Eileen Lee, The Lola

[00:00:55] Sanjay Parekh: Hey, and welcome to The Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast. Today our guest is Eileen Lee, who is the co-founder of The Lola, as well as previously she was the COO of Venture for America. Eileen, thanks for coming on the show today. 

[00:01:10] Eileen Lee: Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:13] Sanjay Parekh: First before we get into all the stuff that you've got going on here, The Lola, I'd love for you to give us a couple of minutes about your background and what got you to where we are right now.

[00:01:21] Eileen Lee: Sure. So, I am born and raised New Yorker. So, my husband, who moved up and down the east coast likes to call me a Yankee living here in Atlanta, in the Southeast. I started off my career as a management consultant at Accenture, as many of us do, and most people leave after two years. I stuck around for close to six. Very directionless, didn't really know what I wanted to do, and then fell into starting my first company, Venture for America. Was the COO there and was able to grow that nonprofit from 40 fellows that we recruited right out of college who were aspiring entrepreneurs, to over 200 each summer, and the organization still going around today. 

Then had the opportunity to live outside of New York for the first time in my life and moved to Atlanta almost seven years ago. And I was thinking about this this morning, but I didn't know a single soul in Atlanta. I hadn't even visited when we knew we were going to move, my husband and I. So, we tweeted — I haven't tweeted in probably about seven years. But we sent a tweet from the Venture for America account, and Sanjay responded. He was the first one. He was the first person that I met here in Atlanta. Was awesome because we were trying to get to know the startup ecosystem here. And then as I was transitioning out of my role at Venture for America, I'll refer to it as VFA, I knew I wanted to start another business. 

Started talking to other potential co-founders and met my co-founder, Martine here. We both really were excited to tackle how do we better support professional women. She had been in corporate for a while. I had been at startups still incredibly challenging, regardless of where you are, for professional women. And then, oh gosh, covid hit and made it so much harder, but we launched this space at The Lola in July of 2019. We just celebrated our fourth anniversary. So, I've been in the startup space for almost 12 years. And then really both companies have been focused on community building. So, I am now realizing, I think I was perhaps in a little bit of denial, but that's really my sweet spot and my bread and butter. I love building communities, supporting one another, creating that structure, that sense of belonging, and that stickiness for people. 

[00:03:35] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, you've got an interesting background versus almost all of the other guests we've ever had on the podcast, because you spent time working with people that wanted to be entrepreneurs before you became an entrepreneur yourself. How did that change the way that you thought about being a founder? Did you see lessons there or what was it that really helped you with? 

[00:03:58] Eileen Lee: So, I joke around, we recruited 22-year-olds right out of college. And at the time it's like the younger millennial generation. And part of the training that we gave them at this boot camp that we hosted every summer, we would talk about these are the perceptions that workers, older people have of the millennial generation. They are entitled, they don't receive feedback well and then they'd all get up in our arms, and we're like, you don't receive feedback well. But they are so incredibly ambitious and all of the ones that we selected, and we were specifically looking for conscious entrepreneurs who want to build meaningful companies. So not just, I want to make, like, a gaming app or something in Bitcoin or in tech and sell it and get really rich, that's my goal. The goal was how do we make a positive impact on a greater sort of group or community of people. That was really inspiring for me. 

I fell into starting Venture for America. I was quite naive, didn't know what I didn't know, but I knew that we were filling a gap in the market and that was exciting enough for me. But the impact and how you change the trajectory of people's careers and lives. These, I'm calling them kids, but these fellows saw that from the get-go. And that was so inspiring to me. I didn't understand. How do you have the confidence and the conviction coming out of school? And in that age and I still keep in touch with them. We're actually like first customers for some of a new startup that one of the first class of fellows is starting. So, it's just been amazing. I joke around, but I'm pretty serious about this, that I can't wait to ride the coattails of some of them who are going to start these companies and hopefully hire me someday. 

[00:05:39] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. What was it about starting The Lola that made sense for you? Like why did you think about this as a niche that you wanted to get into? 

