Creative Habitat is a coworking community that offers childcare and is tailored toward entrepreneurial moms. Creative Habitat also provides coaching on tools and strategies needed to develop a habit of carving out creative time and space in day-to-day living.
Creative Habitat was established by Rebecca Wolford, a mompreneur living in Des Moines seeking a solution for busy moms who also are looking to fulfill their creative needs outside of parenting.
Creative Habitat is currently running their first pilot-program this summer and is in the process of applying for several nonprofit accelerators that will help them gain their footing in the Des Moines community.
“I would say we’ve largely been in the ideation and stage up until this point,” Wolford said. “We’re really starting to put some meat to the bones with getting a team together, getting the pilot program going to learn best practices moving forward. We’ve already had really good feedback so far.”
Wolford says Creative Habitat has the potential to easily scale now that the infrastructure is in place.
“I see this growing really quickly once we have a few other leaders step up and say yeah, I’d like to try this model out in my community.”
Shifting the business model
Originally, Wolford envisioned Creative Habitat as becoming one large space that merged a coworking space and childcare.
“Then I realized, there are tons of spaces in the community that people already know and trust, and we can bring our programming and childcare to those spaces,” Wolford said. “And this can meet two needs. It can bring more business to those spaces and also meets our need of not having to have the overhead of a space.”
Now, Creative Habitat’s focus is on partnering with spaces and on bringing programming into those spaces to meet those family’s needs.
In addition to changing up their business model, Creative Habitat has also brought on a new member, Heather Nerem. Nerem, a former elementary school principal, will help Creative Habitat in developing curriculum and teaching programs.
“She has a similar vision to what we’re trying to do,” Wolford said. “We’re really excited to have her on board.”
Succeeding with Venture School
Creative Habitat participated in Venture School’s spring 2018 cohort.
“The Venture School curriculum really helped me solidify and eloquently explain what the need was and how Creative Habitat was going to meet that need,” said Wolford. “And I feel like I was struggling with that prior to Venture School.”
To learn more about Creative Habitat, check them out on Facebook or follow them at creativehabitatmoms on Instagram.
Previous coverage
Scouting Report: Creative Habitat working on child-friendly coworking – Dec. 12, 2017