Scott Jones  0:02  
Welcome to dream big, with big dreamers. Conversations for career growth, inspiration and insight, hosted by Donna Serdula. And yours truly, Scott Jones. Here are the inspiring stories that shaped the careers of top executives, entrepreneurs and professionals. These empowering discussions offer guidance and advice. As you advance in your career. It's time to dream big.

Donna Serdula  0:29  
Welcome to dream big with big dreamers. My name is Donna Serdula. And I have with me three guests today I have the CoCo co founders, the founding team of the cocoa, or their name's Lauren Decker Lynne pagano. Suzanne willen. gals. Thank you so much for joining me today. You're welcome.

Unknown Speaker  0:52  
Happy to be here.

Donna Serdula  0:53  
I'm glad you guys joined us. What is the Co-Co?

Lauren Decker  0:56  
The Co-Co is a collaborative working space and networking community focused on women. We're located in the suburbs of New York City. We were launched in 2019. With an ambition to support women wherever they were on the journey of life and career. And our own journey of life and career as a business has really been shaped by the pandemic. And what's risen to the top is the importance of community and connections to help us advance whatever it is we're working on. 

Donna Serdula  1:23  
So you started this co working space in 2019. What were you guys doing before that, like what made you even think about? About this? Like, was there like an obvious need? Was it something that you wanted to get into that you felt you wanted? Like what what was sort of that? What was that? That main idea? 

Suzanne Willian  1:43  
So that the the idea came from reading an article about the wing, which is a women focussed co working space in Manhattan, at WeWork, which is the big whip co working space had invested $30 million in, and we thought it was so strange that they would they had 57 sites in Manhattan at that time we work and they still chose to invest $30 million dollars in a separate company that was for women. And we thought, wow, there's something there. There's something about women gathering and working together and being a part of something that there's clearly value behind, and other people have that think it's valuable. But it was also so funny that WeWork didn't want to make one of their spaces. Women focus, they didn't want to deal with any women things. So he thought this would this would be a great thing for us to bring to the suburbs up at that point, that was not happening anywhere in the suburbs. And this was in December of 2017. So that's where the idea. 

Donna Serdula  2:39  
So now, did you guys work together? I mean, how do you know each other?

Lynn Pagano  2:44  
So Suzanne, I want to say 

Suzanne Willian  2:45  
when I were young Sullivan, I had been friends for a long time. And like we had had conversations multiple times over the years about how many amazing women we met in northern New Jersey and I just incredible, incredible women. And wouldn't it be great if we could pull all that collective energy and experience and passion towards supporting inspiring one another. And if you remember, like December 2017, when we initially got together around this idea that was right in the middle of me too. You know, that was the Women's March. And nevertheless she persisted. And

you know, we just felt that passion for, hey, let's let's take some of these conversations and make it real. And we had just pulled an initial group together to do some brainstorming. When Lauren appeared in our lives. She met with our now current advisory board members. She was starting up nonprofit consultancy having moved up from the city. And

our partner said, Well, we don't really have a need for consulting right now. But we're talking about doing this cool women's focused, community co learning co working thing if you'd like to get involved, and we met Lauren, and we were like, Oh, we need her on this. We need her involved.

Donna Serdula  4:26  
Were you excited? Lauren? Were you like doing backflips or Yes, you guys are crazy.

Lauren Decker  4:32  
run the other way. Yes. And I was doing back those because exactly that because they were crazy fun. And I thought these are the kind of people I want to work with positive people who make good things happen. And I had been like Suzanne said, working as an independent consultant and realized that what was really missing in that was the energy of a team, the opportunity to brainstorm and that wasn't just among the co founders, but among this whole community that they were gathering together and one of the beautiful things about the Co-Co community is that it's a multi generational one.

So I've learned so much from Lynn and Suzanne, who kids whose kids are a little bit older than mine. And I knew that what they were seeing among their colleagues and their cohort was equally applicable to my my colleagues who were, you know, raising young children and school aged children. And there was so much opportunity for us to learn from one another. And and I think that that really caught me as well, as far as the potential for this idea. And for us to support one another. 

