Eleanor Vance answers the door holding a coffee in one hand and her eighteen-month-old, Iris, on her hip. It's 10:14 a.m. on a Tuesday in Brooklyn. The Noonday studio is on the second floor of a converted stable; her daughter's playroom is on the third. She has told me, on the way up, that she stopped pretending these were separate things about a year ago. We talk for ninety minutes.
You've said publicly that you don't believe in the phrase "balance." Why not?
Because it assumes two things that are opposed. It assumes motherhood and work are on opposite sides of a scale, and every minute I give to one comes out of the other. But my actual life doesn't look like that. Iris is in the studio with me right now. My lead designer just texted me about a new sample and I had a thought about it while I was nursing this morning. Those aren't tradeoffs. They're the same life.
You raised your Series B when Iris was six weeks old.
Yeah. I also didn't sleep for six weeks, so I don't want to make it sound like some kind of power move. It wasn't. It was the worst.
But I'll say this — nobody told me you could. Nobody sent me the email that said you can close a round while postpartum. I figured it out because my co-founder and I had to. And now when I mention it, other women founders say, "wait, you did what?" And I think — we need to talk about this more. There's a whole generation of women who are running companies and nobody's telling them what this looks like because the men who wrote the playbook didn't have to figure it out.
"The question isn't how do you balance it. The question is: what are you willing to let be imperfect?"
You've said you've become a worse CEO in some ways since having her, and a better one in others. What's worse?
I used to stay at the office until 10 p.m. I thought that was what leadership looked like. Now I leave at 5:30. Which means I have less time to walk around, hear things, catch problems early. My team has had to get better at escalating. I've had to get better at trusting them.
And look — some weeks, I think that's made me a worse manager. Some weeks I know it's made me a better one.
What's better?
I don't waste anyone's time anymore. I don't take meetings that aren't necessary. I don't work on ideas that don't have a point. Motherhood has made me aggressively efficient in a way that I think, if I'm being honest, the company needed.
A lot of Momé readers are in their first year. What do you wish somebody had told you?
That the first four months are the worst. That the next four are a little better. That by month twelve you'll have forgotten what the first four felt like, which is both a blessing and a warning.
And — this is the one — that the version of you that's terrified right now is not a real preview of the version of you who comes out the other side. The one you're meeting in month four is a stressed, underfed, sleep-deprived version. Don't make long-term decisions as her. Just feed her and wait.
"The one you're meeting in month four is not who you are. She's just who you are right now."
Is there a version of this where you do it without the company? Where you just — have kids and read?
Sure. And I'd be miserable.
I think the thing nobody wants to say is that being a mother didn't replace anything in me. It added to what was already there. I still want to build a company. I still want the work. The work is not my enemy; it's my other love.
The question isn't whether to give one up. The question is what are you willing to let be imperfect, and for how long. I've decided — the company gets my 9-to-6. The baby gets 6-to-9 and all weekend. And some things get to be a mess. My apartment, for example, is a mess. I've made peace with it.
Last question. Name the one thing you wouldn't go back and change.
Having her when I did. Everyone told me to wait. I didn't wait.
I'm really glad I didn't wait.
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This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. Photographed at Noonday Collective, Brooklyn, March 2026.
