A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

Branson frames entrepreneurship less as a purely financial pursuit than as a sustained creative practice. By insisting a business be “involving” and “fun,” he implies that long-term commitment and resilience come from intrinsic motivation—curiosity, play, and personal engagement—rather than external rewards alone. The final clause, about exercising “creative instincts,” positions innovation as a daily discipline: a venture should continually invite experimentation, problem-solving, and imaginative risk-taking. In this view, culture and strategy are intertwined; when work is engaging and enjoyable, people are more likely to generate novel ideas and persist through setbacks, which Branson treats as central to building distinctive brands.