“It feels like home.” That’s what Bridgid Coulter, founder of Blackbird House, has been told about her Culver City coworking space for women of color.
A labor of love, Blackbird House is Coulter’s brainchild born from a desire to create a safe, inclusive space for women of color entrepreneurs who want to feel represented, reflected, and whole.
“Blackbird is a coworking space, but it’s a little bit more than that. It’s a private collective for women of color, and it’s also welcome to allies and it’s about productivity, wellness, and community, and truly it’s just equal access for women of color to the places in the workplace for us to have a work-life balance, and for us to connect with our community. That’s the bottom line. It is really connected with community,” Coulter explains in a recent episode of UnBossed Podcast.
Coulter’s career trajectory has been one of incredible successes in a range of fields including acting, philanthropy, architecture and interior design. “I’m basically a serial entrepreneur. So I like to start a lot of things, but really to solve problems.”
Blackbird House was conceived out of Bridgid’s desire to reimagine coworking spaces with women of color in mind and the need to swiftly move into her own office. She had just finished a building project that sold fast. So, she had to quickly find a workspace for herself and her small team.
Coulter discovered a coworking space that had been around for almost a decade but she didn’t see herself reflected there.
“We weren’t represented frankly. We were there but in such a small percentage. It was inspiring and productive and I noticed that my small design team, we were getting a lot done. And I thought, what if we had that for us? What it would look like if the tables were turned and we were still inclusive to allies, but that we were the majority. What would that mean?”
So she got to work on a space that felt not only inclusive but like home for women of color and it has made all the difference.
“You walk in [and] you can let your hair down,” she says with a smile.
One of the most inspiring things about Bridgid’s vision for Blackbird House is its foundational principle of wellness.
“Part of the inspiration for starting Blackbird was because I’m a workaholic and entrepreneurship is just it’s a grind,” Coulter confesses.
“I wanted to infuse that idea of wellness and that in central concept of wellness in a practical way. So we put it in the space. So we have meditation, we have yoga, we have a breath work classes, workout classes right there.”
Listen to Bridgid Coulter’s UnBosssed Podcast “Bonus Boss” Segment right after Dr. Key Hallmon on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.