Gabriela Hersham With Huckletree

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Daring To, a podcast that finds out how CEOs and entrepreneurs navigate today’s business world, the conventions they’re breaking, the challenges they faced, and the decisions that they’ve made. And lastly, just what makes them different.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:19] Well, I’m delighted today to have on my podcast Gabriela Hersham, who is the CEO and co-founder of Huckletree.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:27] I understand you like to be called Gabby, so we’re going to call you Gabby. That’s easy for me as well. I’m really, really excited to have you on the show because I think you’re going to have some really interesting insights to share with our listeners.

Rita Trehan: [00:00:38] So, Gabby, welcome to the show. I mean, you are – I’m kind of in awe, really, to be honest of you. Here you are having built a business, raised Series A funding and several million pounds with a co-founder in a space that when I first looked at it and I thought, “Hmm. This looks like co-working space. Isn’t that like WeWork or in the old days of Regus?” But actually, it’s not. It’s something very different. So, can you tell me a little bit more about why it’s different? What’s different about Huckletree from typical co-working spaces?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:01:16] First of all, Rita, thanks so much for having me. I’m equally as happy to be here. So, to tell you a little bit about Huckletree, and I guess to your question how we are different from our competitors, when we launched Huckletree in 2014, it was very much with the premise that we wanted to be a workspace for the innovation ecosystem. In the UK at the time, there was this kind of entrepreneurial start-up ecosystem that we felt was about to explode. There were a few but not very many workspaces catering specifically to them, supporting them, et cetera, bringing them together. That was what we were very passionate about. And so, from the first day, we made it very clear that our members needed to be start-ups, scale-ups, venture capital funds, corporate innovation teams, ecosystem service providers. But that was our world, and I think that has seen us through, and it’s been a thread that has remained with us until today. So, all of our members are in that ecosystem.

Rita Trehan: [00:02:11] So, Gabby, I’m intrigued. But, you know, you created this workspace, co-work spaces, probably a bit ahead of your time. As I said, I can recall when I lived in the states, you know, sort of using offices that were pretty kind of antiseptic. If I think about where the world is today right now and the workforce, many people are saying they don’t really want to go back to work because they just don’t like the feel of the workplaces anymore that they’re looking for something different. They’re looking for some kind of connection and belonging. And, you know, I’m quite curious, is it true that you create offices that can be anything anybody wants them to be?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:02:50] Well, I think that we’re definitely creating an exciting and engaging workspace and certainly kind of post-COVID or coming out of COVID that’s what people want I think in order to kind of lure people away from working from home, which works for some people, not for everyone. It’s really about creating an office experience that is top class that offers, you know, so many benefits that it kind of makes working from home pale in comparison.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:03:20] So, we’re very proud of our workspaces. We think we’ve designed them in a beautiful way. But I think more than that, it’s really about the people that are in each space and the types of people that everybody coming in can meet and collaborate with. And that’s, you know, speaks to the other businesses in the spaces but also to the Huckletree team members, to our ambassadors who are constantly popping in and out. So, I definitely think that, you know, Huckletree workspaces are a really exciting place to be and hopefully worth the commute.

Rita Trehan: [00:03:53] So, I mean, there must be something that – you’re clearly not just somebody that’s kind into real estate or properties. Because if I sort of look at what you and your co-founder are trying to do, I mean, there’s some deep connection there around bringing people together or creating something where individuals can grow their businesses and come from all walks of life and all kinds of businesses. Where does that come from? What’s been [inaudible] for you?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:04:23] Yeah. No, it’s a really great question. I mean, I am quite geeky about real estate, first of all. I know it’s not the sexiest thing to say, but I do love real estate and I love real estate in big, dynamic cities, and I think growing up in London and then I spent five years in New York actually working at a real estate company. And it is very dynamic and a very exciting world.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:04:42] But, yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head, very passionate about building community and about bringing people together and I think that for me, and my co-founder, Will Andrew, will give his own version of why that is so meaningful to him. For me, it is because I grew up in a very religious upbringing where, you know, the weekends were for family and for the community, and it’s been with me since then. And I’ve kind of seen firsthand how a community is so important. When you’re going through something, something, you know, not fun, something negative, you know, having community around is so important in having that support,- but also for the good times. And you’re just that feeling of it being about more than just you and about you playing your role in something bigger. So, it’s always been there with me. And I’m definitely very, very passionate and very much a community person.

