34: Behind the scenes of creating a coworking community for women w/ Amanda M. Diehl
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AMANDA DIEHL: Behind the scenes of co-founding and running a successful coworking space for women
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MEET AMANDA M. DIEHL
Amanda is a lover of experiences, people, the wild outdoors and spicy pad thai.. She grew up between Montana and the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, where she learned to value an adventurous life, and thrive in relatively unpredictable circumstances. Many of her childhood summers were spent on her grandparent’s farm in Townsend, MT, moving pipe (begrudgingly), playing in the fields with too many cousins to count and watching her grandparents offer their home as a welcome and safe haven for anyone passing through needing rest and a hot meal.
Fast forward, she holds a masters degree in public health, spent 5 years working as a consultant for a public health informatics company, loves being mama to a few wild children, opened and sustained her first business despite a pandemic and is fully aware that she is living her purpose on a daily basis.
Amanda believes wholeheartedly in the transformative power of human connection, and knows that when she is putting her energy there, the world is a better place for each of us.
AMANDA DIEHL
Helloooo and welcome back to the Montana Diaries Podcast, I’m Shayna and I’m so freaking stoked you’re here because today we have an incredible entrepreneur with us today, Amanda Diehl, the owner/operator of Sky Oro in Bozeman, MT. Sky Oro is a gorgeoussss co-working space for women that I personally go to every time I’m passing through Bozeman, MT because the photography/videography side of the business has me traveling quite often. Here’s how their website sums up Sky Oro: “An activated community of badasses who are brave enough to be vulnerable and bold enough to help each other get to the top in their lives.” How cool is that!? Side note, friends, I have this future vision of a creative space/content creation space/rentable studio mixed with a coworking space, so I freaking attacked Amanda with all of my questions when I first met her in person and she was gracious enough to move the conversation to the pod. So welcome to my selfish business coaching sesh, ha! Let’s get right into it.
Behind the scenes of co-founding and running a successful coworking space for women
Amanda started her career in the public health sphere — during her first career, she was always surrounded by colleagues and collaboration and really thrived in that environment. When she moved back to Helena, MT, Amanda realized that people in her field were uninspired at work, and wondered how she could foster a more creative and collaborative culture in her workplace. When her contract with her government job expired, she knew she was moving to Bozeman, and so she started pitching creative coworking spaces to everyone who would listen. As she did so, she realized there were many more people with the exact need for a beautiful and inspiring workspace and a community to lean on.
Amanda soon got connected with a like-minded partner, Christina, and together they hit the ground running with starting what is now Sky Oro, a creative coworking space for women in the Cannery district of Bozeman, MT.
Amanda and Christina made a goal of crowd funding $200,000 to start the coworking space — they met their goal and some within 6 weeks, and created a tight-knit community from those initial members who committed before the space even opened.
“I know now that I can do nothing on my own — I need to be surrounded by minds that are much more intelligent than I am, who have other zones of genius, who can help you think bigger and lean into the discomfort of staying outside my comfort zone.”
The next phase of Sky Oro is all about facilitating community — Amanda recognized in herself that she struggles to lean on community and her network, and she leads a community coworking space, so others must feel the same. A huge part of this intitiative is bringing the value of the community online — Sky Oro now offers virtual memberships beyond the in-person experience that also includes a platform for communication and events.
After Amanda explained her heart and vision for the future of Sky Oro beautifully, she spent ten minutes being ridiculously candid in response to my super nosy logistical/integrator questions about how Sky Oro is ran! You’ll have to listen to the episode to get exact dollar amounts and processes — huge thanks to Amanda for being such a good sport, ha!
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