goals.
What about family?
For the women who have younger children, this is a perfect blend, because they can work a few days a week. A lot of women go into business for themselves at certain career junctures so that they can have more balance with their family life. Others are taking care of aging parents. Our community allows them to meet other women who are in the same boat and get support from them.
Amy Abrams
What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to start a business?
If you want to start a business, I would be very clear about what you’re good at, and I’d be very aware of what you’re not good at. For example, let’s say you know that you’re really good at sales but you’re not a great accountant and that’s going be a part of your business. What you should do is find some type of software or keep all your bills organized and give them to someone, but you don’t have to be good at that to do you own business. I would be very clear about what your goals are; do you want to have flexibility, make a lot of money, be the biggest this…
I would also talk to a lot of people in the industry that you’re interested in. For example if you want to sell a product, do your research and make sure that it doesn’t exist or that there’s a market for it. If it’s a service, you want to know what people charge in that industry.
You also want know your peers in that industry, so even if you decide to be a financial consultant, you want to know other financial consultants. They’ll give you leads or they’ll refer people. You should also make sure that you find a community of people who are starting their own businesses so that you have support along the way.
Photo credit: Flavie Halais