Launching your own business and being a solopreneur can be a lonely proposition. If you’ve lately been in an office or similar space, you’ve had a second family – a work family, full of people you see every day, talk to, bond with, and who you can bounce ideas off of. Going out on your own not only means facing economic uncertainty, but also losing the support network and the human interaction that you’ve often relied on. The traditional risks of starting your own business aside, the loneliness can be a really scary prospect.
Thankfully, I found a fix for that. I was lucky enough to meet Julia Westfall very early on in the life of my business, and she introduced me to Hera Hub, her coworking space for women. Hera Hub was founded in California to provide women entrepreneurs with a workspace outside their homes and a community of like-minded women, and Julia has opened the first Hera Hub franchise in Washington, DC. This is a great service, and Hera Hub is working to fill a very real need. More than that, however, Hera Hub fills a need that many don’t realize they have. It gives you a work family.
Hera Hub, in my experience, brings together a group of women who get to know each other, care about each other, and support each other. If you have questions about how something should run, they’ll try to answer. If you’re really excited about a big achievement, they’ll be excited with you. If you’ve had a setback, they’ll commiserate and suggest ways to move forward. This isn’t done because of hope for gain, or any sneaky secondary motives, it’s done because this group gives you a work family in the truest sense of the term.
So far, I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting the other founding members and other early members of Hera Hub. But as the organization expands, I look forward to growing my work family. Every other difficulty or uncertainty of entrepreneurship may (and probably will!) rear its ugly head, but thanks to Hera Hub, I’m no longer going it alone.
Carrie Kolar is Founder and CEO of Proof Point Consulting, LLC. Typos and mistakes hurt your chances of success. We provide editing, proofreading, and content creation services to businesses, organizations, and individuals to ensure that their written materials are flawless and professional.