Rita Trehan: [00:05:38] And that’s clear to see as you look at the business. I mean, beyond sort of creating this space where people can go, I mean, you’ve really been putting a lot of effort and the team’s been putting a lot of effort into actually giving these people access to networks, to coaches, to venture capitalists. I mean, that’s a pretty cool concept.

Rita Trehan: [00:06:00] How have you been? I mean, clearly, you must have people like climbing to be part of that, right? Like, they must be knocking on your door to be part of that in this particular point in time. How are you getting people to want to be ambassadors and to work with the organizations and what are likely to be young entrepreneurs, maybe older entrepreneurs, who are really looking for some guidance and help because it seems like cruising that community space is an add on that you’re providing for people. Is that right?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:06:35] Yeah. And I think we definitely recognize that our power, you know, our main advantage and the main benefit of choosing to work at Huckletree versus going to any other office or shared workspace or, you know, in our market certainly is that the power of our network. You’ve kind of hit on our ambassadors there. So, we have a network of 100 ambassadors from around the world who are entrepreneurs, investors, or operators and who really – you ask how I, how we incentivize them to get involved. I think for them, it’s for the love of giving back, supporting earlier stage businesses, supporting underrepresented founders because we do a lot of work on that as well, meeting new people, coming across new ideas and innovations for the investors. There’s access to deal flow.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:07:24] So, I think that bringing them on board is kind of a win-win for everyone, for all three parties so to speak, us, our members, and the ambassadors themselves. And again, you know, it is about real estate. It is about creating these beautiful spaces. And we definitely have ideas of where we want to take that in the future and how we want to push those boundaries. But it’s more about the human element of really bringing humans in the same places and seeing the magic that can happen when different people that didn’t know each other meet each other.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:07:56] And we also have an investor program. So, we work with, you know, investment funds across Europe also to kind of tailor introductions between them and our members who might be fundraising, and those members might be very early stage or they might be much later stage scale businesses. And I think that this for us is where we see our value. The value of being a member of her country is in our networks.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:08:22] I think also we focus from very early days on, and I touched upon kind of supporting underrepresented founders. We actually have an accelerator program that we’ve been running since 2017, which is for underrepresented founders within the sustainability space. And it’s a totally pro-bono program. It’s a 12-week program where we help them get ready to raise their seed funding round and we introduce them to investors. And you know, for us, it was very clear. It became very clear at a certain point in time that we really wanted that program to be for underrepresented founders because we can open doors for everyone. But actually opening doors for the people that maybe might not have had such easy access is we felt much more, much more critical, and a much greater value that we can contribute. So, we’re really proud of that. And I think because of that, also again, the ambassador is akin to be involved.

Rita Trehan: [00:09:19] So, yeah. I’m going to ask you the obvious question. We all get asked it, unfortunately, because we’re both women. And, you know, we probably have, I would say, a diverse background, family background. So, we get asked it as well. I’m not going to be one that doesn’t ask it. But you talk about sort of underrepresented individuals and groups and being able to help them. How did you find the journey yourself? I mean, were you helped because your co-founder happens to be a man? Or, you know, did you face the same challenges?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:09:52] It was definitely helpful for me that I had a male co-founder, 100%. It was actually a different co-founder in the beginning, and we would kind of go to investment meetings. And I think if I didn’t have him, I often thank God, I probably would never have raised the money, A, because he was kind of introducing me to the people that would ultimately invest and, B, and perhaps even more so because there were so many meetings where, as the woman in the room and actually then as an entrepreneur without a track record, I really wasn’t spoken to or addressed much during those meetings.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:10:25] So, I think, you know, you ask how the experience was for me. I’m fortunate in that I managed to raise money and launch my business, but I definitely saw firsthand how, and this was only, you know, 2013, 2014, so eight, nine years ago. I definitely saw firsthand how the women in the room can be treated. And I like to think that that has changed a lot over the last 10 years. But the reality is that for many founders and I have other elements of diversity to me as well as you hinted out there, you know, it’s not as easy. It’s not as easy as it might be for some people. And I think when you have this platform like we have with Huckletree, we really want to be able to support and influence that in the right direction.

