Your Next Move - Becoming a She-E-O

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

In this episode, Inc. recognition program manager Sarah Lynch chats with Mary Seats, the founder of the Bakery Cowork in Atlanta, a female-focused co-working space. The company ranked No. 628 on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list. Mary talks about how her experience in marketing helped her home in on the power of community. Her advice to other entrepreneurs is that a slow ride to the top is better than a fast fall to the bottom.

With the VentureX business card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, the VentureX business card has no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. Capital One, what's in your wallet? I'm Sarah Lynch, and you are listening to Your Next Move. Audio Edition, produced by Inc. and Capital One Business. For this season, we gathered a group of conversations with entrepreneurs who made last year's Inc. 5,000 list. They joined us in our Your Next Move booth at the Inc. 5,000 to share lessons learned and anecdotes from building their businesses.

In this episode, I interviewed Mary Seats. She is the founder of the bakery co-work in Atlanta, a female-focused co-working space. They're ranked No. 628 on the 2024 Inc. 5,000 list. Mary started the conversation by telling me how her experience in marketing helped her hone in on the power of community. I have a marketing background. I've scaled a marketing agency for the last nine years. And then what was missing in me scaling that marketing agency was truly community being around other like-minded women, having a community of people, and finding my real tribe. So I created the bakery as a place where women can go and get the secret ingredient to their recipe. by meeting that next person. How do you even start to build community? Some founders are just really focused on,

we want that community, we want that natural, but how do you create that? Yeah, I think that if you were to sit down and write down three things that you need, go and build a community of those people that need those same things, right? What I was was a female founder that had scaled a marketing agency

to $16 million in revenue, right? And before scaling a marketing agency I grew a clothing company to $4 million, partner with investors, and was fired for my company. And so it left me on an airbed above my retail store. And that is what led me to teaching online and doing digital courses and building a marketing agency and doing all these random, amazing things that ultimately scaled to successful companies. But what it left me was feeling alone and not knowing who to go to and who, could give me advice, could probably give me therapy, that could probably give me the support

that I needed. And so, again, why I created the bakery was I'm like, where is that tribe of women that are scaling companies and need to know how to raise capital and how to get proper resources, how to market their business, how to grow their business? And that's what I built my business on. So I built my community on finding information, resources, and capital for women. How did you reach those women? I think it's also telling the story, right? Telling the story of where you are. So right now, if I could be vulnerable, I am an amazing female founder that scaled several businesses,

but I've had a chef my entire marriage, right? And so my now daughter is six years old and she's watching YouTube and she's like, Mom, I want to cook. Like, I want you to cook with me. And so we're like making these simple meals like chicken alfredo. And so I'm like, oh, my God. God, I need a community of moms that are considered success or maybe still growing in their career, but now they want to learn how to cook a full meal.

So I'm giving myself a year to be able to learn, like, little meals, little meals, and then ultimately be able to cook my Thanksgiving dinner, right? So 23-5, I'll be cooking. So if I'm in my state now, I'm going to be open and transparent online on my social platform, whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and I'm going to be talking about my journey. Like, hey, as a female entrepreneur, I've been so focused on scaling my businesses that I just was like, I'll pay for peace, which is hire a chef, hire nanny, hire whatever I need, so that I can fully put all in on my business and really grow it.

But now I'm at a point of my life where I can now say, okay, I want to be able to cook meals from my family. And being that transparent and being that vulnerable, I'm going to attract other people to me that's like, you know what, you're right. I was in the kitchen early on with my mom either. I want to be a part of your community and we can start practicing spaghetti and then we'll move on to fried chicken and then we'll move on. So I think building a community is being vulnerable with where you are and allowing people to meet you where they are. And as you guys meet together, there's impact that happens and there's transitions that happen and there's key milestones that happen in everyone's success as they go along. And that mom

