01/07/2025
When your business is built to support women, you often inherit their obstacles too.
I created my business for women, specifically female entrepreneurs who are starting and growing businesses. Women who are building their own thing while raising kids, caring for relatives, managing invisible loads and the emotional labour no one sees.
It’s meaningful work. But it’s also incredibly fragile. Coworking spaces like The Tribe, aimed at women, are the invisible architecture of female entrepreneurship. They represent feminist business infrastructure as well as emotional scaffolding, supporting women as we rediscover our professional identity and reconstruct more sustainable, self-honouring ways of working that honour our limits instead of bypassing them.
Over the past few weeks, I have had a run of women cancelling their memberships or downgrading their package. I'm not surprised. I've been doing this long enough now to expect it.
This time of year is particularly difficult for The Tribe. Why? School holidays.
(Easter, Christmas and all half term holidays are problematic too).
As a woman running a business for women, particularly mothers, their challenges become my reality, but amplified. Their lack of childcare becomes my drop in income. Their flexibility needs become my unpredictability. Their burnout becomes my quiet panic when invoices keep rolling in.
This is something that we don't talk about enough. Impact is great. Knowing you are making a difference is a wonderful feeling. This kind of wealth is the very best kind. But it is not always enough to sustain a business.
We celebrate women-led initiatives that make a difference and rightly so. But emotional and social value doesn’t pay the rent. Love doesn’t cover the bills. And visibility doesn’t equal viability.
Continued in the comments....