Rita Trehan: [00:11:12] And how do you find this reaction to that? Do you find that, you know, people are very supportive of looking at underrepresented groups? Or are you finding that, you know, venture funds and venture capitalists and others sort of, I would say, advisors are more akin, wanted to see the kind of the traditional, you know, typical people that fit the kind of mold? Are you seeing a change in that process through the people that you’re helping in that underrepresented group, do you think?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:11:44] Definitely. I think there’s been a massive gear shift with regards to investors and what, you know, the diversity makeup of their portfolio, also of their teams as well, because we obviously know how important it is that if you want to invest in a diverse portfolio, you need to have a diverse decision-making team. So, I think, you know, 10 years ago, again, this whole concept of like diversity and tech diversity in general, it was there, but we were really just kind of scratching on the surface. I think now it’s become so embedded in our minds. And, you know, my husband is an investor and I kind of, you know, see how they’re looking at it through the investment lens and realizing what the impact that their efforts and contributions can make. And also, yeah, just seeing how they’ve evolved as part of that process. I think it’s really incredible. I’m definitely seeing a huge shift, a huge amount more of mutual understanding that the way that it was before, which is that, you know, people who knew the VCs and knew the investors would have access. And if you weren’t that lucky, well, sorry, you know, door is closed kind of thing. I think that mindset is kind of outdated now and everybody’s realizing that we all need to play our role.

Rita Trehan: [00:13:10] I mean, and the business is spread clearly. I mean, you started in the like, you know, in London. You spread out a lot of the major cities. I mean, this clearly is a concept that has sort of global opportunity to it. I can’t help but think, you know, that there are many countries that could see some real benefit from this. I mean, you’ve taken something that I would say, you know, we were trying have tried to do maybe a little bit, but never really did. But actually, you’ve taken way beyond that in terms of the kind of education programs that you’re offering and the commitment that you are giving both of the people that are actually who sign up to be part of the space that they’re working in but also in what you’re doing to grow economies. So do you have ambitions to kind of conquer the world? What do you reckon?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:14:00] And definitely not to conquer the world. I think we have ambitions to start calculating the social value and the impact that we generate and whether we calculate that on a kind of per square foot basis or just by looking at our communities and really understanding the economic and social impacts we’ve had. But our ambition is definitely to be able to calculate and then build on that. And I think it’s really key. And what is really interesting to see is that actually. Whereas, in previous years, that might have just been interesting statistic for us and for us internally in the innovation ecosystem and on our team.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:14:37] Actually, now so many more industries are kind of catching on. So, we do a lot of work, obviously, in the property industry, we’re speaking with landlords and developers every day. And I think what we’re seeing is that even for them, it’s so important that they see that the workspace operators that they might bring into their building contribute to social value and can contribute to that within their building as well. So I think that’s how we’re looking at it. And by the way, forgive me if you hear some background noise. My two children have just come home now.

Rita Trehan: [00:15:06] No. I think that’s absolutely fabulous because I was actually going to say, you know what is so, like I think, so real and actually brilliant have is now, here you are having a podcast, you know, running an extremely successful business. You are a mother of two children and sure, like, you know, you are multitasking and managing. And I think that’s very important for people to sort of, like, listen in here because it doesn’t mean to say that, you know, you have to make a choice between one or the other and life goes on, right? So, it’s great to hear them in the background, to be honest, I think.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:15:43] As long as they don’t come up here and start screaming at me, which they might do, and then I have to negotiate with them.