that join the community is now able to say, wow, I was able to do this, and I was able to make this, and it now empowers the other people in the community to keep going. So that's what I've done my entire life, is where I am, I'm vulnerable about where I am, and I meet other people that are in my same position, and we grow and use the resources and information to grow and continue to create milestones together. So do you have personal accounts as well as your professional accounts and in which ones kind of drive the most? interest to the bakery? I think it's both. So I have my personal business and I would tell every founder that if you own any business, right, you should have your personal brand and if people know you, they should know about your businesses through your personal brand. However, when people go to the bakeries page, it's not my personal brand. So you rarely would see me on the bakeries page because it's my business, it's my community. I don't want people to think that every time I go to the

bakery, I'm going to see Mary, right? I'm going to be able to work with Mary. I'll be able to co-work with Mary. That's not what it's about. But I want people to know when they come to my page. I want them to be inspired by what I've done. I want them to see the struggles of what I've done, the ups and downs of what I've done. So people should be able to learn and be inspired by you and your companies through your personal page. But on the business page, they should just be inspired and impacted by the business to where they want to spend their money with the business.

They don't need to go to business page and hear about my daughter or my husband or the cookies that I'm making because it has nothing to do with the women that are being impacted by the co-working space. So I think the businesses should have key pillars that are specific to the business

that helps grow the revenue of the business. However, my personal brand is where you'll get to know me, you'll get to know my love for God and my daughter and my husband and all the other businesses that I have. And it pushes revenues to the business, but it's not based around the business solely. Interesting. Thank you for that breakdown. That's really helpful. Yeah. Tell me about the team that you've built around the bakery and how they've helped you grow as well. Absolutely. I have a dynamic team. The model that we've built in our business is believe or

leave, right? Me being the visionary or I always call myself the CEO, right? The CEO of the company, I'm the visionary. And you have to believe in the vision. I consider myself the pilot of the plane. So getting on my plane, you have to believe that I'm going to fly you to the destination that you want to be at. I don't want anyone that's kind of questioning or holding onto a parachute, like, should I jump out now? Should I jump out now? So our mission is believe or leave, where everybody aligns with that mission. Another thing about the people that I've hired, I want to make sure that there is a love for their role prior to coming to my company. So our event manager, our event manager loved events, had a skill for events, had a database of clients for events before she

started working with us. So when she's called on that Saturday to do an event at 9 p.m. at night or 1 a.m. in the morning, her love for it outweighs the money or outweighs the money. Or outweighs the opportunity or outweighs the fact that it's just a job and I'm on salary. My photographer that works for me for nine years loves photography. So even when I'm not there, the way that he shows up and commits to the job is because he actually loves it and his name is on the line. And his work is on the line, right? It's not just someone that's like, I'm just here to do a job. And at five o'clock, I'm off, don't bother me. So I really built my team around people that actually love, love, love their role. And now they love their role. And they love the idea of where I'm going

to take this company. And it just aligns so well that we really have a dream team within the bakery. And in three years, we've been able to skyrocket the company. I mean, we're on the Inc. 5,000 list. We were profitable in our first year. We have no debt. We've grown a team of 28 people that really love it and have worked for us for over three years. And so I'm super proud to be able to say that I'm growing at a company where people really love to come to work and they really love the people that they work with as well. With that growth, I know there can still be challenges, especially when that growth is fast. Tell me about what you might have faced there and how you were able to navigate out of that. Absolutely. I think the first thing was perfecting

our business model. When I sit in front of investors, because we are in our seed raise of capital, So I think the first one of our challenges was capital. I bootstrap this business. I funded it myself with no debt, no credit cards, really no lines of credit, was just from the marketing agency. I was like, this is a space where women need to go and need to thrive, and they need this information. So I funded the business myself.

