The Riveter is Seattle’s first all female co-working space
Mar 29, 2017, 5:18 PM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 9:52 am
The Riveter's co-founders, Kim Peltola (left) and Amy Nelson (photo courtesy of Nelson and Peltola)
(photo courtesy of Nelson and Peltola)
As freelancing, telecommuting and entrepreneurship continues to grow in this country, so does working from a co-working space. People want to work among other people, instead of toiling away alone at home or at a coffee shop. And Seattle is about to get its very first female-only workspace.
“The Riveter is an inspired space for women, work and wellness,” said Kim Peltola, co-founder of The Riveter. “We are a collaborative space to help women succeed in business and in health. We really want to create a culture where it’s common for women to take time for self care. We have a studio where we can practice yoga and pilates. We also have a meditation room and we have holistic practitioners such as acupuncturists and massage therapists.”
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Amy Nelson is the other co-founder of Riveter.
“We built The Riveter because we both needed it,” Nelson said. “Kim and I come from incredibly different backgrounds. Kim is a social worker and a licensed mental health therapist and I’m a corporate litigator. Kim went out on her own in private practice a couple years ago and felt herself feeling very isolated, working alone. For me, I was working full time up until January and I’d been considering going out on my own, but couldn’t find the resources for how to build a business or a community to support me in going out on my own.”
So programming became an essential component for The Riveter.
“Something like 7 percent of venture funds go to women and I know that women have more than 7 percent of the good ideas,” Nelson said. “So what we’re doing is we’re trying to help women overcome those pain points through extensive programming. We’re holding pitch clinics, we’re holding seminars on how to write a business plan, how to raise a seed fund. It’s interesting because Kim and I have been living this since we’ve been growing The Riveter from an idea to actual, physical spaces.”
The Riveter
Through surveys and conversations with other working women, they found that women tend to want different things in a co-working space than men do. Namely, they want community.
“From our respective, we think there are amazing benefits to women helping other women,” Nelson said. “We are allowing our members to share their skills and resources and we are incentivizing members to hire within The Riveter. Say you’re a marketing consultant and you need to revamp your website, we will give you incentives like yoga classes and conference room credits if you find someone at The Riveter to do that work for you. The way I look at it too, in terms of a space built for women, is I’ve walked into so many spaces built for men and so many spaces where I didn’t feel like I fit in. I think that is not an experience unique for me. So we’re trying to create a space built for women and reflects what we need and want.”
This means no foosball tables or kegs.
The Riveter will open in Capitol Hill on May 1, but Nelson and Peltola have plans to open a second space in Bellevue and the goal is to have 20 West Coast locations by 2021.
“What is called the gig economy is exploding across America and the US Department of Labor estimates that 60 million Americans will be working remotely by 2020,” Nelson said. “Then when you look at women business owners, there’s 4,000 in Seattle alone.”
Oh, and if you’re a lover of TV tabloid gossip, you may be extra intrigued by the building The Riveter is occupying.
“We are in the Real World’s last venue,” Nelson said with a laugh. “We need some mystical, spiritual cleaning because the last season of the Real World, I think the theme was Bad Blood!”