Rita Trehan: [00:15:48] Like, come and join the conversation. I’m sure they’ll have something to add. Let’s talk a little bit about sustainability because, you know, there’s a lot of, I would say, conversation going on about sustainability. It’s becoming almost as, you know, in the vernacular as we used to talk about diversity and as you’ve said, you know, people are becoming more aware of it in a very different way. I mean, you guys are doing something, again, which I would say is really kind of forward-thinking around how you are looking at sustainability in ways that I wish more organizations were looking at it. So, can you tell me a little bit about this earthrise event that you run because it looks pretty special.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:16:36] Definitely. So, earthrise, I think it was born out of the pandemic, and it was about us thinking what’s the immediate impact that we can have on, you know, from a sustainability perspective? And we weren’t opening new locations because it was mid-pandemic. And if we were, we would have said, we want, you know, to do the fit-outs according to some sustainability metrics, whether it’s skywriting or well or whatever it might be. But we weren’t and we really wanted to contribute to the conversation and help make change.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:17:07] And so, again, it came back to this concept of like network intelligence, the people around us, and how can we leverage our network to put on a really, really interesting event around sustainability. And so, what we did, it was May of 2021 and we put on a full day-long program fully virtual, of course, because it was COVID where we had about 80 speakers from around the world, people from the United Nations to Jimmy Chin to activists and entrepreneurs, politicians. I mean, it was really an incredible, incredible group of people. Lily Cole was our keynote speaker.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:17:46] And we had four stages where throughout the day there were different panel events and keynotes all around the world of sustainability. So at the same time as you might have had a group of people talking about sustainability in the fashion industry and how to evolve the fashion industry into something more sustainable and somebody else talking about the digital future of fashion and how actually fashion is now going to be about buying digital assets and wearing them on our social and in the metaverse versus actually buying fashion and wearing it in real life.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:18:18] You might have had somebody talking about rewilding or the oceans or sustainability and the FMCG industry, and we had reps from Tony’s Chocolonely, and it was just a really incredible day of content and ideas. And it felt very positive and ambitious. And so, off the back of that, we’ve decided that we definitely want to do that again. So we’re throwing it again in May 2022, so in a few months’ time this year. We might even be able to have an element of it in real life in person, which is really exciting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve got these spaces. I mean, we might as well use them for the events, but equally ambitious.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:18:56] And I think the only thing that we’re changing is refining the kind of theme. So, whereas last year it was very broad, it was all about sustainability, and that was really, really incredible. Actually, this year focusing it more on the areas that us as kind of, you know, citizens of like these global cities are really impacted by. So, it’s future cities. It’s mobility and transport. It’s the built environment and construction and proptech and that kind of stuff. So, we’re really, really, really excited and we are signing up some really exciting names more and that’s to come soon.

Rita Trehan: [00:19:34] That sounds brilliant. I’m sure that you’re going to have a lot of people that are going to be interested in that. So, I can’t help but thinking, you know, I do a lot of work with organizations at the moment, and we are seeing sort of organizations trying to come to terms with like what’s happening, like what’s happening with my workforce, like what’s going on, like why is it not how it was before we can all get back to work now. It’s, you know, can’t we just carry on? So, we’ve forgotten about COVID and whatever else it might have created in our minds. But there are lots of organizations and leaders who are struggling right now with disconnected people. You know, we’ve seen massive resignations, individuals going away, you know, want to do something different. I don’t feel like I belong and I don’t feel included. We’re not – we’re an inclusive culture.