But as we know in scaling your real estate, we need capital to scale really quickly, no matter how fast the business is growing, even if it's profitable, we need. need capital to really grow and scale the business. So I'm like, okay, I have to start raising capital. And I'm sitting in front of these investors, and the first thing they talk about is, what about the wing? What about we work? What about blah, blah, blah, blah. And I had to perfect my business model so that they can stop asking me those questions. One, I've already grown a marketing agency to $16 million in revenue, and in nine years, over $100 million in revenue. So you may have invested in founders that did not know what to do with the money. I've already bootstrapped

several companies, grown them to be very successful companies with no debt and no investors. So you are investing in a great founder. The second thing that I had to prove was our business model. In investors' minds, traditional co-working doesn't work. And especially with the pandemic where people were forced to be home. We have created six streams of revenue. from our co-working space. So if one revenue model is not performing, there are five other revenue models that are performing. If there's two revenue models that are not performing,

there's still four other revenue models that are strong. We have an event space, a photography studio, our conference room, our co-working space memberships, we have our cafe, all of those models. We have done for you services. So, for example, TikTok came into our facility and wanted to just use our space for a luncheon, right? And they had a budget of $2,500. But because they came in and said,

we actually don't have an event planner. We actually don't have anyone that does decor. We actually also don't have anyone that does catering. We were then able to sell them on a full done-for-you-service and now cap out their budget completely with us. So our revenue model is so different and so unique because we have the marketing agency piece with it and the digital community piece with it that we now allow one-stop shop for our clients, and they don't have to go out and search and seek other vendors. They can get it all within our company. When we come back, I ask Mary about how she identifies her top priorities that drive growth. But first, a quick break. Here's a tip for growing your business. Get the VentureX business card from Capital One and start

earning unlimited double miles on every purchase. That's right. With unlimited double miles, your business spends, the more miles you earn. Plus, the VentureX business card has no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. The VentureX business card also includes access to over 1,000 airport lounges. Just imagine where the VentureX business card from Capital 1 can take your business. Capital 1. What's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at Capital 1.com slash VentureX business. Thank you for breaking that down. That's super helpful and interesting. In your role as leader, how do you make sure that you're prioritizing the right things in your day to drive more growth,

not get weighed down by, I'm sure, the many, many tasks that you could be doing that might not be as important to the business? I, as the CEO, I have now perfected my role to do two things, right? I always tell my team, not bother me if it does not affect the two seas. And the two Cs is cash flow and customer experience. I want to focus my work ethic, my time around things that are actually growing the revenue for the business. And I want to also focus my time on things that are making our customers experience better. We've grown the bakery with no paid marketing. So we're not running ads. We don't have any digital billboards. We've literally grown it from our customers telling everyone on Facebook and on social media how amazing our space is and by our programming.

That's it. So the things that matter the most to me is cash flow, of course. And then secondly, our customer experience. When our customers are having amazing experiences, they are more likely to bring in three customers to our business than meet doing a business. paid ad. It is proven. Like, we've done focus groups. We've done so much beta testing around different coworking spaces and how much they're spending around in paid advertising. Paid advertising is great, but hearing it from someone that they know like and trust is going to bring in three more customers over a paid ad. You've obviously created something that really works, you know, in Atlanta. When it comes to opening up that second location, how are you thinking about that? And I

imagine it's not just a copy and paste situation, right? It's going to be a whole new ball game. What's your strategy there? Yeah. So I was really big on building a model that existed without me, building a model that existed without my team, because ultimately our long game is to franchise. So I want to open three locations that we own, corporate locations that we own, to show people that this works. No matter where you are in the world, this simple, easy model works. And it is profitable. I did it in Atlanta. I'm going to do the same exact thing in Houston. And then we're going to do the same exact thing in another city. And then we'll open up franchises. So it is copy and pays. Okay. Like one thing that I spent the whole first year doing was SLP and KPI on everything.