[00:05:48] Eileen Lee: So, at Venture for America, our first class of fellows was 40 folks from various universities and colleges. I think the majority were men, and white men. And over the years we really put forth effort to make sure we were recruiting more women, more diverse fellows of color. And so, I helped start the first women's group to support our female fellows at Venture for America. And we all know startups and small businesses are the wild, wild west as it relates to like HR functions. 

And unfortunately, I was the front line of the first line of defense when a fellow, a female fellow, would experience any sort of harassment or discrimination. And so, that really was heartbreaking. I'm glad I could support them in that, but also made me realize, there’s so, many great benefits to being the first employee, entry level employee to a small, early stage, fast growing startup. But if you don't have someone to advocate for you from that aspect, of being underrepresented or whatever it is, it could make it hard, almost traumatizing. 

And having started the women's group, and not saying that solved the problems, but even just having that support group and all the female fellows had advisors and mentors. And, I've had calls with some of the women and said, we are not going to partner with this company. We are going to take you out. We will help you find another job. So, I think from that aspect, I realized it's really hard anywhere you go, how can we better support women? And then Martine and I really aligned. It doesn't matter if you're at a company that has hundreds of thousands of employees, it's still incredibly challenging. How can we create a safe, comfortable space and physical space that's designed right with women in mind? And looking at Atlanta, there really wasn't a space. 

The vast majority of physical spaces are still designed with men in mind. Talk about like the temperature, the weight of doors, whenever they have hooks for your bags, I can barely reach them. I'm five three, especially in the women's bathroom. So, we really wanted to be intentional about women, what our needs are, different body types and heights. We have a wellness room here. It not only has all of the nursing, pumping, sort of baby needs, but we also have a heating pad and pain relievers if you're having bad PMS or a period or if you just need a place to close your eyes. So, just trying to be really thoughtful of the things that I think oftentimes women in the workplace try to hide or not talk about.

[00:08:33] Sanjay Parekh: Right. Normal human functions.

[00:08:34] Eileen Lee: That half the population goes through. 

[00:08:37] Sanjay Parekh: Exactly. So, it's something that should be managed and helped with. Yeah. Okay. That all makes sense. You've been working through this, you started the Lola before the pandemic.

[00:08:50] Eileen Lee: Just before the pandemic. 

[00:08:52] Sanjay Parekh: And then the pandemic hit. How has that been in terms of dealing with all of this? 

[00:08:55] Eileen Lee: I'll be the first one to not recommend opening a brick and mortar or something that's totally not pandemic proof. But we're still here. And that feels like a miracle in itself, because we still had to pay rent and all the building expenses all throughout the pandemic. And women left the workforce for all the reasons that we heard over the past few years. And we had members who reached out and said, I'm sorry, I got laid off. I need to stay home with my kids because I lost childcare. I have elderly immunocompromised parents to take care of. For so many reasons, women took a hit and then our membership took a hit. Especially compared to other coworking spaces. The rebound took has been taking much longer.

[00:09:42] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, how did you manage that process of making sure that rent got paid and everything?

[00:09:47] Eileen Lee: I'm going to I'm like going to toot my horn here. I'm pretty awesome at applying to loans and grants. I can do it while watching TV at this point. And that has gotten us a long way. So, everything from PPP to SBA loans to Invest Atlanta, the city of Atlanta offered a couple of reimbursable grants, a lot of businesses and they still do, they're still coming. There are a lot of grants that I think corporate sponsors, specifically for women of color. So, I'm like this machine in our Lola community. I'm on all the newsletters, So, anytime I see a grant, I post it, I'll tag whoever I think is eligible or interested. That really has gotten us a long way. That, and then also we have incredibly loyal and supportive members. So, we have had So, many members that have stayed with us. I have not seen them in years But they continue to support us. 

[00:10:46] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. I think that speaks to the community that you've built here which is really the strength of almost any company that you start, right? If you build that strong community to support it. 

[00:10:58] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, the business insurance experts.

[00:11:19] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, So, let's kind of shift a little bit. Let's talk about doing anything entrepreneurial, as you've experienced, that you've seen, it can be a little nerve wracking, what was it about starting The Lola that made you nervous? Was there anything? 

