5 Things Harvard Business School Won’t Teach you about Entrepreneurship Perseverance
OneSpace: Celebrating 5 Years
OneSpace: Happy Birthday to Us!
Our Founding Team
OneSpace’s original founding team in 2020.
OneSpace was founded in 2021 by 4 determined women: Victoria, Alison, Leigh, and myself. Their depth of passion, knowledge, and support was pivotal in getting OneSpace off the ground and forming the values and vibe we love so much about this space. I'm honored to be the one leading OneSpace today, and to have the opportunity to grow the ecosystem of ventures under Vessel Designs, built around OneSpace’s trusted foundation.
Entrepreneurship & Grit
We often hear about successful entrepreneurship and the importance of grit- the combination of passion and perseverance towards long term goals. I agree wholeheartedly with the roles passion and hard work play in the entrepreneurship journey. I love this job. I love OneSpace. I love that I can pour my heart and soul into this community and work as much as I do and have it not really feel like work.
That said, entrepreneurship can be really hard. Especially in this time period, and especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
What happens when it gets really hard? When your passion for the day-to-day wanes or feels far removed from your long-term goal, and perseverance falters due to failure or boredom?
On the days my grit is no where to be found… here are 5 unexpected things that keep me going:
My Failure Mantra
In 5 years we’ve had our fair share of flops, crickets, and empty rooms. Disheartening? Yes. Debilitating? No. This became my favourite failure mantra:
“I’m not going to worry until I run out of things to try.”
That thing we tried didn’t work… what’s next? Or, how do we make it work? As long as there are still things to try, I’m not worried (… not too worried).
2. Laziness
When things got challenging enough to start daydreaming about another job, one thing always stopped me: Laziness. The sheer amount of work it would take to shut down and the task list involved immediately overwhelmed me. As an entrepreneur, you don’t have the luxury of just “quitting” or walking away, and even closing down takes an incredible amount of work. A little bit of well-directed laziness has kept me working hard (in the right direction).
3. Delusional Optimism
Some people talk about delusional optimism in terms of megalomaniac tech bros like Elon Musk. I prefer Reg Yates’ description:
“If you want to do meaningful things, you can’t live in strict realism. You need a small, healthy overestimation of your own abilities. Not arrogance. Just enough optimism to keep moving when things get uncomfortable. That quiet self-belief is what carries you through setbacks, friction, and failure.
Without it, most people quit too early.”
Reg Yates - Optimism as a Survival Strategy
To be sure, we’ve seen setbacks and friction in our 5 years. To keep coming back, again, and again, and again? Delusional. To still believe wholeheartedly in what you are doing? Delusional. Yes, you have to be a little bit delusional to be an entrepreneur.
4. Negatively Bias
For every 100 people who tell me what a great idea OneSpace, or The Vessel, or Railtown Pursuits is, there is 1 person out there who will tell me they don’t think it’s needed, its not a good idea, or it won’t work. I remember every single one. Acutely. Like most of us, I remember the negative comments much more clearly than the droves of positive ones. Probably their opinion doesn’t matter, but I still work extra hard to prove them wrong. I hope they’re reading this. It’s been 5 years, suck it!
5. Responsibility
While the sense of responsibility can be, at times, crushing, it also helped me keep my head down and power through challenging times. Sometimes you simply HAVE to make it work because you have employees, members, and my own little family relying on me. Not to mention commitments to banks, leases, etc…
It was these responsibilities that took the possibility of walking away completely off the table; it wasn’t even an option to consider, so I didn’t.
Bonus: Our Community
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times:
East Van loves East Van
I feel genuinely honoured to serve and to receive from this community. I can’t imagine doing a job as hard as entrepreneurship without a community like the one we are lucky enough to have at OneSpace and across Vessel Designs’ ventures.
5 years absolutely wouldn’t be possible without our community, our Members, and our committed, hardworking team.
Take our Member Survey
Member feedback helps us create the spaces, services, and support systems that truly meet your needs. Your voice shapes the future of our community.
As a thank you for completing the survey, a $10 credit will be added to your account.