we have a full database. Like if a franchisee was to come into our company now, we have every single question. Like, okay, what color is the paint? How does a member get off-boarded? How does a member get onboarded? If a member comes and they're overstand the time in the conference room and there's another booking,

what do I say? There's literally an SOP and a training guide for every thing in the bakery that someone would have a question about. So it is a copy and paste. The only thing that will be different that I'm excited to explore is we're rolling at an app. So essentially virtual co-working and virtual done for you services will be done on our app. So I'm super excited to explore building this app and building this tech portion because I think that what women get when they actually go into a co-working space

and they meet other like-minded women and the energy and the power that they feel when they're like, I've been looking my whole life for you, it can also happen on an app. It can also happen with technology and AI, but it hasn't been built yet. And so that's what I'm excited to build. Awesome. What would your advice be, Mary, for another entrepreneur who is in the midst of their own growth journey. What did you learn that you would want to share with them right now? Oh my God. It's so much. I would say first, a slow rise to the top is better than a asphalt to the bottom. That's my first thing that I would say. It is so much better when you understand your process and you take that slow ride because I know that there's people that jump

and grow their business so fast and then they crash and burn because they didn't learn the lessons along the way because they were just like running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to just catch up to the growth of their business. But ultimately when we think about the company is like Disney, when we think about the company is like Apple, it's a slow. Amazon, slow grind, slow rise to the top. And that's what's creating those legacy companies that grew from garages and basements and bedrooms. It's because it was that slow, okay, we're going to perfect it here.

Like, for example, Amazon was like, yeah, our stuff isn't getting fast enough to our customers because we're dependent on UPS. We're dependent on USPS. Let's cut that out, get our own trucks, and then we'll get our Amazon trucks will deliver on a Sunday. our Amazon trucks would deliver. We never had a company that would deliver to us on Saturday or Sunday or the day before Christmas, right?

And they figured it out as they went along slowly and surely. The second thing that I would say is while some people are praying for it, other people are paying for it. Some founders are sitting around saying, like, God help me grow up. Other people are paying for mentorship. They're paying to get in the right rooms. They're paying for masterminds. for the ads, they're paying for the visibility. They are paying their way to that next level versus sitting around and just praying for it. And so those are the two pieces of advice

that I would give any founder. A slow ride to the top is better than a fast wall to the bottom. And some people are praying for it and other people are paying for it. What are some of your biggest dreams when it comes to how the company can grow from here? Obviously, like you said, you can picture this expanding to any location. What do you see, you know, five years for now from the company. So I would hope for myself to grow the company within the next year to very large numbers. And then I want to be able to partner or exit with a strategic. So like an industrious or like another space that can grow the real estate much further than I maybe can grow it.

Right? Like, I want to see this like a we work in the standpoint of the locations because I feel like there are so many women that need what the bakery has to offer. We make it easy for women to find information resources and capital. So I want to grow that model. Some of the models that I see expanding is our membership model and our programming. I want people to be able to take a class from Taraji P. Henson on how to. to get into acting. I think that there are so many iconic people that have not taught the bases. Imagine Taraji doing a workshop for a thousand women on what to do and not to do in acting

or launching your acting career or Beyonce, stage presence, right? I think that there are so many people that are doing amazing things. Sarah Blakely, how I failed, right? Like, 10 ways to fail faster so you can get, you know, like that type of programming would attract women from all over the world that are starting these companies and messing up over and over again and starting their acting career and messing up over and over again when we have someone that has already done it before and you can literally come into the bakery code work, learn from them, you know? So that's ultimately what I want to do first is like enhance our programming. And then the second thing is enhance our done for you services. How often is it

where you, as a founder, have to find the photographer, the makeup artist, the wardrobe stylist, the graphic designer, all of the pieces to put to your puzzle to ultimately bake your dreams. Here at the bakery, we have it all for you. So you just walk in, you tell our team exactly what you need, and it's all provided for you. You just show up to the photo shoot. You have the models, you have the photographer, you have everything there. And now you can really be the creative that you desire to be. You can really go and grow the business and not in the weeds of like at Target the day before trying to pick out clothes for the photo shoot.

And so, yeah, that's what the bakery is there for. Mary, thank you so much for sharing all of your insights with us. This was great. That's all for this episode of Your Next Move. Our producers are Blake Odom and Avery Miles. Editing and sound design by Nick Torres. Executive producer is Josh Christensen. If you haven't already,

subscribe to Your Next Move on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Your Next Move is a production of Inc and Capital One business.