[00:11:34] Eileen Lee: Being in a new city that I didn't have a network with, I very quickly realized that I need to network quickly. But also, Atlanta is a very special place in that everybody that I talked to is like, oh, you're a newbie here. And in a good way, like you need to get to know all of us in the city before we accept you or welcome you with open arms. So, I was very aware of that. And it's funny, I've been here for almost seven years, and I still get no, you're just, you're new. I'm like, oh, how many years is it going to take then? And then it was like 20 or 30. I'm like, okay, that's, yeah. So, that was definitely challenging. And the thing that felt very organic was, we set out to talk to as many women as possible. So, through surveys, hosted focus groups in different neighborhoods. Anyone who we piqued their interest, we asked, that's great. Would you host your network? And through that first year, we met over 3,500 women in and around Atlanta. And that's when we really had the conviction of, we need to have a place like this. So, yeah, I think just doing it, just like how any other startup kind of figures out the market, and the customers. It was great too, everybody was really, open and honest about what we what they wanted to see in a place like this.

[00:13:02] Sanjay Parekh: So, it sounds like you spent a year, that was a year before you even opened the space. Or found the space to open the space. So, that was really like your market research, product market fit. Like figuring all of that stuff out. Looking back at that time now, you probably changed near the end versus how you did at the beginning. What did you learn during that process of how to do that better for yourself?

[00:13:24] Eileen Lee: Yeah, absolutely. I think that was all of 2018. And I don't know if I can even say any words that would change the way people think about it, but it always takes more time to raise money. Like anytime. And I feel like the next time around I'll give myself more time. It still won't be enough. But we were hoping to raise money faster. It took over a year and a half to get the money to sign the lease, build out the space and open it. So, it forced us to get really creative and scrappy. In July of 2018, the Hotel Claremont opened, they reopened and had a beautiful lobby, library, lobby, lounge and rooftop, and the general manager didn't know us. We reached out and we said, we love your design aesthetic. We're so excited for you to open. Any chance you'd be willing to let us test out our community building in your space? And he said, come on in. I care about this stuff. So, we basically were like glorified squatters for the first year there. From July 2018 to July 2019, we hosted over a hundred events there. Everything from goal setting and accountability, professional development workshops, yoga on the rooftops, sound baths, salons were invited, really great speakers to talk. 

So, that helped us validate because the biggest question was, because Atlanta's so sprawling, are people interested in coming back to a space? Or is it that they like the movement of a lot of other virtual women's orgs that meet at Maggiano's and other places? And what kind of value can we continue to provide that they'll keep coming back for? 

And so, by the time we were ready to open our space, we already had 200 paying members. We had a whole group of women that were co-working out of the hotel Claremont every single day. That was not our initial plan. We were so frustrated it took so long. But when I talked to other coworking spaces, they were like, so, the day you opened your door, you had 200 paying customers. And we said, yeah. And they're like, oh my goodness. A lot of times people build it and assume they will come, and then obviously it takes time and you're paying rent. So, in retrospect, we wouldn't have done it any other way. 

[00:15:41] Sanjay Parekh: No. Speaking from experience myself, having run a hardware software incubator, that’s a much better way to go.

[00:15:48] Eileen Lee: I wish I could say that's the way it was designed.

[00:15:52] Sanjay Parekh: Because opening the doors and having 12,500 square feet of white walls and nobody else in the space is very depressing until stuff starts happening. Okay. Thinking about now the companies that you have here, what have you seen in terms of them, have you seen the benefits of them being in the space? What are the things that you've shifted over time and realized like, hey, this is where the power actually lies, and what are some of those results that you've seen with these founders?

[00:16:19] Eileen Lee: Yeah, So, when we first opened, I think it was a novelty. It was a women's focus space, in metro Atlanta. So, we had a pretty good split of corporate employees and workers, as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. Over the past few years, we lost all the corporate employees and I don't think anyone's going to be surprised. It was hard for a lot of them to engage even during the pandemic when everything went virtual. I think that when you oftentimes work for a big company or firm, they just take up your head space and you just have a hard time to plug into something that's outside of it. And I also think that's by design. They don't want you to think about anything else. 