Donna Serdula  5:25  
Now, who's like, Who are you? Who do you target to come to the CoCo? Is it? Are they people who should be working from home? Or are these sole proprietors? Are these entrepreneurs? Like, who's who would be a true 

Suzanne Willian  5:39  
The answer to that is yes, that that the answer to that is yes.

So I think we, one of the things that's really unique about our community is that we

are supporting inspiring women all along the journey of life and career, and careers, especially in the 21st century, our mom, um, you know, and they're going to be come decades and decades longer, as we continue to live longer. And I would venture to say that many women are going to be doing all of those things along their journey of life and career, they're going to be working as corporate people, they may be working as consultants, they may be working in small businesses, they may be taking a career break. And all of that is cool. And we can support and inspire and learn from one another. All along that journey that isn't necessarily a straight line. It's a lot of times, at least for the women that we're dealing with every day, a lot of jigs and jobs zigs and zags along that timeline, 

Donna Serdula  6:52  
What I'm loving, like what I'm hearing from you, and what I really love about this is, it feels like you're saying it's more than just come here and have a nice place to work. But let's, let's create that network. And that was something that guys do so well. You know, and I look back in my career, and like, forging that network of, of strong women, but not even just strong women, just strong professionals. Like, for some reason I don't feel that young women are truly shown are given that, that gift of what that could mean because it is something that can carry you through your career and help you. It's like guys get that innately. But I think women struggle like why do you think that is? 

Lynn Pagano  7:40  
Well, we one of the reasons back to like, what you're saying is we Suzanne and I talked about how we wished we had the Co-Co at so many inflection points in our lives. Like when we got out of college, I wish there was a place we could go and talk to a bunch of women and find out what we were doing. When we got married. And we what that meant when we had a child when we left one career and started another even when I took a career break, I really wish someone would have I could have had a group or a place or a meeting place where I could go and say this is what I'm thinking about. Tell me about your experience and, and dreamed of something that we did not have. And we made it happen. So once we had the idea, we actually had some focus groups of two different cohorts of women 30 to 40, and then 40 to 50. And we we basically pitched her idea to them, and they were all like we need this Now where were you 10 years ago, you know, I want to make it nice, make it comfortable. I want to have a living wall like people wanted such things to make it their own. 

Donna Serdula  8:39  
You have the idea? Do you get investor like how do you how did you start? Like, how did you say, well, let's just have a little networking group or like, to me, it just seemed like, this was a pretty big thing. Like let's get, you know, let's let's get real estate.Let's like, let's get focus groups. I mean, this this is this is dreaming big. So like, is this something that you guys had in your career? Like, Was this something that you always did? Or was this you going I really believe in this so much that I am going to put everything every ounce of self I can into it? 

Lynn Pagano  9:12  
I think the second thing because our careers are so disparate, like I was a lawyer than a social worker. And now I'm a business owner, Lauren. Suzanne, you tell about your career. Suzanne started at IBM and moved all over the place. 

Suzanne Willian  9:25  
Yeah, we've been I mean, all of us have been all over. But so but is it 

Donna Serdula  9:29  
So did you do big things like this in the past with your previous companies, 

Lynn Pagano  9:33  
we may be pointing towards a skill set that I you know, I see in many people, but I see a lot in the women of the cocoa. We're doers. We we saw this idea. And we mapped it out and we're like, okay, what's our next best step? What do we need to do next? And you know, we are we are very thoughtful that way we we have a long term kind of dream. But we know there are steps that we need to make along the way. And to your point exactly, I remember us, you know, in the very early days, we had a team of, I don't know, six or eight of us, it was like, okay, so why don't you to go look on real estate and YouTube? Why don't you start working the financials in you to kind of think about doing the market research. You know, it's, it's, it's scrappy, and you know, a lot of these things, there's just nothing magic about it, you just have to think it through, you have to take the next step, figure out what that step meant. And then take the next one. 

Donna Serdula  10:43  
So you do this, I mean, you get these people together, you have this dream, you're making these steps. It's 2019. And I mean, it probably felt just awesome. Was it early 2019, late 2019. 

