ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — Women entrepreneurs.. you can ditch the home office or coffee shop! There’s a new female-focused co-working space.
It’s called Rise Collaborative Workspace and it’s in Ladue.
Founder and CEO Stacy Taubman joined Michael Calhoun and Travis Sheridan on this week’s episode of Nothing Impossible, our weekly show about local innovation. She says when she left teaching to start her own project, she hated working from home or the corner café.
“It’s kind of awkward to have to go to the bathroom and ask the stranger next to you to watch your purse or computer,” she said. “Or feel obligated to buy coffee over and over and over again,” Sheridan chimed in, to her response, “Oh, they knew me by name! I just really missed the energy of my co-workers from being a teacher. I took for granted how much my classroom was my office.”
Taubman visited T-REX and CIC@4240 but says the city wasn’t ideal for her, so she decided to start Rise on Clayton Rd. in the county.
We asked her what defines a co-working space?
“I really think it’s that community feel. We’re all in it together. We’re in similar places and we have those moments of panic and freak out,” she said. “Being an entrepreneur is a unique journey that not everybody understands.”
One tenant renting an office in Rise is Andrea Parra of Medivici, which fact-checks the boasts of bio-tech start-ups.
“They are making claims that they feel are very true and they’re usually from a very good place and these are usually incredibly smart people. So just trying to back up their story. Or try to explore any alternative applications for what they’re developing, because there might be bigger implications for their technologies,” Parra explained. “Or they might be a little bit generous about their market, so bringing them back to a more realistic place so that they can focus their development efforts.”
Amy Barnett also works out of Rise and joined the show. Her organization, Kids Who Kare, is like summer camp with a higher purpose.
Kids in the program do community service work, like fixing a garden, making dog toys for the APA or just painting fingernails at a senior center.
“Some of these kids I think would leave their shirts behind if they could. They have hearts of gold,” Barnett said. “I really want to provide safe, fun and chaperoned experiences. They want to use their hands. They want to be active. They don’t want to sit in a classroom and learn about. They want to do something.”
Rise also has a teen mentor program, which pairs aspiring young businesswomen with the professional women co-working there.
To hear their entire story, check the Nothing Impossible podcast at KMOX.com/audio. If you have a story of local innovation, send your idea to: mrcalhoun@cbs.com.
(TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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