From Burnout to Balance: How Entrepreneur Renee Warren Built a Successful PR Agency While Raising a Family

In this inspiring episode of The Nathan Newberry Show, entrepreneur Renee Warren shares her remarkable journey from teenage restaurant owner to successful PR agency founder. Through candid stories of burnout, growth, and transformation, Renee reveals how she created a thriving business while navigating the challenges of motherhood, partnership, and finding her authentic path.

Early Entrepreneurial Roots: Starting a Restaurant at 17

Renee Warren's entrepreneurial journey began early—at just 17 years old. When her mother told her to get a job, young Renee had a different idea: "I thought, well, entrepreneurs make a lot of money and they don't work a lot, so I'm going to do that." With this naive but ambitious mindset, she and her sister took over the lease of a seasonal snack bar located on the side of a highway across from a lake.

This first business venture provided valuable lessons in hustle and discipline:

"The biggest lesson for me at 17 was showing up to work on days when I didn't want to be there. I would look out across the lake and see my friends on boats, or friends would stop by saying, 'We're going to the beach today, too bad you can't join us.' That was tough as a teenager, but I will say that discipline has been my through line in being an entrepreneur."

What makes this early experience particularly interesting is that Renee describes herself as having been a "lazy kid" growing up. Her father even jokes about it to this day, despite her now being in her 40s. She was, in her own words, "like this wallflower or this flower child, and I would just coast through my day."

The restaurant business presented unique challenges in the pre-digital era of the 1990s. With no electronic point-of-sale systems, Renee and her sister recorded orders by hand on receipt pads, manually counted cash at the end of each day, and stored their earnings under the bed. This hands-on experience with running a business became the foundation for her future entrepreneurial endeavors.

The High-Pressure Years: Building a PR Agency While Starting a Family

Fast forward to 2012, when Renee's entrepreneurial drive led her to start a PR agency with a business partner. The timing, however, was far from ideal:

"I was eight months pregnant with Max, my first son, and at the time I'd been doing contractual work with startups and different businesses doing their content marketing and social media."

When her potential business partner questioned whether it was the right time to start a business, Renee confidently replied, "Oh yeah, we'll figure it out. Babies, they sleep all the time, so I'll be good." This optimistic perspective would soon be tested by reality.

The company was incorporated in June, her son was born in mid-August, and Renee was already back to work—"toting the baby to work like he was fresh out of the oven." By five weeks of age, her son was in full-time daycare, an unusually early start that reflected the pressure Renee felt to keep her new business growing.

The situation became even more challenging when she discovered she was pregnant with her second son when her first was just four months old. Her boys would end up being born just 11 months apart—creating an intense period of balancing:

• A growing PR agency with clients from South Africa to San Diego
• Two infants under one year of age
• A husband who was frequently traveling for his own startup
• The primary responsibility for the family's financial stability

This pressure-cooker situation took a serious toll on Renee's wellbeing. She wasn't sleeping well, wasn't working out, wasn't eating properly, and was essentially in survival mode. All of this while being celebrated as part of a "power couple" in the entrepreneurial world, with features in marketing magazines, Business Insider, and Forbes.

The disconnect between her public image and private reality created significant internal conflict:

"I was getting fed this narrative that I'm a power woman, a powerful entrepreneur, we are a power couple, and I liked that compliment. So I had to maintain the course because I wanted to maintain that identity. But it was at the cost of my wellbeing, at the cost of my happiness, my marriage. I was a crap parent, and I know it."

The Breaking Point and Transformation: Applying Business Systems to Family Life

The turning point came through several alarming incidents that forced Renee to recognize something needed to change. In one instance, she backed her car into her husband's vehicle while distracted. In another more frightening moment, she realized she had forgotten her infant son in the car when arriving at her office:

"One day I dropped Max off, got in my car, drove to my office, and as I was getting out of the car, locked the doors, walking around the corner, I was like, 'Forgetting to do something.' I'd forgotten Noah in the car, and he was I don't know, two months old, three months old."

