Kicking off Women’s History month with Maggie to honor Sesh’s beginning, present times and where Sesh aims to go
Sesh started as a meet-up, Girl Sesh, in 2017.
I found Meredith hosting those meet-ups in the summer of 2018, by December we were business partners.
I had just moved from New York with my jewelry business in tow, and had left behind the Rivertowns Chamer of Commerce that I had founded. The Rivertowns Chamber had grown from The Dobbs Ferry Chamber of Commerce into one that encompassed 5 quaint villages along the Hudson River in Westchester County.
We spent most of 2019 looking for a brick and mortar, while also still hosting the meet-ups. On of the last meet-ups in 2019 was a 9-day pop up near the Downtown UH campus.
November 2019 we signed a lease to a chic 2,000SF loft in Montrose. We had pivoted away from opening a much larger space after a landlord wasted our time negotiating for weeks deciding last minute he’d open his own coworking space on the floor below ours.
This is when fate took over, and Lawson from The Cannon just happened to DM me on LinkedIn. We met with them a couple times and the next time we had a meeting with that landlord, Lawson and Remington showed up sitting on our side of the table. You see the landlord had name dropped them, without actually talking to them and when I shared this with Lawson, he stepped up.
We opened the doors to our Montrose location February 3rd, 2020. Things were going great – Texas Monthly had covered Sesh, we had co-hosted one the first Tech Rodeo events, and we had regulars.
Until 6 weeks later, Rodeo got cancelled followed by Stay-At-Home orders.
We lost every single client which meant zero incoming revenue. We also had a very concerning clause in our lease that said if we vacated the property for more than 2 weeks, we’d forfeit our lease and all our belongings inside the space.
This is when our membership with the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce came in clutch. They immediately connected us to a local broker who walked us through crafting a conversation with our landlord. The Landlord ended up needing some coaxing to reply to our email. So, I put in a call to another landlord we had met along the way and felt I had personal connection with.
I called Jon Deal, explained the situation, and he put in one phone call and our landlord answered saying he wouldn’t act on that provision in our lease.
Every dollar of capital we had put in, was being bled from our coffers with no clients, zero revenue while continuing to pay all of our overhead. Life was grim, we were on the cusp of closing forever until mid-May when we received the now-cursed blessing of PPP funding.
Next we faced a decision that felt like do or die, either Sesh opened and continued to bleed capital -or- Sesh stayed closed and faced the same fate.
Sesh re-opened amid the global protest over George Floyd’s murder, and I made the push that Sesh re-open point blank saying we were on a mission to provide the safe and inspiring space for not just women, but for everyone. From that point forward Sesh included women, communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community in not just our copy but in our actions.
Sesh lived month-to-month until January 2021, but we were incredibly thankful to just keep going.
By May of 2021, the Montrose location was packed. Meredith and I were consistently giving up our seats for members and we were ecstatic over that.
That’s when we circled back to Jon Deal, he showed us six to seven other properties and saved 2808 as the very last. We had originally looked at this property with him in 2019, but were turned off at the idea of valet parking due to road construction on Caroline in Midtown.
Sesh shut down for the 3rd time in 2 years – COVID, the great freeze and now a move.
Sesh re-opened on the 2nd floor at 2808 Caroline in January 2022 and we spent the next 6 months gutting and renovating the first floor followed by another 8 months on the second floor in 2023.
Sesh has gone through so much in the last five years. A global pandemic, maternity leave, multiple natural disasters, two moves, two rounds of construction, a life threatening health scare and now the departure of a co-founder.
I share these specific points in our story to demonstrate that even in the hardest of times, Sesh has a history of circling back to our Houston community. We have always been humble enough to ask for help, and I’ve done that a lot lately – thank you to everyone for the meetings, advice and connections. If I haven’t asked you yet, just wait – I’ll be calling. I want you to know, I plan to keep doing this – grounding Sesh in community. Circling up our community, listening, adapting and growing.
I have taken my time in mentioning these new changes as things are raw and rough running the business solo while still coming back from my health scare, but Rae, Karla, Akosua and Gaby are stepping up and together we’re getting there.
Sesh will remain philanthropic, we’ve introduced a blanket 10% off space bookings for all non-profits. We remain committed to being competitively priced, with a new 10% off space bookings over 25 hours. We’re re-investing in members with their own communities, offering more complimentary coworking days.
Plus, I’ve gifted Sesh shares to Akosua, our favorite copy writer who has been with Sesh for several years as well as Rae because she’s enabled growth and organization by leaps and bounds at Sesh since just last summer.
I aim to bring Gaby on full-time and hopefully, get more funding for The Sesh Foundation so we can grow supporting community orgs via space during these scary times when it feels like everyone and everything we stand for is under attack.
I am not going anywhere Houston. Help me make Sesh a rock, we’ll let everything else be water – it’ll pass while we remain steadfast together.
Onwards & upwards,
Maggie