[00:16:57] Sanjay Parekh: And is it that those corporate workers were here working on their corporate job or something outside?

[00:17:02] Eileen Lee: Yes. Yeah. And a lot of times they couldn't find a lot of time to come here because they needed to be in the office. So, we lost a lot of those. We do have some special ones that actively make an effort because they fully understand that their corporate job is not their only identity. And there is value in exposing and connecting to people outside of your industry. I think that's a hard thing to do, again, because you get, you're kept so busy. So, we do have some. We have a great producer at CNN, we have a person at Deloitte. So, we do have the gems that really see the value. But over time we have become majority founders, freelancers and business owners. And the value that a lot of them see, they either come to us because they can't work out of their home office for one more minute, because we've been all doing that for too long. And they would like to connect with other folks, that are similar to them and, connect over similar challenges. And then the others feel isolated because they are entrepreneurs doing it on their own. There are freelancers who want more support, so, they're coming really for the community aspect. 

And then the third thing that we've been working to better promote is really women who are really looking to become activated in this activism area. So, whether it's, I don't get exposure around DEI things or I want to give back, but I don't know where to start. A lot of our women have found that here, which has been awesome. We have a lot of leaders of nonprofits and social justice organizations who are members here, so that's actually another big group. And they have shared that they have gotten board members, donors, volunteers through our community. We did a big push around voter activism, around all the elections over the past few years. 

But the sort of the life changing sort of magic happens when connections are made, and businesses have been started. Investors and clients have been found. And then friendships. I think that's been the awesome part of it. And friends that you normally wouldn't meet in your day to day. If you are going to an office or if you have neighborhood friends or whatnot. It's really the value of we have members that are in their late twenties to 80, across industries. So, the cross-generation thing has been really cool. Personally, I've benefited so much from building relationships, older and younger. 

[00:19:27] Sanjay Parekh: Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about now you, in terms of The Lola, it can be stressful, it obviously was stressful during the pandemic. How do you, for yourself, manage that stress? And also, how do you delineate, the time, like in theory, it's a building, right? You could be here all the time if you wanted to. How do you make sure that you've got those clear lines between personal and work and make sure that things don't bleed into each other?

[00:19:57] Eileen Lee: Yeah. I was never very good at that. I think it's optimal work life integration that I was striving to look for. The pandemic was a gift in that sense, where I was here every single day. And when you're here, everybody wants to talk to you, you want to check in with everyone So, you don't actually get any work done. And then the pandemic hit, and I was still the only one coming in here once we reopened and I had a mask on, and I did have one of those shields as well. That never worked. But it allowed me to, it basically, it rocked all of our worlds, but once we reopened, and even today, I only come a couple days a week. I lean on our team members. We have a team of great community managers who help us run the space. So, again, knowing myself, I would be here every day if something fundamentally didn't change, and shift. So, that helped shift it for me. I think having young kids help with the balance because they're the best at, stop looking at your phone. Or, we went on a trip, we went to the beach for a week. That was our big trip for the summer, and I was So, curious what my two-year-old would miss. And I'm not proud to say this, but we got home after the long drive, she beelined it to the playroom to get her play phone. And to say hi to Alexa. So, I'm like, that's a really good mirror of what we're modeling for. 

[00:21:27] Sanjay Parekh: What we're imprinting on the kids there.

[00:21:29] Eileen Lee: So, I try not to have my phone because I don't want her, she's carrying around her phone and going hello. I'm like, who are you talking to? She’s like, I'm talking to you. I'm like, I don't have my phone. They're great for checking and trolling when you are not finding that balance and being present. And then, yeah, Martine and I got started and we said, hey, if we want to create a space in a community that's really supportive for women, we have to walk the walk. And we're still work in progresses. But it was very much, if we're going to, we talk a lot about how too many people subscribe to hustle culture and how that doesn't work for women. And how can we build community where we can all thrive with more ease and less hustle? So, I'm not, again, very imperfect, but always trying to work on that. 

[00:22:18] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. What about that stress side of it? It can be stressful running a space like this, events and all of those kinds of things. How do you manage that for yourself? 

