Iolanthe and Yule have been building successful businesses for 17 years. Now they are building a family together. Unsure of how their lives would look after having a baby, they started Little Mirrors: a vlog exploring integration and change, where they reflect on how their role as parents impacts on their business practices and growth. They want to support other parents who are looking to integrate their newly-formed parent selves with their more familiar role as entrepreneurs, to create a healthy family and a healthy business. Here, they talk to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind Little Mirrors, how they themselves balance work and family life, and their hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
Little Mirrors is a direct response to being entrepreneurs on the cusp of parenthood, unsure about how our lives would look with a little one in tow. I’ve been at the helm of social media agency Ruby Assembly for 14 years, and my husband Yule from Attune Legal has been in practice for a similar amount of time. We knew that we’d have to think in a new way about being business owners when we had a baby. Similarly, we understood many other entrepreneurs would be challenged by integrating their role as parents into their role as business owners, and we wanted to share our smarts with them.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
We began vlogging probably a month before our daughter Egle was born. I was heavily pregnant, and we decided to record our impressions of this unique period of waiting prior to birth (and in our case, an elective c-section). We set up our camera, lightboxes and microphones in our workspace, and got to recording! Looking back at that first video, I’m delighted by my optimism and self-awareness on the cusp of motherhood.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Little Mirrors is not a business, per se. It’s a vlog that looks to support other parents who are looking to integrate their newly-formed parent selves with their more familiar role as entrepreneurs. I think the very fact the vlog exists and we chartered some key times in the pregnancy / new baby / return to ‘normal’ life journey are a real contribution to shared knowledge from the perspective of those who are really focused on having a healthy family and a healthy business.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
With a whole lot of help! We began sending our daughter to care from the age of 3 months for a couple of days a week. She’s now 18 months, and attends care 4 days per week. She’s a very jolly, social little person and has close relationships with several carers in addition to her grandparents. It was important for us to help Egle build relationships of care with parties other than us, to both allow her to feel comfortable and cared for in a variety of spaces, but also so that we could continue to grow our businesses. We also use an occasional babysitter for evenings out, and we have a cleaner once every fortnight.