Rita Trehan: [00:20:25] I mean, it seems to me, and to somebody on the outside, that whatever you’re creating from a cultural perspective sounds pretty inclusive and because it’s not just a workplace. So, what would you advise to organizations and corporations that have got offices and buildings to kind of create the environment that you’ve been able to create in these locations? That is connecting this ecosystem together really because it is about people sharing ideas. It’s about leveraging off people. The stories tell that on your website. If you look up some of the businesses, they say that. What would be your kind of like, I guess, messages or insights that you would give to leaders today?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:21:17] I think that all of this starts internally with the teams behind the businesses. So for example, at Huckletree, we are really focused on creating opportunity within our employee base. We’re a team of about 60 people at the moment. We were, I think, around 80 pre-covid. We went down to about 40 at our lowest point during COVID, and we’re now slowly but carefully ramping up. We can’t talk – we wouldn’t have agency to talk about diversity and what the start-ups in our ecosystem can and should be doing. And not to say that we’re perfect, but, you know, we have put effort into this. We do think about this. We are passionate about this. And I think a lot of it starts internally with the people behind the businesses themselves and making sure that the team has a diverse make-up. It’s something that we track at Huckletree on a quarterly basis. We track the diversity make-up of our team because, you know, the small business like ours, a couple of people can leave and that can actually dramatically impact your diverse, your sorry, your diversity within the team. So, we’re constantly tracking it and monitoring it, making sure that we’re on top of it, that we improve it and increase it.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:22:39] And, you know, things that come into that, that come to top of mind when you have a hiring process often in businesses that are rapid pace, you need to hire and you need to hire quickly and you need to fill a role and the teams are under-resourced and everybody is crying out for that hire, and you need to move it quickly because you have plans. But that can often come at the expense of diversity. So, you can often find yourself at the end of the process where you’ve met three candidates that maybe don’t bring so much diversity to the table. And the impulse would be to hire the best one. Whereas, actually, if you stop and reflect and say, hold on, you know, we haven’t seen a candidate with a protected characteristic at the final stage of the interview process. So, we need to find that person before we make sure that we’ve actually thought about this from the diversity lens and given ourselves the opportunity to hire someone, diverse the team for this role, then you’re kind of shooting yourselves in the foot.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:23:37] So, it’s always a balance between us about wanting to do things really quickly and hire and we’re excited and we’ve got plans and we want to move fast. But also saying hold on, are we recruiting from the right places? Have we seen the right candidates from that perspective at final stage? So, I think that’s really important. That’s always something that’s on my mind.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:23:55] And then, obviously, once people are in the team, it’s really important to have an inclusive environment and to make everybody feel like everybody’s opinions are heard and equal. And that’s also something that, you know, we’re not perfect, and I’m definitely not here to say that Huckletree is perfect at anything, but we’re definitely focusing on and we definitely have the right intentions towards and making sure that, for example, that people that who might not necessarily be themselves put themselves up for an opportunity get nudged in the right direction and are supported. So, there’s a lot that goes into it. I definitely don’t have all the answers, but I think that, you know, the biggest thing about inclusivity is just making sure that the team is diverse and that everybody feels heard.

Rita Trehan: [00:24:49] Well, it sounds like you speak from a very sort of humble and humility perspective, which is always great to hear in a leader. Tell me, what’s it been like for you? I mean, you know, you wake up like as a young child going, you know, I’m going to be running my own business, I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I know I’m going to be running in my own business and it’s going to have something to do with lots of people. I mean, did you have that kind of foresight at a very early age or is this something that kind of just happened?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:25:24] So, this happened. It’s just happened. I did go to business school. But when I left, I definitely wasn’t thinking about if I wanted to start my own business. I think it was also just a couple of years pre everybody feeling empowered to kind of start their own start-up. It was just back at the time where, you know, my peers were going into investment banks and the kind of management consultancies, and that wasn’t the route that I wanted to take.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:25:46] So, I went to study film and acting in New York, had a very unsuccessful run at an acting career. But whilst I was in New York, I came across this concept of these co-working spaces that I hadn’t seen yet in London, and they were there because they’d started to kind of sprout up whilst I was living in America. But I really just kind of stumbled across the concept and became really passionate about it because exactly as you say, you could be working on a project or working on a business yourself, but yet working in an office with hundreds of other people, and I loved that. And it became about wanting to democratize the kind of Facebook and Google-style of office spaces for everyone, whether you were, again whether you were an entrepreneur working solo or whether you were in a big team, you should have access to these amazing spaces and people and benefits and all the amenities of the space that like Facebook and Google offer.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:26:40] I think at one point we even contemplated putting a ball pond meeting room in one of our spaces and then my co-founder said, “Gabby. That’s a ridiculous idea. It’s not because they have it in Google does it mean that we’re going to do it at Huckletree.” But those are the kind of things that really inspired us. And funnily enough to your question around lots of people, I always say that if I were – life after Huckletree, what that might look like for me, like working at one of the big companies where there are lots of people is probably where I would naturally want to go because I do love being surrounded by people on a daily basis. So, I think that’s probably why I’ve really, you know, and I am so passionate about Huckletree.

