Rachel Kelly, Founder of Make Lemonade
For anyone that has a home office or works independently, you know how hard it can be to motivate yourself and feel connected to others. Jumping from café to café can get tiring quite quickly and it’s hard to create a sense of community working from a home office. Enter Make Lemonade. A unique co-working space designed for women (for all person’s identifying as women) with the goal to create a sense of community and empowerment to anyone that enters. We are all over this concept and reached out to Rachel, the founder of Make Lemonade, to see if we could feature her.
Read on to find out more about how she started Make Lemonade, how she ended up having lunch with Sheryl Sandberg (yes, you read that correctly) and how she was able to successfully navigate Covid by pivoting hard from her original concept. We love the initiatives she has taken and every single point below with how she navigated her career screams “just do it”.
(Pink Tank Group): We love what you have created with Make Lemonade! Can you walk us through how the idea came to you?
(Rachel): Make Lemonade started off as a note in my old iPhone. I was riding on the subway after a day of freelancing out of a cafe. I was tired, unmotivated, and craved people to talk to aside from the barista. I began jotting down ideas and never returned to that note for a few years. Then, in 2016, life handed me a "lemon". It caused me to question everything I was doing and changed the course of my career. I asked myself "why not?!" and decided to just go for it. It took me a year to say "yes, I'm doing this" to opening the doors to the co-working office.
(Pink Tank Group): Ok, meeting Sheryl Sandberg must have been a career highlight! How did that come about and what was the best thing you took from the meeting?
(Rachel): This is one of those experiences where the advice of "just send the email" rings true. We were looking for partners for some upcoming events and I remembered I had a contact at Facebook Canada. It was a snap decision but I decided to just send the email and see if we could pitch to them. After I sent the email I shut my laptop and figured I probably wouldn't hear back...but out of all the potential partners I reached out to, they were the first to respond. That landed us hosting an event in the Facebook Toronto office, and then a phone call from the team in California. They were doing an International Women's day event, inviting a select few business owners who had used their platforms to grow their businesses. It was the quickest 36 hours of my life, but I got flow down, toured the campus, spoke on a panel, had lunch with Sheryl, and did a handful of press interviews. I was the only Canadian there. My biggest takeaway is this: no matter how big or fancy a corporation is, people are still at the core of it all. Send the freaking email!
(Pink Tank Group): When Covid hit, how did you pivot your initial concept?
(Rachel): Well, the entire business model went out the window overnight, so my team member, Ashley, and I put our heads together and acted quickly. We knew that our community would be craving connection, and would need a source of light and happy. We committed to being that "daily dose of sunshine" our community could rely on. We hosted free virtual co-working gatherings for the first couple of weeks and just saw what stuck. It was completely organic, honest, and full of emotion. Then, we launched something called the 4-Week Challenge, we hosted another one right after that, and once we realized things were lasting longer than a couple of months, we turned it into an online membership. It's wild what can happen.
(Pink Tank Group): You have so many touchpoints on building a community and helping women empower each other. What is the best thing you have seen come from this?
(Rachel): Making friends as an adult is not easy, which is why watching the unexpected friendships blossom from this community is absolutely amazing. Often times business is considered this binary aspect of our lives - but it's a lot more complicated than that! There's a lot of emotion and self-identity that gets intertwined, and friends who can understand that are so valuable in the world of entrepreneurship.
(Pink Tank Group): What inspires and motivates you when things get hard?
(Rachel): Whenever something is hard or I'm faced with a difficult decision, I remind myself that I've overcome a lot of tough sh*t in my past, and this "thing" in front of me now won't be the last tough part. I also take the time to cry if I need to, journal, weigh the pros and cons, and so on. But then I make a decision and carry on. Life is too short to worry about the "shoudda's"
(Pink Tank Group): Do you have any advice for the next generation in business?
(Rachel): It'll cost you twice as much and take twice as long, but don't forget to enjoy the moment. The minute you start, your life will change, so pause, get rest, enjoy the big and little wins, and never stop drinking your damn water.
(Pink Tank Group): What do you wish women did more of to support each other?
(Rachel): I've been super lucky that for more for my career I've either worked in teams of women, or have worked for myself surrounded by other independent, inspiring role models. I think women need to just keep doing what empowers them - that's inspiring to me, and, it's as the saying goes: "empowered women, empower women."
(Pink Tank Group): Pass it forward! Who is one woman who has inspired you as you moved forward in your career?
(Rachel): My mom.
