Amy Shack Egan is no stranger to the demands of entrepreneurship.

In 2015, she founded Modern Rebel, a wedding planning company, when she was just 23 years old.

And in February, she launched Cheersy, a digital platform that connects engaged couples with wedding coordinators. So far, she’s raised more than $500,000 in pre-seed funding.

Starting a business “is not for the faint of heart,” Egan, now 33, says. “I’m wearing a million hats.”

But she doesn’t subscribe to the idea that to launch a successful startup, you have to work around the clock and abandon your personal life.

That’s just not realistic for founders with children, Egan says.

Already a mom of one, Egan and her husband John found out that she was pregnant with twins a month before she planned to officially launch Cheersy.

“I think anyone, even if they’re not an entrepreneur, is like, how the hell do you raise two babies at the same time?” she told CNBC Make It previously. 

Now, she’s navigating a daily balancing act between investor calls, strategy meetings and prenatal checkups.

“You’re going to be sacrificing a lot”

Juggling the early stages of a startup along with twin pregnancy presents “a unique challenge,” Egan says, but she’s working on achieving balance at work and at home.

Since the twins are due in August, Egan decided to extend Cheersy’s pre-seed fundraising round and push back the seed round until 2026.

But she’s found that the “hustle and grind” culture of entrepreneurship leaves little room for life outside work.

One potential investor told Egan that they only take calls with founders on the weekends “to see how committed they are.”

“I could not stand that,” she says. “That irked me to my core.”

In Egan’s experience, hustle culture places an even greater burden on female entrepreneurs, who are often expected to simultaneously build their businesses and handle the lion’s share of family obligations.

“The game is rigged against you,” she says.

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Amy Shack Egan

Chellise Michael Photography

Finding her “village” of other female founders has helped lighten the load, along with the support of her husband. Still, Egan found that she had to let go of the concept of “having it all.”

“I wish more moms were entrepreneurs, but I also understand that we don’t have great support systems in place for them to do this,” she says. “You’re going to be sacrificing a lot.”

Spending time with family and friends is essential to “not being completely burned out at every single stage,” Egan says. Still, she often finds herself working at odd hours to compensate for being off the clock.

“I think that the component of mental health and physical health as a founder is often overlooked, and it shouldn’t be,” she says.

In her view, making time for a life outside Cheersy is the “special sauce” that makes her successful.

“As important as it is to build the company, it’s just as important to build a life,” Egan says. “I truly believe that to be really great at something, you’re not 100% just in that lane.”

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