Rita Trehan: [00:27:20] So, Gabby, I had read about you and knew about your pursuit into acting. Do you think the fact that it didn’t work out, did that make you stronger when you started your own business in terms of like some of the challenges that you probably faced as you set huckleberry up, Huckletree up, and like, you know, got it going? Do you think that experience has somehow shaped your leadership going forward?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:27:49] I think so. I was only thinking about this today because I was – every Wednesday, we have an all-hands with our full team. And it’s either myself or my co-founder who runs it. And actually, the one that we did today was we were trialing a new format where anyone from the team could ask any question to the leadership team, and we would answer it kind of in real-time without preparing anything. And it’s quite tricky to do that because you don’t have your answers prepared and you have to kind of think on your feet and give the right answers, offer the right balance of information but not information overload and sharing, but not sharing details of things that may or may not come to fruition, managing expectations.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:28:28] And then, after that, we started touching upon the war in Ukraine and what’s happening in Ukraine right now. And constantly, there’s this nagging thought of am I saying the right thing? Am I, you know, am I going to make any mistakes? Am I saying the right thing? Am I expressing myself in the right way? And then afterwards, just thinking, you know, you can’t always be perfect and it can’t always be right. But if you speak from the heart and if you say things with the right intentions and that are truthful, you know, it’s a pretty good starting point.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:29:02] So, that kind of brings me back to, I guess, my days. I mean, I don’t know if it is because I think also my leadership team is all really good at this and just kind of thinking on our feet. You know, they didn’t come necessarily from a film background. But they have that. And I think that, actually, I’m getting to the point where maybe it wasn’t so much of my, you know, short brief stint in the film industry, but actually more of the last sort of, you know, nine, 10 years working at Huckletree that where I have developed myself and I have overcome my inhibitions and become a more confident person as a result of that versus anything before Huckletree, which may have helped, but definitely not in the same way as the last 10 years. The last 10 years have been a really, really big learning curve for me.

Rita Trehan: [00:29:43] So, let’s talk about a little bit about that because I’m sure there are many, you know, men, women listening to this podcast going like, she’s got to be kidding me, right? She just said like, you know, like that she wasn’t necessarily confident or, you know, don’t have some ambitions. Or, you know, isn’t the woman that we’re hearing on this podcast, like surely that’s not true. But, so share that a little bit. Share some of that, like what, you know how you’ve kind of dealt with that, how have you grown that confidence, how have you become comfortable with the capabilities that you have and actually, you know, can value the fact that you’re good at what you do?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:30:27] I think it’s a fair question. I mean, I think I’ve gone through like kind of phases of this in my life as a child and somebody at, sort of, secondary school, I was very, very shy, and then I went to university and I loved the environment and I felt very, very, very comfortable and confident in the environment, and I wasn’t shy at all. And then, when I started Huckletree, I think I felt probably a little bit out of my depth, to be perfectly honest. And I felt like, you know, as we were talking about before, I’m this woman in business. I don’t have a track record. I’m going out trying to raise money. I actually have no idea how to do this or what should come next in the process or how I’m actually eventually going to get this business off the ground. And I remember at the time really leaning on my now husband and my brother, who, you know, to guide me through the process and to say, okay, okay. Help me. You know, I don’t understand. What should I do? How can I meet investors? How can I find them? Where do I find them? What do I even need to kind of go and see them? And I was very lucky that I had that support system in them around me.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:31:30] And then, when we launched Huckeletree, again, the early days were okay because we launched with a very small space and it was myself and one other person. And then, all of a sudden we grew and I fell out of my depth again and kind of constantly questioning if what I was doing was right, but then also trying, you know, optically to have this bravado of like, I’m doing a good job and whatnot. And I think now I’m finally at a point where I’m not going to be good at everything. I don’t need to pretend that I’m good at everything. I don’t need to pretend that I know everything. I know what I am good at and that’s enough. And I also know where my development areas are, and I’m very happy to be vocal about them. And I don’t, you know, I don’t need to feel like I need to pretend to anyone that I’ve got it all kind of sorted. So, I guess I’m at a place now of, like, finally feeling confident in the knowledge that I don’t know everything if that makes sense.