Lauren Decker  10:58  
So in Fall 2018, we actually hosted pre launch event, that was pretty a big turning point for us. So we had hired a coach who had launched a similar space in Mill Valley, California called the Hivery, which had a similar mission to support women in whatever they were growing. And she encouraged us, we had this event where we gathered together our community and said, We want to launch this business, this is the model we want to put forth. We invited people to share their stories, so six women across different points in their careers, share their stories, it was extremely inspirational. And we had gotten some advice from this coach, to give people a point of action, don't say, you know, we're gonna have this space in two months, we hope to see you then. But really give them a moment to sign up. And so before we even had the keys to our space, we invited people that evening become charter members, and we had a square there's, we could take their credit cards, etc. But it was a big risk. Because at that point, we were still in negotiations for what became our space. And that night, 70 people signed up to become members of this idea that didn't even yet have a space. And so that was another turning point for us that said, Alright, we've previewed this with our community. We've shared our plan. And now they're saying we want this and not only do we want this, but we're willing to pay for it. So that was October. And then in December, we finalized the least we opened our doors in January, we had a full year of business and in February 2020. 

Donna Serdula  12:27  
Don't even go there. Oh, I want to I want to I want to I want to say yes. So you've got you've got a year behind you. You've got a year behind you. You're feeling great. I'm guessing you're making money. It sounds like you're making money. Did you guys quit your day jobs? I mean, are you like you're now like, you're totally committed all in.And then the pandemic hits? February, March, we start to see the writing on the wall. And then it's it's locked down? What, what what's going on in your heads at that point? 

Lynn Pagano  13:02  
Well, we were I was personally not even thinking that we would ever shut down. As a matter of fact, the week that we shut down, I had a tour and a woman said during the tour, well, what are you guys going to do if you have to shut down? And I said, What do you mean, like if the government forces us to shut down?

It happened and it was almost shockingly, I we didn't think that would ever, you know who who factors that scenario into their business plan? Go global pandemic like, hello. So it was shocking. It was shocking. It was like the rug being pulled out from underneath you. It really was we were in shock. I think would you guys agree? It was shocking. And, and But once again, three women, we put our heads down and we're like now what do we do? We took the best of what we had and we pivoted in turn and put everything online with all our programs that people were coming to all the community that people were craving all the watercooler conversations that people had when they were in here, we figured out a way to do that all virtually, you know, it took a couple months until we were good at what we were doing, I'd say and then, and now we're very good at what we do know how to put on events. 

Donna Serdula  14:15  
We know were you putting on those types of events regularly when you know it was 2019? Or was that just was that like a smaller piece of what you were doing? And you made it a bigger piece? Like how did how did that work? 

Lauren Decker  14:29  
We always had two levels of membership. One was co working. But we did have the two so the community membership was an option. If you didn't have a need for the day to day working space but wanted to be a part of the networking in the community. You would participate in all of our events. And so that's what we brought virtual. 

Donna Serdula  14:44  
Is it only for the women of like North Jersey in New York City where 

Lynn Pagano  14:48  
we have a member who's in Allentown, Pennsylvania and we have a member who's in South Korea. We have a member in Colorado we have Massachusetts we're pretty much covered the entire country and a little international as well. So that's all new to COVID. I think one of the things we talked about is right before we close down, we actually had a, we were going to look at space, other space and other surrounding towns, we were going to take that next step and expand our physical presence, never thinking that we could actually expand our virtual presence much easier, right, because now that's one thing that we have learned, we had been on a couple zooms calls prior to the shutdown. So we kind of knew what zoom was, which I always said to my husband, we should look into the zoom, you know, free, because it's an E, right? It's an easy platform, it works really well. And it's user friendly. We are international, we like to say and we want to continue to grow that that part of the business, women everywhere craving community, and we don't have to be limited by where we are physically anymore. 