[00:22:27] Eileen Lee: Oh man, that's a good question. For me I just try to take care of myself. Whether that's moving every day, having a dog is great. Exercising, I think having a trusted set of friends or advisor types that you can vent. I think airing of grievances is always great to relieve stress. But yeah, I'm not going to lie, I don't know. I'm thankful I have a dog and I go for walks. I'm going to date myself, but I actually, it was a very stressful moment, and I was walking my dog at night in Grant Park. And I was shouting “Serenity now,” it's a Seinfeld reference. And I was like, did that help? I'm open to trying anything that is good for stress management.

[00:23:14] Sanjay Parekh: So, seems like it helped George Constanza, I don’t know how much it really helped, but that's so funny. Okay let's talk about how you actually manage this place. Are there any kind of tools or systems or frameworks or anything that you use that has helped you figure out how to make things run better here? Something that if you didn't have it, would make your life much worse.

[00:23:38] Eileen Lee: We use all the like same project management kind of tools that probably a lot of other companies do. I will say that our foundation and structure of running a physical space, the success is due to the community managers we have. So, the way that we recruit, onboard, train and check in with them is key. It's a self-run space. I think a lot of people don't expect that because coworking spaces are different. Some have full-time receptionists. We don't, and we're not planning on getting one anytime soon. So, setting the tone is key. I think setting the tone right to the members as far as what they can expect and managing their expectations is really important. But our community managers help reinforce that. It can't just be me and Martine and our team constantly telling them, you have to clean up after yourself. Simple things like that. We actually have like pretty in-depth conversations around way-finding signs. Like how we make sure that we are being really strategic with how we're giving the information to people here, members and guests from a physical standpoint, from a digital standpoint. Because we have a digital platform, Mighty Networks we use. So, it's all, how does that all work? And it's just a fascinating, in my opinion, evaluation of human behavior. Because in covid, we did what everyone did. We were triple disinfecting. Because we thought that's how we got it. We were making people social distance. We asked them to check in in a different way. And so, we had all these signs telling you like, go this way. Don't go this way, wipe this down, use this. And it got to the point where it's death by signs. There were so many signs that nobody was looking at any of them. So, for us it's probably low tech in that regard. But then we also use When I Work, it's like a good shift app for our community managers. If they need to switch their schedules, we want it to be really flexible. So they can drop a shift and ask someone, hey, I'll swap you, for a Tuesday, for Thursday, or something like that. And then we're big users, we still use Trello, we still use Air Table and all that stuff. Zapier is a good one to connect all of it. 

[00:25:50] Sanjay Parekh: That's great. And I've never heard of When I Work before.

[00:25:54] Eileen Lee: It very specific for restaurants and staff. Ones that have a lot of part-time changing shifts and staff.

[00:26:01] Sanjay Parekh: So, mainly meant for restaurants, but you adapted it. 

[00:26:03] Eileen Lee: Yeah. For what y'all need. I think we learned about it through Switch Yards. Yeah, they found it. 

[00:26:09] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. Awesome. Okay. Let's talk about the advice that you would give now to somebody else that's starting a side hustle or a small business. You've now seen a lot of them right through the Venture for America thing. And then now this. What advice would you give, and then obviously your own experience. What advice would you give to somebody that is going through this process or thinking about going through this process? 

[00:26:36] Eileen Lee: Just in general? Not a physical space?

[00:26:39] Sanjay Parekh: Just in general. Not necessarily a physical space.

[00:26:40] Eileen Lee: ‘Cause I’d say don’t do it.

[00:26:42] Sanjay Parekh: I think you said that earlier. Don't do a brick and mortar space.

[00:26:44] Eileen Lee: I think, I feel like I'm going to be a broken record because I'm sure everyone has said this, but like small tests. Just throw things out there, talk to people. As soon as you are thinking about it. I think a lot of people tend to keep it close to the chest, but the more you talk about it, the better you're going to get at articulating it. The more people you spread the word to, I guess this is the assumption that you are okay with sharing the idea. Because I understand that some people feel like this idea is very precious. I don't want someone to steal it. I'm a firm believer that ideas are a dime a dozen. It's the execution. So, if you believe that you are the right person to do it, I wouldn't worry about telling and sharing it with the world. It'll come back to you. Someone will tell somebody else who will be able to help you, who they'll connect you to. So, I think it's just, don't be scared to share it. And talk about it. 

