Sam (host of Documenting the Journey, episode 55) records a personal monologue ~Oct 11, 2023 describing an intense Q4 period: heavy workload, operational challenges (stock, scaling, retail expansion, possible fundraising), and a month-long gap since his previous episode. He explains that he has not been paying himself for about two years because revenue is reinvested into stock and growth, and that he has been building brands for nearly seven years. Sam rejects shifting to easier, higher-short-term-income routes (courses/agency/guru path) because he prefers building consumer product brands — specifically in wellness (mushrooms, supplements) — and aims to build a category-defining, £100M+ revenue brand. The piece frames entrepreneurship as high-risk, high-stress, but deeply fulfilling for him; he emphasizes process, resilience, and long-term commitment.
Questions this video answers
Episode 55.
October 11, 2023.
About two years.
Nearly seven years.
Chapters
Back with episode 55 of Documenting the journey and it has been a while, which is probably what I said in my last episode. In fact, I think it probably is very familiar. It's been about a month since I made an episode, maybe four and a half weeks around that. Four weeks, a month, something like that. Because I just really didn't feel like making an episode. I was so deep in the trenches. I feel like I am. And it's a bit of a flippant term, slightly tongue in cheek and everyone says it, but I just mean probably genuinely the busiest with the most issues to solve, both on a personal level, separate to business and business at the same time. And it's Q4 and there's been some changes in the business and we're growing and you know, there's challenges around stock, there's challenges around maintaining performance as we scale, there's challenges around expanding retail, there's challenges around potentially raising investment. And I feel like I'm working 15 full time jobs, but it's actually pretty fucking fulfilling. It's not necessarily fun all the time and it's very time consuming and it's not easy, but I do feel like I go to bed at the minute every day feeling satisfied that I fucking spent myself. It's not necessarily that sustainable forever, but there seems to be a period or two every year where I just get into that flow state and it's very typical and stereotypical and cliche but you know, just my training is good, my diet's consistent, I'm sauntering every day, I'm at my desk at 7am, I'm probably working till 10pm not that I'm working all the time. There is obviously exercise and so on in between. That training is very, very important to me. But pretty much all I do Monday to Saturday right now is work and train, sleep now and then. And that's probably the same with every founder, right? And yeah, I've been thinking recently about what are the actual motives for doing this? Because you know, right now from, from the business, I'm not paying myself anything and I've been doing it for two years. Obviously I have the podcast and whatever, but it's that on paper you have to be fucking mad to do this work basically all the time, take a lot of risk basically. Don't pay yourself or really see any money from the business because anything that is made goes directly back into stock. Any money we raise obviously doesn't go to me, it goes into expanding the business, building the team when we can do that. And that's just the entrepreneurial path, but it's the real entrepreneurial path. And I feel like there's such smoke and mirrors around what entrepreneurship actually is, around just people flying business class, which granted I do now and then on points like I have had that element of the lifestyle and stuff and I've flexed it as well. But the real authentic part of the game is just fucking working flower something you believe in and want to create and almost doing it for the love of the game to an extent, having sight of goals, whatever they are, but also recognizing that this is what you signed up for and you probably have to be mentally ill to do it to an extent which I definitely hold my hands up and say I am. I think any true entrepreneur that really is about it. Not just for the end game, but for the process. And the love of building stuff is probably a bit, you know, got to screw loose because I think a lot of people like the idea of starting an online business or getting into consumer or whatever it is, but actually they just want to work less, have that freedom. And real entrepreneurship, I don't think, at least in the early stages gives you that. It gives you huge challenge every day and a lot of responsibility and a shitload of stress and you build that tolerance. And where am I going with this point? I think the point is I've realized I actually you couldn't pay me loads more money right now to be a full time guru selling courses because I could probably, if I could definitely sack off the brand or be less ambitious with it, do it part time, semi, part time, focus all my time on YouTube, redo my course, run ads for that, you know, become the next whoever, XYZ YouTube guru and make way, way, way more short term cash. And I've got the personal brand to do it. I've got the connections to do it. I've got enough experience and way more credibility than 99% of people doing it because most of them have zero credibility. And I can make way more cash doing it. And I often, sometimes I question myself playing devil's advocate and say, well, why don't I do that? But actually the answer and the reason I haven't done that and I always feel in my gut, but that would be the wrong thing to do. And it is for me. It's because I genuinely like building fucking brands. I've been doing it