Mom Your Business CEO Tanya Morris aims to be “a light in the North Philadelphia neighborhood,” offering a variety of resources for small businesses.
A Mom Your Business coworking space was a long time coming for founder and CEO Tanya Morris.
That dream is finally coming true with the launch of the MYB Hub North, a space for Black and brown founders in North Philadelphia.
Morris “saw an opportunity” to bring business support services to an underserved area with the new hub at 1913 W. Lehigh Ave., which includes coworking on the first floor and a conference room in the basement, she told Technical.ly. The second floor has a creative studio for podcasting and photo shoots.
The original vision for Mom Your Business, which helps women founders access resources and opportunities, was to create a coworking space for women, Morris told Technical.ly. Since starting her company in 2017, she’s been able to secure free office space for Mom Your Business through pitch competitions and other opportunities. The organization currently has an office at ic@3401 in University City.
(Morris was previously a founder-in-residence of University City Science Center’s OnRamp program and was also a founder of Black Girl Ventures’ Philly chapter. This past fall, she along with other Philly-based founders hosted a pitch competition funded by the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department’s Most Diverse Tech Hub initiative.)
As Mom Your Business grew, the need for a space to host founders, events and other programming became more apparent, Morris said.
Thanks to funding from Neighborhood Progress Fund, renovations on the North Philly hub started in May 2023. Mom Your Business launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise $25,000 to support continued renovations and hire a community manager.
Room with chairs and tables in front of a window.
MYB Hub North lounge area. (Courtesy Mom Your Business)
The space had a soft opening in November and has hosted a few workshops and events, but it’s not completely open for coworking yet. The organization hosted a Founders to Funders alumni dinner in the space last month and a “Growing Your Business Through Certifications” workshop.
In February, the space will host a photo shoot for a campaign supporting Black-owned businesses. Morris hopes to host a full calendar of events for Women’s History Month in March. Mom Your Business also hopes to launch an online option for people to book space within the hub.
While the original idea was to create a space for women founders, this space is for all Black and brown founders, especially Black-owned small businesses based in North Philadelphia, Morris said. She chose this location partly to replace the local resources that Temple University’s Small Business Development Center offered before it moved to Center City.
Because of the space’s location, the Mom Your Business team is also thinking about hosting youth programming, such as a summer camp.
“We want the space to really be a beacon, to be a light in the North Philadelphia neighborhood,” Morris said, “and be able to provide support and a safe space for the community.”
Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.