Creating Supportive Spaces for Women Entrepreneurs with Pinky Ghadiali

Matt chats with Pinky Ghadiali about why she started Netwomen.co, the purpose behind Netwomen.co, Pinky Ghadiali's story, and creating supportive spaces for women entrepreneurs.

• Pinky Ghadiali's Story / The Purpose Behind Netwomen.co [0:20:00]
• What Netwomen.co does [2:56:00]
• Discussion about the experience [4:12:00]

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Netwomen
• Netwomen Uncut Podcast

Episode transcript: Transcript of the episode’s audio.

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Episode Transcript:

starting out hey I'm here with Pinky Ghadiali and she is the creator of netwoman.co how are you doing today? I'm really good how about yourself I did very well really nice to be chatting with you thanks again for taking the time to chat with me can you tell us more about what net women is and why you got into that yeah, so thank you so much for asking me to come on here. I really appreciate it netwoman.co came about because I started my business as a life and business coach helping women who are struggling with perfection and with the fact that they are high achievers and very successful and struggling with imposter syndrome so that was my main reason for going to networking events at the time and when I used to go to networking events and that was five years ago here in Edinburgh I used to come across a sea of men in grey suits and that was very daunting and I felt quite intimidated by it all and i felt that I wasn't really in the room I didn't belong and I didn't feel like I was comfortable so there were many times where I'd turn up to these events and walk away so I decided to create my own and that started off as an in-person event in edinburgh and glasgow

And it was really fun we enjoyed the networking and lots of women were able to talk and come along and the whole point of starting that was because I'd started a business and i was working from home I was remote I felt alone I felt isolated and I felt stuck and I felt that there wasn't a supportive community that was out there for me so I started this and in the process i developed women in networking and then last year towards the end of last year.

I decided to globalize the business and really did not know you know no one knew that covered was going to happen didn't know that kobe was around the corner and it happened and actually covered made the world a smaller place in terms of people are now able to connect online people are more open to connect online and our community network.co has grown by 200 over the last five months and what we do is we help women who are struggling with the social isolation right now feeling alone and stuck and offer that supportive community for you where we offer networking events we offer coffee and chat we offer mastermind groups where you can come along and feel safe and talk about your challenges and it's about creating your killer mindset it's about the diversity and inclusion and belonging and also the fact that at this point in time I think there is a massive gap in the market when it comes to mental health support and supporting people through this really difficult time which has been quite challenging for many and we don't know what the figures are but I certainly know that there is a pandemic of mental health issues that has come out of covid and and so we're here to support you through that/

That's great so when you were originally building this did you meet a lot of other women who were kind of running to the same experience where they would go to these networking events and feel like okay i don't really fit in here or I'm not really comfortable speaking because i'm not taking maybe the way that you're being perceived by others or how has that been i certainly think that that is one of the factors that women struggle with specifically in certain industries where there is obviously still a very male dominant vibe such as in law or finance or in stem and there's you know that even more corporates are understanding this and building their own women's networks but what I’m hearing is that there is no consistency with these networks that people aren't getting the support that they need specifically in the areas that are most challenging which is socially connecting with people perhaps people that you're not necessarily in that bubble with all the time and being able to be open and honest and share experiences is what we are achieving within that women which I haven't seen anywhere else I haven't seen that ability to connect with people when you go to a networking event for instance where you don't feel comfortable and awkward not being able to go in and make that conversation obviously being online now has made it a little bit easier but even still i'm going to networking events where i'm seeing lots of pictures on the room of lots of men but very few women again that seems to be a bit of a challenge so netwomen.co has helped really build up confidence for women and for them to say you know what now I've come to your events I can go to these events where i feel more confident and i feel like I belong now because I've got the experience so it's it's really rewarding to see that happen

That's great yeah I mean I mean the fact that you're doing this mainly from a place where you want to really feel satisfaction in helping other women feel comfortable it's really fantastic have you have you ran into into any like pushback at all against what you're doing or do you get a lot of people who are kind of skeptical of of what you do no because we are partnering with other communities and other interesting companies who are diverse inclusive and really helping support and promote women's networks because I think that there is there's a definite difference in the way that women and men talk to each other and also the way that they network and certainly we are a non-salesy non-pitchy space where we are talking about building genuine relationships and making those connections so that you can then lead and succeed and be able to share and be open about your stories and things and not have to worry about what kind of judgment you're going to get back from it so not really i think I've been really lucky the people that I have reached out to have been really supportive and really wanting to collaborate and support us and push our our brand forward

That's really fantastic so when it comes to when it comes to all the breakthroughs with the stories that women are sharing when they come to your events have you experienced that that's been something that's more present during this transition to doing this more online or do you feel like it had worked or you had gotten more of those kind of experiences at the in-person events how do you how has that been going I think that there's been a really good uptake of online events i think that during the time when we were able to meet in person it's not it's a different event I certainly miss the social connection because I’m the social person and I think the conversations coming out of that a certain thing that the key is in the follow-up so anything that you do it's important to follow up after a conversation.