since I was, you know, 18 to some extent. It started with a clothing brand on a T shirt and everyone took the piss out of me. And then it was another brand that didn't work and everyone took the piss out of me. Then I had a brand that did quite well and people stopped taking the piss. And then I had a brand that did well and then crashed and people took the piss again. But then I dusted myself off again and started building brands again. And everything in the world would probably tell me I should probably do something else. But this is just what I want to do, which is probably why I'm mad enough to think I can build 100 million pound revenue brand. Build a category defining brand. That is truly my ambition. And I think I've got to the point now where I've been through so much pain and suffering in a business sense. And I genuinely think I have. I'm not exaggerating saying that I think I've been through a lot more than 99.9% of people have at my age or my stage of career. And I still want to be doing it. And I think that drives me to go even bigger because it says, well, we're already fucking here, We've already been rock bombed like twice as I've been very public about. So why not swing for the fences and do something big, especially in a space I'm passionate about. Wellness mushrooms, supplements broadly. And maybe that's incredibly naive, but I don't think it is because it would have been naive saying that a year into business. But I've been doing this nearly seven years now, which is probably quite funny because I should be retired if I was, if I was good at it, right? But I'm still chipping away at the game. I want to build consumer brands like it's not the best market to be in right now. It's not easy to raise money. There's way more money in building an agency selling courses. But I still, even though I could do that tomorrow, would rather be doing this. And I think it's quite fulfilling to know that. And that's why I so deeply believe in what I'm doing and in myself long term. Cause I just know if I keep chipping away, we're gonna fucking get there. And I want to get there to a massive level as well. I'm not interested in building another bedroom brand. Cause I've done that before and I thought about this business very differently. I've approached differently. It's kind of frustrating that I've launched it in a much more difficult market than my previous stuff when it's objectively a better business, better brand, better product, better founder in myself compared to the previous version myself. But yeah, I just believe in it a lot and believe in what I'm doing a lot and believe in the process of actually just sticking to what you want to do deep down. And I am a brand guy. That's what I want to do. I like creating physical product brands. What I've always done, I guess I've always been in consumer. I don't even like the term E commerce brand. I think it's, it belittles the category. The end of the day, consumer is the greatest category in the world. It's stuff people buy and they buy again, like people. There's a lot of hype around AI SaaS, all this stuff. But how many of those businesses have revenue and customers and people that email them saying their product improved their life in some way? So I think consumer is unique in that and I think it's the greatest category in the world or the greatest market in the world. And ultimately, yeah, I'm just selling this stuff. But you can have a big impact with a powder blend of the right ingredients and presented in a nice unique way. And at the end of the day, we're all just trying to create something. I think the most exciting part of entrepreneurship is creating products from nothing. And you know, there's plenty of ways to make money and build a business. You can do an agency, freelance, whatever. But something raw and real about the alchemy of creating something from nothing and scaling it to, to the moon. And that's what I'm trying to do. What am I trying to say? I guess I feel like there's a lot of pressure right now, but it's pressure that I'm probably privileged to have. And ultimately I feel like I'm in the right place, doing the right thing. I can feel that I'm on the right path, as maybe cringe as that might sound. Because I'm turning down stuff which could make me way more money in the short term, like 100 million percent. But I'm just not interested in it because I want to build a global brand. I genuinely do. We're not there yet. We're probably years away from being anywhere near where I really want to be. But I'm fucking committed to it. And yeah, I said I'd make an episode weekly. This has been nearly a month because I was just very deep in the trenches. But I would like to think that in 10 years time I'll be glad I filmed this stuff, even when it wasn't necessarily the easiest, almost entertaining thing to film. But do it for the journey, for the process and hopefully keep it real. But yeah, I've got massive ambitions just putting it out there that I'm nowhere near where I want to be. But every fucking day we're getting closer and I'm very, very committed to it and at least I know myself. I think it's who I am. So I'm pursuing it. And on that bombshell, maybe I should put piano music over this or something. Little B roll. I'm in the new flat as well, which you won't have seen. It's probably more echoey. Beautiful view, basically the same as where I used to be. We don't have the depth of field in this room anymore for filming. But yeah, hopefully this episode was interesting somewhat. And on that note, I'll leave you to it. Thank you for watching the pod. Subscribe as always. I will be back on weekly episodes, I promise and chat to you soon. Space Kids. Sam.
