Why I Started Half Full — And How Motherhood Changed Everything
Why I Started Half Full—And How Motherhood Changed Everything
On building the community I wish I'd had, learning what makes me happy, and why we need each other now more than ever
When I launched Half Full during my maternity leave with my second daughter, I didn't have a grand business plan or a perfectly mapped content calendar. What I had was a deep, bone-level need for something I couldn't find: a community of women who understood.
Not just understood motherhood—though that's part of it. But understood the particular ache of wanting more while also wanting to be present. The guilt of building something during naptime. The isolation of feeling like you're the only one Googling "how to start a business with a baby on your hip" at 2 AM. The exhaustion mixed with exhilaration of finally doing the thing you've been thinking about for years.
I started Half Full to build the community I wish I'd had. And what I've discovered through every interview, every newsletter, every DM from a reader, is that there are so many of us searching for exactly this. Not perfection. Not another influencer selling us the dream. Just understanding. Just someone saying, "me too."
I am a better person than I was before I became a mom, and I am utterly different. I'm getting to know the new woman in the mirror every day—learning what makes her happy, what lights her up, what she's capable of when she stops apologizing for wanting things. And part of that work is lifting up other women who are doing great things, because womanhood is something to be shared from a fundamental level. We are the village.
What Half Full Is Really About
Creating space where women can see and hear themselves reflected back—in the mom who launched her business from her kitchen table, in the entrepreneur balancing Zoom calls and toddler tantrums, in the writer finishing her manuscript at 3 AM with a baby on her lap. I am hopeful that in these stories, you find the moments you need most. The permission. The validation. The spark.
I have big plans for Half Full in the next year—podcasts, deeper features, more ways to connect this incredible community we're building. But more than anything, I'm deeply grateful. To those of you who are already here, reading these stories, sharing them, showing up. And to those of you who are passing the word along, bringing more women into this space we're creating together.
What I've Learned
Here's what I've learned interviewing mom entrepreneurs and building this newsletter: We're not meant to do this alone. The isolation so many of us feel isn't a personal failing—it's a systemic gap. And we can fill it. One story at a time. One honest conversation at a time. One "me too" at a time.
This is the village. You're part of it. And I'm so glad you're here.
—Meg, Founder of Half Full