[00:27:38] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. You hit that next question that I was going to ask you because that comes up all the time. So, many founders are afraid of their idea being stolen. And my conjecture is always, if it's so easy to take your idea and do it, then it's probably not a good idea. And as well, there's a lot of ideas, right? This is not going to be their last idea

[00:27:58] Eileen Lee: Yeah. And there's also enough room oftentimes in the market for similar ones. And there are a ton of women's organizations and women's spaces in and around Atlanta and across the country. And we actually have a collective, we don't see it as competition. We see it as power in numbers, right? So, we actually have this reciprocal partnership with a lot of them. So, if you're in New York City and you're a member at The Lola, you can go onto The Luminary while you're there. And so, there are benefits. I think seeing it from that perspective is the way to go. I guess in contrast to everyone's competition, I don't want to talk to anybody. 

[00:28:37] Sanjay Parekh: It's the rising tide lifts all boats approach instead of I'm going to tank your boat and make it sink instead. I guess that's the alternate, right? Okay. Last question for you, I think, unless another one comes up based on your answer. You've been through this now for a while and now looking back at it it's been a few years. Is there something that you would do differently, knowing what you know now based on what's happened in the past? And obviously knowing that if you'd done it differently, you would've ended up in a different place, but just knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

[00:29:16] Eileen Lee: I wouldn't have started this right before, seven months before a pandemic, but aside from that.

[00:29:24] Sanjay Parekh: That’s hard to predict. 

[00:29:25] Eileen Lee: That's a really good question. For us it was really important to prioritize this being a space for women across races to belong. So, we really prioritized and focused on that. I will say when we first opened our doors, it was a majority white members who came in. So, we went from, I believe, 30% women of color that first year to 51 at the end of 2020. So, it took us a little bit, we focused on it. I'm, I guess I'm wondering, and I don't have the answer to this, is there something we could have done different that would have, at the get go, been able to message and communicate to women of color and across races that this is a space for you to belong? Maybe not. Maybe it's more of the I need to show them, but that was really important to us. We had recruitment ambassadors, all women of color helping us recruit even before we opened. But again, it didn't exist. They couldn't see it. It wasn't tangible, but it was really important to us to be able to support and not just subscribe to white feminism. I'm proud to say that we now represent a much more diverse group, but in the beginning, we said we wanted that and it didn't show up until. It took a little bit.

[00:30:43] Sanjay Parekh: I lied. I've got one more question for you. What's next, then, for The Lola? 

[00:30:50] Eileen Lee: For us it's been unimaginable how long it's taken to come out of the effects of the pandemic. Our original plan before covid hit was to expand to different locations. Originally, before we opened, we thought, multiple locations across Atlanta because it's so sprawling and traffic's so bad. But the first year in, we realized people were coming from Cobb County, Gwinnett, Marietta, Athens. In fact, folks who had reasons to come in town for client or work. So, that kind of dispelled that assumption. 

[00:31:24] Sanjay Parekh: So, an hour or an hour and a half away and they would still drive in

[00:31:27] Eileen Lee: And they would sit here and drink some wine in our main lounge or listen to a podcast so they could avoid rush hour traffic. So, it was a good sort of, this was their in-town hub. And so, once we realized this is a more of a destination, we were interested in opening up in different cities. So, that's been tabled indefinitely because of the pandemic. But we'd love to revisit that in the future. We had our eye on Baltimore because it's got amazing diversity from a professional women population perspective. It's constantly overshadowed by DC. It's a pretty major city that I feel like just goes under the radar. Yeah. Or other cities in the southeast. I think that would be exciting. 

[00:32:08] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Eileen, this has been an awesome conversation. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

[00:32:14] Eileen Lee: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:32:16] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to the podcast today. Please give us five stars if you enjoyed this podcast. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit hiscox.com. And if you have a story you want to hear on this podcast, please visit hiscox.com/share your story. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, www.SanjayParekh.com.