Moving forward by taking a break
Going on holiday, reflecting on the first half of 2023, and looking ahead.
I’m currently enjoying a 3-week break with my partner, her family and our 1 year old daughter in Guadeloupe. Guadeloupe is a French island located in the Caribbean. This is our first long haul family holiday since our baby was born. It was one of my family objectives for this year. So far so good on the family side.
On the personal side, this holiday is also much needed. Things have been difficult with EnVsion over the last few months. Additionally, I feel I just didn’t get enough done. We’ve certainly achieved some important milestones, such as the release of our long awaited Zoom integration (the review process by Zoom’s security team was very thorough, to say the least), or the launch of our recent UX Bytes newsletter . Yet the business is not moving as fast and as far as I would like it to.
I knew it all along. It was always going to be extremely tough to bootstrap such a technically challenging product in a space - UX Research - I am not native to. Besides, having a full time job and a young family to take care of makes matter more difficult and unpredictable. I’ve sometimes felt very frustrated and dreamt of earlier and simpler days where I had yet to experience the joy of fatherhood and its demanding responsibilities. Time-wise it’s certainly easier to pour one’s energy in startups when they are childless and partner-less.
But I am where I must be at this stage of my life. I’m very grateful to so many people for contributing to the amazing journey that I have already travelled through life. And I should also be grateful to myself too apparently (thank you Emanuela!), so I’ll try to be! It’s true that this ardently desired startup and business success is taking its sweet time to materialise but I must remain steadfast, keep learning, keep trying, and trust the process.
This mid-year holiday is therefore happening at the right time. I will take this opportunity to relax a bit more. I will also use this time to take some steps back in order to set the foundations for a more successful second half of 2023 and beyond.
The fight is not over 👊🏿