Donna Serdula  15:54  
I look back, you know, at 2020, I really do feel that women were hit so hard working mothers, with kids who were in school such a hard time. And I mean, it continues to be a hard time. But you know, the working from home, in some ways is a fabulous thing. But in other ways, it is only so much a person can truly juggle. What did you find being part of that that community, you know, what was the message here, and 

Lauren Decker  16:22  
one of the common strands in the programming that we deliver is a commitment to social impact. And so we've had conversations on everything from the digital divide, to homelessness, to hunger, and no one actually and kind of different in kind this spring on women and work post COVID, where we brought together really influential women to speak about how women in the workforce have changed and learned over the course of the pandemic and how we kind of ended on a very hopeful note. And one of the women who is is part of the group, as a young woman who's a recent graduate from high school, and now and Yale and taking a year off to travel, but she runs the Yale women next podcast, and her perspective on the future was fascinating. And I think what happened with COVID is it opened up the possibility for things that would have been limiting in kind of the, in the institutional expectations of work, to say it can be different. So by having a virtual world and seeing your five year old, you know, knocking on your office door, you can't help but see that, you know, we're whole people, everyone has a life beyond the face that they bring to the office. And where before, you know, asking for working from home was a real ask. Now everyone's shown that they can do it. And so I think re entering there's opportunities there sort of cracks in the foundation to say we can think differently about work. And at the end of the day, that's an opportunity for women and the next generation, 

Donna Serdula  17:51  
In some ways. I mean, I really did feel that it was like we needed this disruption. Like we've been talking about it for a long time. But we really needed that push to say it is possible, you know, and and it can happen. Guys, this has been a fabulous conversation. I really enjoyed talking to you guys. My next question, Is this you're big dreamers? What is the next thing like? What's the next thing for the CoCo? But what's the next thing for Lynne, Lauren, and Suzanne, what what have you set your sights on that you're dreaming big? 

Lynn Pagano  18:25  
Well, that the big the dreaming big is such the fun part. And we get we get such energy in the dreaming state. And sometimes when you're running a small business during COVID, you get bogged down and not dreaming big. You get bogged down in like, how are we keeping the lights on here. So I'm so excited that we're coming out of a place and we can start to dream big. I think for us, for me, personally, I'd like us to be a place where women all over the country can say, Oh, I mean, I have this need and I don't know even know where to look. And someone would say call the cocoa reach out to the cocoa, they will help you they can they can hook you up with whatever you need. And that's that's kind of an also create an environment where people are like, I have this to give. I want to get it out to the world. Tell me how I can do that. And they say call the cocoa, they'll figure out a way for you to give back and help other people. 

Donna Serdula  19:23  
that's a that's a beautiful idea. You know, and I think you guys are actually already making those strides, how about you, Lauren, and Suzanne, 

Lauren Decker  19:33  
I think you know, a lot of our mission is to serve people during transition points in their life. And this past year has been a huge transition not just for women, but for everyone around the globe. And a lot of that had been feeling isolated and feeling alone. And so I think the work that we do our hope is that people feel less alone in those transitions. And especially as we come back come out of this time, that kind of by necessity, required isolation that there's an opportunity to see How we can continue to support and help one another. And I think that people have a real thirst for that now, to be gathering in ways that are productive and really helping you to get to that next place in your life and in your career. 

Donna Serdula  20:12  
Suzanne, 

Suzanne Willian  20:12  
My dream is to really name my next chapter. We did some work recently around the Coco's values. And I'm learning that it's just such a gift and you're so aligned when your personal values and your work values just mesh. And I feel like for me that that's what the cocoa is. We're coming out of this. You know, first we were in the launch phase, and then we were in the COVID phase. And now I think we have an opportunity. We know who we are, we know what we can offer, we've gained so much confidence in the value proposition we offer our members. And I'm just anxious to run with that and run with that confidently and I can't wait to see what happens. 

Donna Serdula  21:04  
I'm excited as well. If our our listeners are interested in learning more about the cocoa, learning more about you guys, where should they go? How can they learn more, 

Lauren Decker  21:14  
they can go to our website at www.co dash co.com? or follow us on social at the CoCo and Jay, 

Donna Serdula  21:22  
is there a social media channel that you use more than the others? Is there one that you really like and you're on? 

Lauren Decker  21:28  
We use Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn but I'd say most on Instagram. 

Donna Serdula  21:32  
Thank you so much land. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you Suzanne, this has been a fun conversation. I've learned a lot and I think our audience did as well. 

Thank you. Thank you, Donna. Thanks.

Scott Jones  21:43  
Thanks for listening to dream big, with big dreamers. If you like the show, please do us a favor. Go into iTunes and write a review and give us a rating or share it with a friend via social media or email if you think they'd benefit from these conversations. Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you next time. Until then, keep dreaming big