When we talk about social networking crucial to really gaining access to professional opportunities, whether it's business, entrepreneurship, you name it. Those networks have often been in place for decades for the establishment, and I'm often talking tim about white men. Yeah. Well, two co founders and entrepreneurs are working to change that. Nancy Tellum and Natasha Hildebrand are the co founders of bass Blue. It's a nonprofit space dedicated to women's needs
and fostering a diverse, authentic, and inclusive community. They joined us on the phone from Detroit. Nancy, Natasha, how are you great? Thank you for having us all. Hey, Nancy, I want to start with you. Um. You moved to Detroit a few years ago from l A. Give us the story about how you started bass Blue. Yeah. I I moved from Los Angeles to Detroit about six years ago, and upon rising Um, I was just amazed by the amazing women who I met, but many of whom didn't
know each other. And I realized that what was really lacking in the city and Francie and old cities is that that connection, a space where women can indeed connect and with that UM be able to add resources and support for for working women, whether they're starting in the working space, whether they're in it, or they're looking to transition into something else. Well, and Natasha come on in on this. I mean, how does it work at pass Blue in terms of bringing people together? Who are you
bringing together? How does it all work? And you've done it before in l A, New York, London. Um tell us the results of bringing these people together? What's the impact? Yeah?
You know, as you mentioned, UM networks are vital to success, right and I've seen that success take shape in all of those cities you've mentioned, and that really starts with creating space, space for those conversations, as Nancy mentioned, to create base connections as well as space to learn and grow and be exposed to individuals and areas outside kind
of your silos. And especially as we you know, kind of get rooted in our careers sometimes and even just world we live in, we kind of stick to those silos. And what Boss Blue is aiming to do these really break those silos and get people talking to one another.
And we do that through programming. So everything from having a mentorship sessions to member matching programs where we match our members based on interests or life stages or educational seminars on how to you know, start over against essentially, or how to brand a business um to education in the other side of the coin of the cooking class um or how to learn how to play poker even or all the kind of different things um that might go into the personal and professional Well, it's so true,
Like I think about guys forgive me, but you know golf, like the amount of networking and deals that get done on the golf course or just talking sports. I see it just in and around our world. You know, where guys come in they don't even know each other, but they they automatically start talking sports and there's a connection. You know, Nancy, So much of what happens, whether it's when we're talking diversity, whether it's women, whether it's people
of color. I mean, we need to figure out how to create that pipeline so individuals can create companies or really have um a trajectory to some of those senior
positions and companies. For sure, I mean to your point, and this is obvious something that I've experienced personally throughout my whole career, is that men's do have an easier way through golf through men's sorts of things to connect and they connect on a I'll say on a much more base level through sports fans, through actually playing of golf. For women, actually, our connection is a little bit more complex.
And what we came up with Bossblu that we wanted to create a homelike feeling, so when people came to the space, it was very accessible and comfortable and at the same time using the programming in order to initiate conversation, collaboration creation. We're really focused on, you know, providing that kind of conversation, providing the network, allowing the members to offer up resources and to mentor each other to advance well. And it's interesting too when you think about I think
about anybody I've been part of clubs or something. When you actually have Natasha a physical space where people could collect it, there's something about it where you know you can go and you can meet people that you've seen before and meet some new people. And you guys have a great um mansion that you've done. I think it's in midtown on Ferry Street, right, uh, in Detroit. Tell us a little bit about the space itself. Yeah, so we've got three or four stories really and if you
if you've open the ground up. On the bottom floor, we've got showers and lockers and a wellness and fitness space. We've got some peloton bikes in there if you want to squeeze in a quick ride if you will UM in between meetings of the day UM as well as get ready UM. I will also be doing a lot of meditation workshops and just kind of general wellness things down there. You then go up to our our next floor and we've got a full cafe UM and bar area,
and that's in partnership with Marrow UM. You'll have an amazing options for breakfast and lunch and happy hour. We've also got a lovely library area which we planned to stopic books from local luminaries as well as the amazing female authors. You then go up UM actually my favorite space in the house, which is kind of like the mezzanine. We have this little nook of a room that is as cozy as they come UM, which is actually fully
stopped for conferences and conference calls and whatnot. UM. And then we've got on the next floor phone books as well as a large conference room that is free of us to our members, as well as a little bar area, UM, and additional lounge space and meeting space, and then the last floor really is our gathering space. UM. I mean it's all kind of a gathering space, so that's kind of our event space. So when we talk about that programming, a lot of that will be hosted up there. UM.
We've got a full screening capability. Of course, another bar because happy hour is great network UM and can't forget that. UM. And and then little touches throughout the house that really can have softer collaboration and Nancy, you've spent years working for for profit companies. You were at CBS for fifteen years a senior adviser to the CEO. You're the president of CBS Network Television Entertainment Group. You're a president of Xbox Entertainment Studios. UM. Bass Blue. Though Boss Blue is
a it's a it's a nonprofit. So talk to me about the structure and how how you plan to keep it making money and how why you chose a nonprofit for it. Yeah, well, you know what I gotta say, Honestly, when we first conceived of the idea, we thought of it as a for profit, much like a lot of other spaces that you find primarily in New York and California.
But as we kept going back, we kept going back to the mission, and we felt it was essential that the space be the mission first, and therefore we really were committed to making it a nonprofit and particularly you know again, as a nonprofit it kind of um kind of uh liberates us from this drive to actually make money to actually if we could break even and really have our mission first and bring in, as you mentioned, a really diverse, inclusive membership that's the most important, and
provide the programming and those connections that so needed. So the nonprofit piece of it is extraordinarily important. As far as you know, we've had amazing response from donors who really believe in the mission. We also have membership fees that hopefully will um also help us reach to this break even point, hopefully in a couple of years. We
also we had private events base help us as well. Nancy, we forgive, forgive us because and we hope you can come back and talk some more about what you guys are doing, because it really is important, and especially in terms of the access that you're giving. Nancy Tellum and Natasha Hildebrand joining us right here have a good and safe evening everyone. This is Boomberg