Noel Bangs of Noeka Home: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder

You can’t expect yourself to do it all. This has been the hardest for me. It is very easy to identify all the tasks that need to get done and intend to tackle it all yourself. However, if you do so it could be at the cost of an unnecessary amount of undue stress, time with family and friends, your mental health, and capacity while managing the possibility of time constraints. There may not be time to do it all. You do have to sleep sometimes and having time for yourself is also important so let others help you or ask for help and if need be hire someone sooner than later.

As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Noel Bangs.

Noel Bangs is the Founding Owner, Creative Director, and Principal Designer of Noeka Home, based in Houston, TX. With nearly a decade of experience in interior design, she brings a unique blend of artistic vision and business expertise to her work. Before her successful design career, Noel spent 15 years working at Fortune 500 companies, honing her business management skills but never losing her passion for the historic homes she adored growing up in the South.

Noel’s commitment to exceptional interior design will continue in her inaugural retail venture, Noeka Home, which will open its doors in Spring 2024. Inspired by her international shopping experiences, Noel aims to redefine home décor shopping for the Houston market by creating an upscale and immersive environment. At Noeka Home, Noel serves as Creative Director and uses her design expertise to curate 20+ custom vignettes within the 8,000 sq ft of space. She oversees the store’s selection of furniture and accessories, including a custom line of furniture and pillows exclusively designed by Noel.

Noel is preparing to take the Residential Interior Design Qualifying Certification (RIDQC) test and is a proud member of the Designer Society of America (DSA) and associate member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), further demonstrating her commitment to her retail and interior design clients. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Noel Bangs is the Founding Owner, Creative Director, and Principal Designer of Noeka Home, based in Houston, TX. With nearly a decade of experience in interior design, she brings a unique blend of artistic vision and business expertise to her work. Before her successful design career, Noel spent 15 years working at Fortune 500 companies, honing her business management skills but never losing her passion for design that she grew up with. Her parents, an architecture and interior designer, instilled an understanding and appreciation for beautiful design. She originally went to college for interior design, but changed the major later to pursue political science which enabled her to enter corporate HR. During a critical moment in her life, when faced with moving to a new city she made the decision to go back to pursue interior design. She credits her business career for teaching her the things she would have not known should she have taken a traditional interior design path.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

One of the most challenging tasks for me personally was finding a brick and mortar location for the business. Plans to begin the business began six years prior to ever signing a lease for a space. It took me over three years to find the right location. It was a long grueling journey that weighed heavily on not only me, but my husband, business partner, and realtor.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

As with many entrepreneurs, I think drive comes from passion and sheer determination to make your business a reality. There are many moments in my life where I wonder “how did I do it?” I would continue to remind myself that starting this business would also be one of those things on the list of difficult but rewarding opportunities that I would look back and wonder about, but be so happy that I pushed through.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

After years of planning, sleepless nights, stress, hard work, and determination– we are finally opening our doors. It has been a long journey to open an 8-thousand square foot showroom, interior design studio, and wine bar. It has certainly been an ambitious dream that is now being fulfilled, but I never saw it as impossible.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

My funniest mistake was assuming finding a location would be easy, I could not have been more wrong. In the early days, someone asked me what I needed to do to basically get the ball rolling and I replied, “just find a location which shouldn’t take long.” I look back at that moment and have to laugh at my ignorance. The aspects of the business I thought would be the most challenging were a lot less so, but what I assumed would be the easiest task of all was in fact the hardest. It was truly a journey and a grueling one at that. I can say I have a lot of comical stories through the journey that I still chuckle about until this day. That comic relief sometimes gets me through the hard days.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There is not only one person that I can attribute my gratitude to. I will be eternally grateful to my husband for believing in me during the search for our business location. He has always supported my dream, my ability to achieve it, my creative abilities, and my business acumen. Another person I am ever grateful for is my business partner, who has adopted this dream as her own. She saw the vision and worked hard to bring it to fruition alongside me and also added so much by adding her own ideas that has only enhanced the business. One of my closest friends and also our realtor was patient and understanding with her iron will to continue searching for properties. Lastly, without my parents none of this would be possible. They have always believed in me and shared their passion for architecture and design in my younger years until now. I have had an unbelievable network of wonderful people that have been invested in my success and encouraged me to continue to work towards my dream.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Yes, in my past career I certainly was focused on creating an environment for a happy engaged workforce. I plan to bring that same focus and goal to my own organization, but more than that I hope to bring it to a very worthy charitable organization to be announced in the near future!

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my Company” & and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1 . As hard as you think starting a business will be, it inevitably is harder than imagined. There is so much that goes into starting a business — from people, inventory,products, systems, construction and so many large details to the most detailed for everyday organization. All of which takes time, energy and mental capacity.

2 . Life happens, there will be a lot that you cannot control both personally and professionally. Life happens, it happens for us, our families, our friends, our employees, our vendors, and anyone else that we do business with. Things happen, if you cannot “roll with the punches” entrepreneurship is not for you because unfortunately there will be a lot of “punches” along the way. However, that doesn’t mean you should give up.

3. Starting a business can feel like you are living “Murphy’s Law” but it is a part of starting a business. Always maintain a positive attitude and laugh. As I mentioned, life happens, things will inevitably go wrong, but if you maintain a positive outlook and see the humor in things it will be a lot easier.

4 . Very few things will go how you think they will and sometimes it’s for the best. I’ve experienced what I thought were setbacks both personally and professionally, but I honestly believe things happen for a reason.

5 . You can’t expect yourself to do it all. This has been the hardest for me. It is very easy to identify all the tasks that need to get done and intend to tackle it all yourself. However, if you do so it could be at the cost of an unnecessary amount of undue stress, time with family and friends, your mental health, and capacity while managing the possibility of time constraints. There may not be time to do it all. You do have to sleep sometimes and having time for yourself is also important so let others help you or ask for help and if need be hire someone sooner than later.

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

I would highly suggest trying to laugh as much as possible. See the humor in the situation that can seem impossible, it is not. Do not let the little things stress you out. Instead of stressing over the big things, just go into resolution mode because stress won’t change or fix the situation anyway. Try to see the good and maintain a positive attitude. Foster positive business relationships, but when the relationship just leads to undo stress, end it. There is always another vendor, product, etc. During this start-up of our business, we have had to end a few relationships with businesses that we were sad to do so, but it ended up being the right choice in the end.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would love to focus more on the younger generations. They are our most vulnerable and will be our future. My personal goal is to get involved more with homeless teenagers’ programs. Heartbreakingly, there are a lot of teenagers out there with nowhere to go and typically it’s due to extreme circumstances in their home life that they ran from. They are worth our time and effort. Their past traumas and current circumstances do not have to be a predictor of their future. They can go on to be successful, healthy, self-sufficient adults. We just need to all focus on them more, in every aspect and let them know they are not forgotten or that they are cared about.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Instagram: Noeka Home

Website coming soon: NoekaHome.com

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.