In this retrospective article, we outline the rationale for starting the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. We provide evidence on the percentage of published papers in SEJ in each of ten key themes in strategic entrepreneurship identified when the journal was founded. Evidence on progress towards goal achievement in terms of trends in submissions, desk reject and acceptances rates, downloads, plus examples of highly cited papers and entry into key indicators such as the Financial Times list of 50 journals. We outline developments in strategic entrepreneurship and their implications for future research, notably the need to consider multiple levels of analysis and the role of context variety. Finally, we discuss some of the lessons from SEJ for the general challenges that arise in starting a new journal.