Today we’d like to introduce you to Rhapsodi Pierre-Jacques.
Hi Rhapsodi , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
In 2021, I packed up my life in New York City and moved to Miami knowing almost no one. I was working from home, launching a business, and if I’m honest — I was lonely. So I did what felt natural: I started a WhatsApp group with five women who lived in my neighborhood in Brickell. The ask was simple. Let’s find time to walk or grab brunch.
What happened next surprised even me.
That modest thread grew into Black Girls Miami — and eventually into HerKind — now a community of over 3,000 women of color across South Florida. What started as my personal search for connection became something I never could have planned: a digital-meets-physical ecosystem where women exchange the kind of cultural intelligence you can’t Google. Where to find a stylist who truly understands your hair. Which concerts are worth showing up for. Where to land when We have more than 30 active sub-channels — spaces where women can find roommates, built clientele, sourced travel recommendations, and sustained the kind of friendships that are harder to come by in adulthood than anyone wants to admit.
Four years in, HerKind now hosts virtual and in-person experiences across South Florida — touching wellness, culture, personal growth, and community engagement.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Building something by accident comes with a particular kind of chaos — because you’re not prepared for what it becomes. Funding has been one of the most persistent challenges. HerKind was never backed by a grant or a corporate sponsor. Every event, every experience, every piece of infrastructure was resourced creatively, often on a shoestring, while the community’s expectations — rightfully — kept growing.
There’s also the invisible labor no one talks about. When thousands of women are showing up to a space to be seen, supported, and heard, someone has to hold that container. I’ve spent countless hours navigating interpersonal conflicts across our channels, building the technological systems to amplify our members while protecting their safety and privacy, and creating the kind of cultural trust that doesn’t come from a playbook.
And I was doing all of this while building a coaching practice, becoming a mother, and quietly constructing my own support system — while helping everyone else find theirs.
Here’s what I wish cities like Miami truly understood: we are in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. The data is unambiguous. And communities like HerKind aren’t a nice-to-have — they are infrastructure. Miami is a transient city by nature. People arrive chasing opportunity, sunshine, a fresh start. What makes them stay is connection. Belonging. A reason to root.
Community leaders are doing the work that municipal programs and corporate wellness initiatives have failed to do — and most of us are doing it without funding, without staff, and without recognition. For every event that looks effortless on Instagram, there are weeks of logistics, emotional labor, and personal sacrifice behind it.
The loneliness epidemic doesn’t have a pharmaceutical solution. It has a community solution. And the cities, foundations, and institutions that figure out how to invest in the people already doing this work — not from a boardroom, but from lived experience — will be the ones that actually retain the talent, the culture, and the energy that make a place worth living in.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about HerKind ?
At its core, HerKind is a community and a coaching practice. Both arms exist because I believe the most transformative work happens at the intersection of collective belonging and individual growth.
Through my coaching practice, I work 1:1 with professionals of color who are navigating the unspoken terrain of corporate and organizational life — the conversations no performance review prepares you for. Career transitions that require more than a résumé refresh. The quiet weight of being a people manager who also has to manage up. The art of advocating for your own advancement in rooms where that advocacy isn’t always welcomed or rewarded.
My work is values-aligned by design. I’m not helping clients climb a ladder that doesn’t serve them — I’m helping them build careers that actually fit who they are.
What sets me apart is the proximity. Leading HerKind means I am in daily, authentic relationship with the women I serve. I’m not studying my audience from a distance — I’m in the group chat, at the events, in the rooms. That intimacy makes my coaching sharper, more culturally grounded, and more honest than what most practitioners can offer.
What I’m most proud of is the trust. Women come to HerKind — and to me — because they know they won’t have to translate themselves. They won’t have to soften their ambition or explain their experience. That psychological safety is rare, and it’s the foundation everything else is built on.
What I want readers to know is simple: if you’re a professional of color who has ever felt like you were thriving on paper but struggling beneath the surface — there is support designed specifically for you. You don’t have to navigate it alone.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
The most important thing I wish someone had told me: building anything is hard — and for a long time, you are the brand.
Your energy, your clarity, your unresolved fears — all of it shows up in your work. The limiting beliefs you haven’t confronted don’t disappear when you launch. They surface in your pricing, your boundaries, your marketing, the clients you attract, the opportunities you talk yourself out of. Personal development isn’t separate from business development. It is business development.
I also wish someone had normalized the loneliness of building solo. Solopreneurship can be isolating in ways that sneak up on you — and the antidote isn’t hustle, it’s intentionality. Seek support before you desperately need it. Build a circle of people who understand what you’re building and why. Community isn’t a reward you earn after you’ve made it. It’s a resource you need from day one.
The other thing I had to unlearn was the idea that there’s a right way. There are many paths to success — but the only one that will sustain you is the one you can actually commit to. Stay connected to yourself. Your intuition about your own business is data. Treat it that way.
And finally — build systems. Seriously. Build once, then automate everything you possibly can. In the age of AI, this is more accessible than it has ever been, and more necessary than ever. Your time is your most finite resource. Every manual, repetitive task you’re still doing by hand is a tax on your creativity and your growth. Invest early in the infrastructure that lets you scale without burning out.
The goal isn’t to work harder. It’s to build something that works — even when you need to rest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.joinherkind.com
- Instagram: joinherkind
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhapsodi
