Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kayla Schroader. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kayla , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

When The Pod Works first opened its doors in 2017, it was one of the few coworking spaces available in Tacoma and even the greater South Puget Sound. Even then and still today, it is the only kid-friendly coworking space in our growing city. Families are booming here and the creative spirit is strong, but it’s hard to find a balance between work and play when you don’t exactly fit into the old gender roles or molds. It can be a challenge for those families who either can’t always afford or commit to childcare or those who prefer to have their little ones close and a part of all the brainstorming and dream building when the world seems to outcast those juggling families, writing them off as a disturbance or liability. If you’re a parent of little ones, you know what we mean.

Coworking spaces seem to pop up everywhere nowadays, for many reasons, but a large one being the Covid era turn toward remote and work from home positions and the realization that it’s not an easy or ideal balance without spaces and support systems like ours. We understand the need for shared space and community, the power of the collective mindset, and the benefit of meaningful relationships and resources. Whether you’re in your first year, learning early development skills and socialization, or a parent of grown littles willing to mentor the next generation. This space is all of those things, with a spirit of collaboration over competition. How refreshing!

The better together and growth mentality that Our Pod Family embodies are what brought together key players who helped expand our spaces and offerings to include childcare and designated adult workspace when that was what our families need and bringing homeschool and afterschool pods to our spaces for the next chapter. All the while making sure that we don’t lose our foundation in access to those crucial parent and child shared spaces for the earliest years.

We love doing things a little different around here.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Natasha and Kayla joined forces thanks to coworking sessions at The Pod Works with their preschool-aged children and as Natasha prepared to welcome her second. Long afternoons of coffee and wine chats led to dreams of combining the services of The Pod Works kid-friendly coworking and event space and Tacoma Children’s School’s preschool and enrichment class programs, also implementing a rare find for flexible drop-in childcare and designated adults-only workspace. The Pod Family mission, teamwork making the dream work and being better together, was showing up in the best ways. All the while our families and others who joined us were making lasting connections. Our children were growing up together and becoming the best of friends, not to mention coming up with little business plans of their own. That’s what we’re most proud of.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Covid shook us all, especially young parents, who feared the worst. But it didn’t shake our belief in the better together mentality, even with the world encouraging us to keep our distance. We found ways to meet in small groups, to establish learning pods for our kids, and to meet virtually all the while. Isolation is hard enough for the new parent navigating a new life but add in the dark twist and the world seems quite bleak and hopeless. But you’re not alone. Not when your part of our pod! Our members continued to belief in life beyond pandemic and paid their dues to keep our doors open when we didn’t fit all the checkmarks for the government funds. Big brother didn’t save us, but our families and small business owners sure did. It’s why we say, The Pod Works.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We were born out of motherhood, but we knew that eventually our mom-minded space would need to expand to welcome all parents and caregivers, so it was a timely transition as we reopened post Covid and took off the “4 M-O-M-S” letter blocks from our “The Pod Works kid-friendly coworking” sign. If you look closely, you can still see their imprints on the felt board.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ourpodfamily.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepod_works and https://www.instagram.com/thecolabworks
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepodworks and https://www.facebook.com/thecolabworks
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctqd1daWxMQ

Image Credits
Professional photos by Heather Leacy Photography