This wake-up call led to a critical realization: the same business principles that were helping her company succeed needed to be applied to her family life.

"We needed to apply business-like philosophies to our family life. However we're doing to succeed in business, we need to bring that home."

This revelation led Renee to embrace delegation in her personal life—something that, as a mother, felt particularly challenging due to societal expectations and self-judgment. The steps she took included:

1. Hiring a night nanny: She arranged for professional help two nights a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) so she could sleep through the night.
2. Increasing household help: The cleaning service was increased to twice weekly.
3. Asking for assistance: She began reaching out to friends and family for help without feeling guilty.
4. Creating personal space: Renee started taking time for herself, even if just for a 30-minute bath each evening.

These changes didn't come easily. Renee faced both internal and external judgment, particularly around parenting choices like breastfeeding. She shares a poignant story about facing judgment from another woman after she decided to stop breastfeeding:

"Even Dan was like, 'Yeah, it was really weird. After I told her that you were no longer breastfeeding, she got weird and walked away,' almost like I was a terrible mother."

These experiences highlighted how Renee had been living based on others' expectations rather than what was authentic and healthy for her and her family:

"I was living my life based on what other people expected of me and also what I thought people saw me as, not authentically as what I wanted. And it was literally killing me."

Creating a New Paradigm: Consistency with Boundaries

Today, Renee has created a completely different approach to work and family life—one built on clear boundaries, priorities, and authenticity. As she prepares for a new chapter (her PR company is currently going through an acquisition), she reflects on the lessons learned from her journey.

One key principle that now guides her work is the importance of establishing clear boundaries with clients:

"I've even put it in my contracts with my clients the days and times we work. Anything that happens outside of those hours, I'll get to you when I get to you. There's never been an issue, there's hardly ever an emergency."

These boundaries allow her to prioritize family time, like picking up her boys (now 11 and 12 years old) from summer camp in the middle of the afternoon "because I want to," knowing that work can wait until the next morning.

Renee also emphasizes the importance of investing in her marriage. She and her husband Dan (who she met on Twitter in 2010 and has been married to for nine years) prioritize their relationship even above parenting:

"Dan and I work on our marriage more than we work on parenting, and we work on ourselves in that marriage."

A particularly meaningful insight came from studying relationship books together, where they explored the concept of seeing marriage as an "us" rather than just a "me" and a "they":

"When you can actually look at that union from that perspective of 'if there's an us, that means I have a responsibility here as well, and so do they,' that changed everything for me."

As for what makes a high performer, Renee's philosophy is simple but powerful:

"Consistency is your currency. The people that I know are the most successful are the most disciplined because they're consistently doing the thing they know that's getting them closer to the finish line. They say life is a game of inches, it's not like you're just going yards, it's inches. So every inch matters."

Conclusion: Authentic Success on Your Own Terms

Renee Warren's journey exemplifies how entrepreneurial success doesn't have to come at the cost of personal wellbeing and family life. Through painful lessons and intentional changes, she discovered that true high performance isn't about meeting external expectations or maintaining an impressive image, but about creating systems and boundaries that allow for both professional achievement and personal fulfillment.

Her story offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs at any stage:

1. Early discipline sets the foundation: The work ethic developed in her teenage restaurant business created lasting patterns of showing up even when it's difficult.
2. External validation can be a trap: The "power couple" identity that initially seemed appealing ultimately contributed to an unsustainable lifestyle.
3. Business principles apply to personal life: The same strategic thinking that builds a successful company can transform family dynamics when intentionally applied.
4. Boundaries create freedom: Clear contracts with clients about working hours create space for family priorities without sacrificing professional results.
5. Consistency drives results: Small, regular actions compound over time to create meaningful progress in both business and personal development.

As Renee moves into her next chapter, focusing on growing her podcast "Into the Wild" and supporting her husband's ventures while traveling with their family, she embodies a more balanced and authentic version of entrepreneurial success—one defined by her own values rather than external expectations.