Werk Nights building ‘female entrepreneurship community’ in Hamilton

Hamilton small-business owner Alyssa Lancia sees collaboration, friendships and community as drivers for her boutique doughnut business.

Whether it's family members helping watch her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter when she is baking or collaborating with other entrepreneurs, she says, we can't do everything ourselves."

Out of this need for in-person relationships, Lancia organized the first Werk Nights, a social event for female business owners, in March 2022.

Starting Darling Donuts, a preorder online shop for the specialty baked goods, and then working alone during COVID was a isolating and lonely journey of entrepreneurship," Lancia said. It was easy to connect with people online, but she said, there is so much more to in-person relationships."

Werk Nights, which had its sixth edition at Steel Town Cider on Feb. 26, was a way to create that female entrepreneurship community."

Businesswomen have unique barriers, compared to men, Lancia says, the biggest one being mindset. Women don't often think of themselves as an entrepreneur. They don't think they are worth as much as they are. They underprice their products or their services," she added.

Female entrepreneurs (that) come to these events see the massive support out there," Lancia said. The hope is these entrepreneurs choose that community over competition and want to build partnerships and find ways to collaborate." The new friends boost each other, sometimes as simply as sharing each other's social media promotions.

Lancia noted a stylized photoshoot for a bridal magazine in November 2022, requiring businesses from across the wedding industry to come together. Many of the collaborating businesses, including the esthetician, the dressmaker and the cake-maker, came from the Werk Nights group.

With that kind of support in mind, Werk Nights events are booming, with attendance and also woman applying to be speakers.

Each session has a guest that is a subject matter expert. Last year, speakers were experts in public relations, social media, branding and marketing, also women with unique personal business stories. They try to have big events every other month and smaller events mixed in between. Next up is a large mid-April event, with a speaker to be determined, and a candle-making class in May.

Just as important as the networking experience, the events are about letting loose and having fun, Lancia says. You can swear here, it's a very easy going environment."

Jeremy Kemeny is a Hamilton-based web editor at The Spectator. Reach him via email: jkemeny@thespec.com