We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniella Briseno Cornue and we’ve shared our conversation below.

What should our readers know about your work?
I am the Owner and Founder of Le Village Cowork, a child-centric coworking space in Chicago. 

Le Village is on a mission to help get working parents, especially mothers, remain in the workforce on their terms. Our model allows members to be present with their kids, create a flexible and independent lifestyle, make lifelong friends, and love coming to work again!  

Those interested can bring the coworking and childcare concept to their community with franchise opportunities throughout the Midwest. I’m excited to share that we have three more women-owned businesses opening soon!

What was your thought process behind starting your own business?
After the birth of my daughter, I couldn’t find the care that I needed.  I had a great corporate job with some flexible benefits, but what was the point if I couldn’t use them?  I often say that I created Le Village to try to redefine what it means to be a working parent, to give parents the best of both worlds and more, to give them community. I definitely do not have it all figured out, but I do know that I didn’t feel like what I had was enough, and I heard a lot of other parents saying the same thing.

Risk taking: how do you think about risk.  What role has taking risks played in your life/career?
Any small business owner has to be comfortable with risk. I, honestly, very rarely think about it. I try to make good decisions by looking at a lot of different factors and making sure that I’m not jumping into an unreasonable choice. Part of that calculation is considering what could really and truly happen if I fail or something doesn’t go the way that I plan. Will it ruin me, will it ruin my life, will it ruin my family? No? Then I’m probably going to try to make it work. Follow through. Execute the plan. After that, I just try to jump. Worrying is like a rocking chair.

What was the most important factor behind your success / the success of your brand?
As many business founders and owners will tell you, communicating your brand is as much of a journey sometimes as the business itself. It takes time and iterations to get it fine-tuned.

Case in point, when I first started Le Village, I led with our name and logo only on our building and materials. But, after several lost patrons and one very confused Frenchman looking for the new neighborhood French restaurant, we decided to add the tagline Coworking + Childcare to everything.  For a long time that was enough, but people still seemed a little confused. Then I had a lightblub moment.

Community. 

Community is central to Le Village’s identity and our most important foundation. It’s not a thing that we do. It is who we are. If it’s not about the community then we are just a service. And that’s not what I built Le Village to be. Building community is what helped us survive the pandemic. Community is there when you’re having an off day. Community is the village of support when raising children.  Our brand is defined by the community that we have created. 

How does your business help the community or world?
Le Village offers affordable childcare for members, competitive wages for staff, and a profitable business model.  This seemingly unattainable trifecta is disrupting the long-held inequities of essential early childhood care, which disproportionately affects women of color. 

 At Le Village our early childhood educators receive living wages, paid time off, healthcare coverage, paid family leave, free enrollment for one child after 6 months, and continuing education opportunities.  

Access to quality care supports healthy early childhood development, makes it possible for women to participate in the workforce, and contributes to economically thriving communities.

If you are a parent, what do you think is the most important thing you’ve done as a parent in terops of the impact on your children?
After I had my daughter, I started to ask myself if I was doing things just to please others—probably for the first time ever in my life. As a result, I started really centralizing my decision making on our family. If I wasn’t doing something to make myself happy or make our family stronger and was just doing it because I felt like it was something that someone else expected me to do, I just stopped doing it. I think THAT’S been the most important thing that I’ve done for my daughter. It was ultimately that change in thought that was what drove me to open Le Village Cowork. I was working at a job that didn’t make me happy or serve our family. So I quit, and I started Le Village Cowork.

How to know to keep going or give up?
I think this is really tough and I guess that depends on how you define giving up. I rarely “give up”. I pivot. I believe wholeheartedly in assessing things on a broader scale. You have to really break things down, assess it, cut the fat and try not hold onto things too hard. Pivot, make different choices, and move on. That doesn’t mean that you’re giving up. It just means that you’re altering course slightly to get to where you really want to go.

Work life balance: how has your balance changed over time?  How do you think about balance?
I think what’s changed is how work/life balance is defined. I try to remember that everything is in the eye of the beholder. What I consider work life balance is not necessarily what my good friend considers work life balance and is not necessarily what my husband considers work life balance. Be purposeful and define what that is. I am a person that works obsessively on ideas for long periods of time because it gives me joy and drives me forward, but then I try to rest and reset. I spend time with my daughter and refill my cup. I travel. I make sure that I take time for myself. That works for me! I’m still working on day to day balance 😜.

What makes you happy?  Why?
I love one-on-one time or small group time with people! Adventures with my daughter. Dinner with my husband. Patio drinks with my best friends. Morning coffee all by my lonesome. Amazing food with amazing scenery also always makes me happy.

Why did you pursue an artistic or creative career?
I don’t like people bossing me around. Ha. Really, I think if I had to truly define it—it’s maybe this idea of truth and the ability to share and define what that truth is to you. To be authentic and completely untethered. I think you can really only do that in a creative line of work—and believe it or not—there’s a lot of opportunity for that when you own your own small business or are in a leadership capacity.

How do you define success?
Getting up with a sense of purpose and a sense of joy every single day and leaving something behind that you are truly proud of is “successful” to me. I’m old enough to understand that success should really be defined by the individual. Who cares what others think? So if that’s an amazing kid that’s truly passionate about something or a legacy of love from a gigantic family—I think that is beautiful and an amazing version of success. For me—it needs to be broader. I don’t know why. But, currently, (because I think this can also morph!) I am really passionate about creating positive change in an area that’s been so negative for me by creating a positive environment for working mothers. The more women or underrepresented families that I get to do that for—the more successful I feel.

Contact information:

Website: https://www.levillagecowork.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/levillagecowork/

Email: Info@levillagecowork.com 

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