We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Nilan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The idea came to us at the heels of the pandemic. We had just moved to Austin, a new place full of amazing possibility. With east coast roots, we were ready to embrace southern hospitality, a slower pace and warmer weather. Both remote working parents, we lived through the unique challenges of young parenthood in a new place. Where to get childcare? How to extricate yourself from your house? How to experience a new city when you have kids in tow? How in the world do you even begin to make new friends?

Coworking spaces had this allure of a modern office and city ambiance, though an expensive price tag. Even with great amenities, coworking spaces didn’t garner the foot traffic that traditional coffee shops did. There’s something about being in a coffee shop, maybe it’s the way the coffee energizes you or how the vibes make you feel, or all of it combined. But what about the kiddos? Totally new to us was this concept of drop-in childcare, which seemed to be everywhere in our new neighborhood, from gyms to churches to even standalone establishments that specialized in it. As a remote working parent, you have to drive to 3 different places just to get what you want and you have to pay a pretty penny for it. What if you could just get everything in one place? Drop-in childcare, coworking AND a coffee shop? Birth to Think Lounge.

The idea had to be validated. I am a brand manager at heart, so before I did anything else, I created the brand first. I knew that something like this had to be wrapped up into a brand that people could come to love and understand. A brand that they could relate to and bond with. We put such an incredible amount of thinking and effort into building something that really had a soul. It is like a newborn baby and it is a manifestation of our deep need to rediscover ourselves after parenthood and build community again in this new age post-pandemic, when it’s not necessarily as easy to do so.

When you have a strong brand, the rest easily follows. How to structure the business, who to partner with, what to name it, what you look like, what you stand for, how you show up, who your customers are and how to communicate with them. It all starts with the brand. We made the brand in 2022, but it took until 2024 to actually open. That’s my short way of saying that opening a brick and mortar location is by far one of the most challenging things you can do as a small business that operates on nothing but your hard earned life savings and some borrowed money. It is capital intensive, requires thick skin, a lot of charming others and staying faithful to your brand and idea through it all. You learn hard lessons every single day and you are defined by how you respond to the lessons. As they say, the faster you can fail, the faster you can succeed. We’re so grateful to be surrounded by such a supportive community of family members, staff, business partners, neighbors, friends and customers. Together we as a village make Think Lounge come to life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Think Lounge is Austin’s newest drop-in co-working space and first to offer both a childwatch and cafe. Founded by parents for parents, it uniquely designed to tackle the challenges of balancing career and family, serving as a one stop shop to get productive or even take a break. With affordable pricing and flexible scheduling, it perfectly fits into a busy parent’s schedule and budget. Additionally, our childwatch is a screen-free, play-based activity center. Our highly qualified staff can adapt to each child’s unique needs, whether that is a stimulating activity or quiet time. We’re a caring and dedicated team who absolutely love working with kids. We have so much respect for parents and the hard work that they do. We are committed to providing positive experiences for both children and parents alike.

Our company’s mission is to build the most ideal workspace for parents and their communities. Supporting families is at the heart of everything we do. Our company values are family, community, productivity and energy. Our vision is to support and enable customers with an ideal space to pursue their passions, interests and career, make meaningful connections among fellow neighbors, or simply take a break from the daily grind with a change of scenery. Our primary target is remote working parents, but we also believe our space has a lot to offer stay-at-home parents, self-employed, those seeking work, students, freelancers and entrepreneurs.

Website homepage: mythinklounge.com

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

As an entrepreneur, you often wear many hats and you do absolutely all the jobs. You think that just because it is a small business AND YOUR business, you should roll up your sleeves and figure it all out yourself. You think to yourself, you have an MBA, surely you can be the accountant, finance manager, fundraiser, marketer, supply chain manager, barista, childcare provider, childcare director, janitor….. Quickly I realized how unsustainable this was. Probably the most important skill of all the skills I could have is to be a people manager and spend time finding quality people and partners to help me do all the jobs. Not every recruit or hire has to be expensive either. I learned that other business owners would help for barters, trades or just plain old because they became your friend. Friendships and relationships are everything to me and building them goes such a long way in terms of manifesting things beyond what you yourself could achieve. Could you do all the jobs? Sure, you probably can, but spending time building key relationships may just maximize both your time and impact.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

This isn’t a story in the past necessarily, but something we are just living through everyday during our ramp up period. Before you open, you just have a very conceptual idea of what your sales and operating expenses are going to be like. You think you’re being conservative but it’s amazing how reality continues to hit you in new ways you wouldn’t expect. I’ve had to get used to experiencing this sinking feeling in my stomach every time there is a set back. You literally think you are done but then somehow you just keep going. There is a step you can take, an action you can do and there are many more opportunities to stay in the game. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather acting in spite of it. I’ve described the business as a newborn baby and in many ways, nothing really prepares you for that first newborn baby until you go through it. Your survival instinct kicks in and you discover just how strong you can be for your baby. We aren’t really in the clear yet, but we are fighting everyday and we see the light at the end of the tunnel approaching, ever so slowly. Whenever I feel discouraged, I just read the Google reviews from my customers who I never asked for a Google review from and it reminds me why I fight.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mythinklounge.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mythinklounge/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mythinklounge
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mythinklounge/

Image Credits

Brayden King
Lupita Calderon