Rita Trehan: [00:32:25] That’s great. I think that’s a great insight for the listeners that are listening about, you know, as you’ve expressed. It’s about not, you know, you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, right? You don’t have to know it all. What you have to do is, as you said, is kind of like know what you do know and what you don’t know and leverage that. And I think this is the decade where we will see leaders needing that kind of capability of not being, knowing everything to be really important as we lead people, organizations, and businesses through the next decade and beyond. So, I think it’s a really good, interesting piece of insight for listeners to take away, especially those that might be doubting themselves as they’re thinking about starting their businesses or, you know, facing some challenges right now.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:33:18] Hundred percent. And I think, you know, there is always and actually this feeds a lot into kind of initial thoughts around the accelerator program when we launched it in 2017, which is, you know, shouldn’t everybody have that support group. And I know we touched on the kind of access to investors, but actually, in the beginning, it’s just about having a support group that can help you, help you understand what comes next and how to plan for that and how to prepare. And a lot of people don’t have access to that.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:33:46] And also, you know that not-knowing stage of like, you know, for me from having the concept of Huckletree to when we actually launched, it was a period of like three years. I think I had the idea in 2011 and then we actually finally launched in 2014. But it doesn’t have to take that long. And I think that with the right groups and the right knowledge sharing around, things can happen faster and founders now can have, you know, access to information that I would hope would make them much more confident than I was back at the time. So, definitely kind of something the way that we’re thinking of how we can support founders in the ecosystem.

Rita Trehan: [00:34:25] I’m really interesting to see how the business has sort of like grown and progressed, you know, from a place where you would bring people together so that they could be creative and sort of start their businesses to kind of offering all of these sorts of add-on support systems and networks that is actually helping them not only to grow personally but their businesses. And I think the thing that sort of blew me away the most was the work that you’re actually doing with young early-career individuals within organizations and helping them to think through their careers independently of how they might be within their own organizations. Tell me about that because that that I thought was very interesting and really innovative in terms of the work that you’re doing, which you know, is linked to some of the accelerator programs and other programs that you’re doing. So, just share a little bit with that because I can think of so many young people, I’m like, “Oh, my God. Like, they’d be like, they’d be all over this right now.”

Gabriela Hersham: [00:35:27] Yeah. No. And that was another thing that came out of lockdown was, like, this need for like networks and support groups and proper learning opportunities. And I think so much of our focus has and has always been on the founders behind the business and whatnot because, you know, we are a business with lots of entrepreneurial people within. But actually, we thought, hold on. There are so many people behind these businesses that also crave development, and maybe sometimes the founders are too busy dealing with COVID and trying to survive or just growing their business to really think through the learning and the development of each their team members, especially when you’re in a kind of early stage of the business.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:36:04] So, we developed this program called the Hundreds Club, which basically runs four tracks a year, each track around a different domain. So, we’ve done marketing. We’ve done sales. We’re doing digital products right now. We’ve just done people in culture. And it brings together 25 people in that domain and gives them like eight weeks worth of mentoring, workshops, peer support group in each other where they can all meet each other and actually kind of brainstorm obstacles as they go through their careers together. And it’s been probably our most successful educational product to date, which is amazing and kind of speaks to the fact that sometimes it’s actually not the people that you obviously think need the support that really do. So, that’s been great.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:36:45] And just to touch on your, you know, you were asking there earlier, kind of curious to hear how Huckletree has grown over time. So, I think, you know, when I look back and I start thinking about our first small space in Clerkenwell in London, where we had 40 members and we were two team members, we’re now a team of 60 people, incredible talent within the team, people that I’m really lucky to work alongside on a daily basis. And we have six hubs across London, Manchester, and Dublin with just under 200,000 square feet and about 3000 members across our hubs. So, we’re really proud of where we’ve come to, but we also feel like we have a lot of growth to come over the next few years. So, we’re really looking forward to the next few years also.

