Calling this blog “Enjoy the journey” may seem a little random, but for me it sums up the spirit of entrepreneurship. And it does this in two ways.

First, it talks to the type of person that makes an entrepreneur. For me entrepreneurship is all about recognising that life is short and you can’t afford to waste a minute of it  by doing something which you don’t have a passion for. Of course entrepreneurship comes with the potential of making it big but if you don’t have the passion and you don’t enjoy yourself whilst going for it,  then you’ll be unlikely to take on board the risk of trying and failing. Entrepreneurs are the type of people that want to make the most out of life, who want to enjoy every minute of life… and that’s why they can take the risk. Certainly when I ventured into entrepreneurship, the risk of regretting not going for it was greater than the risk of failure.

The second element of entrepreneurship that this is relevant to is about the day-today enjoyment of building a company and delivering on a dream. Almost every entrepreneur I’ve met over the last few years is taking a risk and chasing an ambitious goal … but they’re having a great time as they shoot for it. Whilst entrepreneurship is packed with highs and lows, huge amounts of stress and long hours, you’re brimming with passion for what you’re doing, your destiny is in your hands, you’re on one hell of a journey … and it’s all about enjoying it.

This was highlighted in my last venture by the way that our (phenomenally successful) Non-Executive Directors got excited about being involved and talked with such passion and nostalgia for the early days of their previous start-ups. They had done what we dreamed of and arrived at that hallowed destination of a major exit, but they harked back to their happiest times which were whilst they were on the journey.

There are of course times that you forget to enjoy yourself. When the stress and the hours and unforeseen events conspire against you, you can lose site of that positive outlook. For me, that was the time to remind myself and my co-founders and the team how lucky we were and that for all that might happen, we were damn well going to enjoy ourselves through the adventures.

For me entrepreneurship is all about enjoying the journey and this blog will be used to talk about entrepreneurship in that vain … sharing what I hope might be useful to others and getting excited about new ideas and companies.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: kennymatic