And not just leave it if you are interested in doing things with that person or collaborating or finding out more about them it is about that follow-up and building that relationship and exactly the same happens when we're on a zoom call we break out into smaller rooms we are able to have those interesting conversations that are open and certainly challenges that come up and I think we're much more likely to share when we're in a smaller group than we are if we're in a big zoom core of 50 people it makes it much easier when when we're splitting off into smaller groups so that seems to have worked really well I think that answers your question yeah I think that's a good answer regarding getting ready to share stories on your platform is there any kind of like preparation you do beforehand just to help people feel you know more comfortable with sharing their stories what what is that process kind of like usually I think certainly because we are so informal and so fun and so friendly and relaxed we're all about you know there is no agenda and I think that really makes it easy for people to feel like they're not being judged and that they can come into the space and just be themselves and just you know act as they would do and we've had many testimonials and some of them are you know it's almost like coming to a group of being with a group of friends which is really important and that for me is what I've always wanted to achieve with this is the fact that you feel like you love the space enough to call it your own home and for the it's a friendly enough space where you feel like you're in a group of friends and we've also got a podcast not women uncut which offers another space where you can come on if you want to talk about relationships toxic relationships mental health issues and mindset and we focus on these things purely because that's what seems to be coming up right now and again you can be you can be anonymous on these podcasts if you wish which makes it again a safe space i think that's really great that you're all actually involving a nominee into into your podcast have you seen the issues that are people are wanting to discuss kind of shift as things have transitioned to more online as far as talking about relationships and things like that goes yeah I think there's definitely been a rise of toxicity in relationships because i think obviously we've never spent this much time with with the person in our lives as we have done now and being at home all the time so certainly those things have started coming up more people are wanting to share that more and if you are stuck and you're feeling like that relationship is struggling and it is getting out of hand and out of control and you don't know what to do this is a great space to come and talk about it because I want to encourage these kind of conversations there's so many people that are are in this position and just don't know what to do just don't know where to go but there's so much advice out there from people who have been there that it's great to see that other women do want to help other women and support each other so in regards to that as far as like the time spent in relationships and also I just wanted to quickly touch on how you're also helping people business so like do you usually have a mix of these kind of business stories with relationship stories as well or these just different groups of people based on what kind of stories you're sharing

i think there just is a mix and there's there's people who've had toxic relationships with their boss where they want to talk about that and there's also people that want to talk about their mental health issues certainly struggling working from home never had the experience of it before because I've always worked in an office surrounded by people where you can just go into the kitchen have a quick chat with a colleague you know and talk about things at all go to the coffee machine just catch up about how your day's going you can't do that anymore and certainly that has been a bit of a struggle for people that lack of social connection and the isolation that you feel when you are sitting at home and there is no working from home I guess it's just life now you know people are working from the kitchen table and there are no boundaries you know you can just work and work and work all day long and not have a break so it's important to have those boundaries definitely when you're working from home certainly from a corporate point of view and from a business point of view as well have you kind of shown the spotlight on how time comes into affecting the relationships that we're that people are experiencing with each other and how new boundaries can have to be established now that you know people are spending way more time and things like that how have you kind of approached that challenge because that's something i'm always you know personally interested to learn more about i think that I've done a I think I did a podcast on this and also I've done some blogging on creating those boundaries i think certainly one of those things is you know make sure you have breaks make sure you go out and fresh air make sure you schedule in some time on your calendar to actually step away and have some lunch because I find myself sometimes working till three four o'clock and going oh actually i need to have a break and have some lunch now and again you know that is all part and parcel I've had experience of working from home for the last 12 years you know I've done this for so long now that I have made it a practice to do certain things and you have to make a routine a lot of people lost the routine with covid forgetting that you know waking up again at seven o'clock in the morning wasn't needed and waking up at 12 was okay again and which was fine for a few days and then after that it just gets exhausting and rooted lack of routine is is a big factor so get that routine back in because i found that was one of the major factors that i needed to do to change things around yeah i mean that's incredibly important as having those routines and just setting like new ways of approaching work especially if you've never worked from home like you said it can be so easy to just get lost and just spend you know I've had days where I've spent 12 hours straight just working and realizing like okay maybe i missed dinner and i'm like okay i can eat now it's fine because I no longer feel like okay I have to go out and grab something to eat because i'm at home so I don't that that same impulse might not be there to just go out and get something so like oh that can see you forever it can be easy to get all your schedules messed up kind of if you if you fall into that flow of just doing things almost as you feel like you should do them at home because normally you're just relaxing so that's fine so yeah well thank you so much for your time piggy I really appreciate it it's been super nice chatting with you where is the best place for people to follow what you're up to on social media yeah so my tag is at by pinky g or at netwomen.com and that women.co we're on website www.netwomen.com co there is no uk or com or anything like that and we're on all the platforms we're on linkedin, insta, facebook twitter and we have a page and a group

Great thank you so much I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day and let’s stay in touch thank you so much.