Rita Trehan: [00:37:29] Well, I’m looking forward to the growth over the next few years because I think there’s going to be a lot of people that kind of graduate from the networks that they create momentum, to create great businesses going forward that are, you know, making an impact in the right ways. And like, I am, you know, I keep looking at all the offices that you’ve got around London and I can’t decide which one I want to go to because they all sound like really interesting because they’ve all got a different theme to them. So, my mind goes like, “Oh, wouldn’t that be interesting to go and see what the kind of people that are there and what can I learn from them?”

Rita Trehan: [00:38:03] So, I think getting the word out about Huckletree is really important. So, because I think it is truly unique and really interesting the kind of work that you’re doing. So, you know, I’d like to talk to you more but we are coming close to time. But before we end, there are two things I would like to ask you. The first one is, you know, what do you think is the net? I mean, obviously, you’ve got some great events coming up, but what can you do to help really spread the word about the work that you’re doing in the organization? So, what would you encourage listeners to do? And then lastly, what’s you daring to moment? What have you dared to do in the world either personally or from business or something that you want to do that’s important to you?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:38:56] I think I’ll start with the last one. The daring to, I mean, I’ve dared and had the audacity to try and run a business whilst, you know, having two children and being a full-time mum. I think that’s pretty daring. I like to think that I put myself out of my comfort zone on a daily basis.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:39:12] Actually, I was in an interview with an incredible lady earlier today who was telling me, and we were interviewing her for a role that we’re hiring for. I asked her a very similar question. I said, “What’s the last thing that you did that put you out of your comfort zone?” And she said, “I do that every day. I’m a woman in business. I’ve got a baby at home. I’m trying to make it all work together.”

Gabriela Hersham: [00:39:27] And I fully, fully, fully aligned myself to that. So, I think that that’s enough. But I also jumped out of a plane in the past life, and I’m pretty proud of that as well. I’m not sure I would do that again now that I have children, but I was a daredevil kind of pre-having children. In terms of your other questions, you might need to remind me what they were.

Rita Trehan: [00:39:50] So, I mean, how can people find out more about Huckletree? How can we get more word out there about what you guys are doing? You know, how people that might see themselves either wanting to connect with other people, might be in an underrepresented entrepreneur, that wants to connect is looking for a workspace that offers this kind of opportunity not just for a place to work, but a sort of like a community really. What’s the best way for them to find out more about [inaudible] community?

Gabriela Hersham: [00:40:18] I think our website. Yeah. So, our website has a lot of information about the work that we do. You know, all of the locations that you mentioned are just there, but then also all of our different educational programs and the impact that we’re having. So, our website is definitely the best place to find all the information. And then, if anybody wants to get in touch, we’re always – we’d love to talk. So if it’s, you know, through the website again or through our socials, we’re on all of the socials, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. We’d love to chat and we’re always looking to bring new, exciting, passionate people into our communities.

Rita Trehan: [00:40:58] That’s great. Gabby, it’s been great to talk to you. I mean, I think we’d love to have you back, I think, at some point because I think there’s a lot more to the journey of the company and the organization to come. And I look forward to hearing how you progress. So, thank you very much for being on the show today.

Gabriela Hersham: [00:41:16] Rita, thank you. Thank you for having me. And it’s been wonderful chatting and getting – well, I haven’t got to know you as much as I would have liked to, but thank you again for bringing me on and it’s been nice chatting with you.

Rita Trehan: [00:41:26] That’s great. You’re welcome. And if you want to know more about Dare Worldwide, you can find us on our website, www.darewordlwide.com. Check out our latest report. It’s all about inclusivity, but not how you think about inclusivity but how we kind of bring all of those strands of sustainability, inclusivity, diversity, and connection back into the workplace. If you’re interested, do check out the report. Thank you for listening. If you liked it, please make sure that you rate it on podcasts, and it’s been great having you again. Thank you.

Outro: [00:42:00] Thanks for listening. Enjoyed the conversation? Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes of Daring To. Also, check out our website dareworldwide.com for some great resources around business in general, leadership, and how to bring about change. See you next time.