Hera Hub: A Shared Workspace for Women with Collaboration and Community

In 2011, Felena Hanson founded Hera Hub, a co-working space for the women of San Diego County. She launched her brand in the Sorrento Valley area, and within a very short time, the visionary concept of Hera Hub exploded with several locations throughout San Diego County. Each co-working space has a spa-like ambiance with classy decor, inspirational art and a feminine touch. In these venues, there are conference rooms available by appointment for members to use as well as many other perks like a full kitchen for entertaining during events, quiet areas for business tasking, community rooms and many other features that assist members with their productivity. Hera Hub monthly member events and weekly, educational business boosters are the basis of the brand, because the founder, Felena, felt that many women entrepreneurs who work from home risk experiencing too much isolation and as a result… a lack of inspiration and motivation. She wanted women in the entrepreneurial realm to have a community based support system as they embarked on their personal business goals. Her tenacity from overcoming severe trauma and injuries after a tragic car accident, mixed with her passion for knowledge and love for women in general, led her to create Hera Hub as a vehicle for women entrepreneurs. Her mission is to grow Hera Hub globally and she has a goal set with launching another 200 locations worldwide by the year 2020. To learn more about this project, click here: https://herahub.com/expansion/

​She has already franchised the brand, and the entire purpose of Hera Hub is to support LOCAL women entrepreneurs! She hopes that women who are part of the Hera Hub community choose to learn all they can during the weekly business boosters, so they are educating and empowering themselves as they build their brands and become “bad ass” business women in the modern world. Another amazing component of being a part of the Hera Hub community is collaboration and mentoring opportunities. Several days of the week there are experts available on site for scheduled Q & A “Guru Hours” with leading entrepreneurs in areas ranging from SEO optimization, social media marketing, branding, intellectual property, legal copywriting and trademarking, pricing and profitability and so much more!

Felena Hanson, Founder of Hera Hub and Owner of the Sorrento Valley and Mission Valley locations. Photo credit: Nikkie Achartz

This is an inspiring video. Click (the picture) above to learn more about why she created Hera Hub. Her personal story shows that we can overcome setbacks and reach our life and business goals!

Felena has her Masters Degree in Business Administration. She is a published author with her book, Flight Club- Rebel, Reinvent, and Thrive: How to Launch Your Dream Business,” and a plethora of published material that she has written over the years for many magazines, both online and in print. Essentially, Felena set the tone at the onset of creating Hera Hub around what a shared workspace for women should look like regarding values, education, creativity and inspiration, supportive collaboration, productive feedback around business goals, strategy, networking relationships and authenticity in the business world. Her brilliance with business strategy, branding and marketing, has always been an underlying theme of the success of Hera Hub and what it has become as of today with locations worldwide. ​

Each venue whether in the United States or abroad is operated by a private owner. As I mentioned before, Felena owns the Sorrento Valley and Mission Valley locations. Initially, the Carlsbad location was also owned by Felena, but in the summer of 2016, Lisane Basquiat, became the new sole proprietor. I have had the opportunity to work with Lisane at Hera Hub Carlsbad for almost three years, and I recently had a conversation with her as to why she bought the business from Felena in the first place. Her response:

“It was in line with where I was in my life. I was looking for an opportunity to empower women on their entrepreneurial journey and I made a decision to invest in that via Hera Hub Carlsbad. I was already an established business owner, and I wanted to create an environment at Hera Hub Carlsbad where I was encouraging women to not only have a dream about owning a business of their own, but to take it a step further where they were educated, supported and ultimately in the “driver’s seat” of running their own businesses.”

Lisane is launching her new podcast on iHeart Radio, Shaping Freedom. Click on the photo above to visit her new website and to contact her with any questions. In addition to owning and operating Hera Hub Carlsbad, Lisane Basquiat is an empowerment coach, certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and mom. She lives in San Diego County, but also spends time visiting with her daughter and family on the East Coast.

Lisane’s passion for women, entrepreneurship and creating an inspiring and encouraging environment at Hera Hub Carlsbad is a direct reflection of everything that the brand represents as a whole. Women. Collaboration. Community. Empowerment. Education.

​Essentially, Hera Hub, whether in California, Sweden or Georgia, is and always will be about female entrepreneurs having the opportunity to build their brands fearlessly in a safe community space with business education training at the core of their business practices. I acknowledged this from the beginning when I became an Ambassador for the brand back in August of 2016. At that time, I had already been blogging for over a year with LoSoCal and I was HUNGRY for knowledge about how to be an entrepreneur. Due to my career experience in the field of management, I was already somewhat familiar with many basic business concepts and best practices, however Hera Hub offered me everything that I was looking for and more. It was very different learning about how to be my own business owner versus having a J-O-B! ​

When I was initially offered the opportunity to become a part of the Hera Hub community, it manifested in the foyer of Hera Hub Carlsbad with Felena interviewing me and asking me questions about LoSoCal and what my goals were with my brand. I was wearing yoga pants per my usual and my hair was tied back in a less than fashionable manner. Thank goodness she didn’t judge me based on my appearance, and to her credit, that was exactly why I appreciated her during our interview. She saw right through me. I could have been wearing a full blown designer outfit and it would not have mattered to her either way. She wasn’t interested in what I was wearing or how I looked, because for her it was more a matter of whether or not I had a brand that I believed in and she was more curious about “why” I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It has taken me almost three years as a member at Hera Hub to finally realize that is literally the “magic question” behind any successful brand! If the answer is money, it may be a tricky road at the start for a business owner with that mindset. In my humble opinion and after being exposed to so many entrepreneurs at Hera Hub, the BEST reason, the only reason to truly start a business is pure passion for what your business offers to the world!I had a mentor years ago tell me that “passion leads to success” and I agree wholeheartedly.

LoSoCal has taken so many twists and turns. I have experienced many wonderful successes and many epic failures. Creating and building LoSoCal as a blog and brand that reminds people to shop local and support our local businesses, entrepreneurs and artists has been one of my greatest life accomplishments. Passion for what I do with LoSoCal and the knowledge and support that I have gained from Hera Hub Carlsbad, has driven me to always hold on and move forward with my business goals. Thanks to the amazing people in my life who have encouraged me to keep on keeping on with LoSoCal! I am also currently facing some health challenges which have prevented me from blogging as much as I would like to on a regular basis, but it is because of the women at Hera Hub that I have learned that it is alright to have setbacks as long as I’m doing the best that I can with my business day by day.

Felena and Lisane have both played very large roles in my life as the founder and owner of LoSoCal. I created LoSoCal almost four years ago, and in the beginning I had no idea what I was doing as an entrepreneur. Felena planted the seed when she saw my potential and hired me as an Ambassador for Hera Hub to represent the brand almost three years ago, and Lisane has helped me to water and grow my garden with LoSoCal. These two women, along with many others who have become my dear friends and supportive business mentors, are the reason why I still keep putting one foot in front of the other with LoSoCal. My relationships with the women of the Hera Hub community have changed my life and my business forever! If I had the opportunity to talk to a female entrepreneur who is just starting out on her journey as a business owner, I would tell her heart to heart that the BEST decision she could ever make for herself and her business is to become a part of a community like Hera Hub at the onset.

Thanks for reading friends of LoSoCal. Please like this article below if you enjoyed reading about Hera Hub… and as always remember to shop local as much as possible to support our local communities and business owners!

Karen Vazquez