Every woman business owner knows that sometimes you have to get creative when it comes to growing to the next level. NAWBO-Phoenix member and founder of CO+HOOTS Jenny Poon certainly does, and that’s exactly what she has done to access the capital needed to move to a larger facility to house central Phoenix’s first and largest co-working community.
This marks the third time in five years that CO+HOOTS’ growing membership numbers and increased programming have led to a move. But this time, Jenny is planning to purchase a 14,000-square-foot building that is three times the size of their current location through funding she hopes to raise in an crowdfunding campaign set up on Indiegogo.com.
“We’ve always been a strictly grassroots, member-supported space, and with this purchase, we are asking the community to continue to rally around us so we can have a bigger impact on our local community,” Jenny says. “We set up a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of $50,000, which will help us finish building out the rest of the space and allow us to have more room for the dreamers of dreams in our community. With the community’s support, we can exponentially multiply the movement we started six years ago by having more skills-training events that are open to the public—small business classes, youth coding and leadership events and more. That means every entrepreneur, no matter at what stage they are, will have a place where they can find the support they need.”
“The location we are in now is at capacity, and we’re at a point where we have bigger dreams,” she adds. “We need to support more entrepreneurs across more sectors of Arizona. Our goal is to support 1,000 entrepreneurs and 400 youth entrepreneurs and host business-centered lunch and learns every day that are free to the public.”
CO+HOOTS was founded in 2010 and now has more than 200 members, which include nonprofits, start-ups, entrepreneurs, freelancers and remote workers. CO+HOOTS was recently ranked the No. 1 most innovative coworking space in the nation, the No. 1 coworking space in Arizona and the No. 2 overall in the U.S. and No. 9 in the world. Learn more at www.cahoots.com. Also, check out the CO+HOOTS crowdfunding campaign page at www.tiny.cc/imincohoots.