The last few weeks have been crazily hectic. Most start-ups have a management team, so the responsibility of finding funding can be allocated to one person, whilst the rest of the team continue to run the business. No such luck with me, unfortunately, I am a one-woman funding/project management/product management/strategic partnerships/operations manager entity. And its exhausting, but I’m pleased to report its going well.

There has been lots of interest, great feedback, and thankfully the business is running along steadily so I can dedicate a bit of time to the hunt for funding.

I’m pleased to report I have one large offer already, so hopefully the round can close soon, and I can get on with running my business. Then one hard part ends, and another hard part begins… hiring, expanding, designing, rolling out, selling… the real meat of it all. If anyone knows of a brilliant web applicationi product/project manager or a bright full-of-initiative operations manager who wants to work in an exciting start-up based in central London, please let me know!

What a whirlwind it all is though! I’ve met some extraordinary people, gotten incredible advice, and am full of ambition and plans. I’ve never been happier!

So, just need to push on and close this round, and hopefully 2008 will be the year of Skimbit!

In the past week I have met with several potential investors for Skimbit, and presented my spiel.

They were both really interesting and different experiences.

I found it fascinating how different views and priorities could be amongst parties that all make their money in similar ways. One party thought I should keep the Skim-in-a-box white-label solution and the other thought it best to divest of it and focus purely on Skimbit.com. One party thought I should focus on profitability and a strong business model and the other thought I should forget a business model until I have a large enough userbase.

Interestingly, I totally agree with both ends of the spectrum. The biggest web start-up sales have been of companies that had no business model and that had only a web site to worry about… certainly focusing on Skim-in-a-box distracts from building a large userbase and the gearing on businesses with white-label sales is much less than on businesses with a large loyal and active userbase.

However, I am convinced that I structure my company so that the Skim-in-a-box sales are managed wholly by a quality Sales & Account Manager, and that product development is not dramatically altered to support this business model at the expense of the free Skimbit.com, that I can make it work. That I can have a solid underlying business that I can build a free web service on top of, which surely will insure me against any major swing in user affinity towards social applications.

The other key reason to retain both sides of the business is the wealth of business intelligence it will produce. By retaining the anonymised aggregated analytical information of a diverse group of individuals and businesses, I surely build a lucrative database of information about what products people like, and what factors drive that decision-making. I dare anyone to say that is not a valuable resource.

Anyway… the journey has only just begun. I am courting investors as we speak. If anyone knows of an Angel or VC that might be interested in investing in Skimbit, please contact me!

This could be a potentially risky post, considering the number of people who read this before meeting me for business discussions. But I am a big believer in honesty and openness as the key to my business success, so I will persevere on this front until it proves fatal.

I am embarking on an investor roadshow shortly to secure the funding I need to take Skimbit to the next level. To do this, I obviously need a robust budget and business plan. Obviously, I have versions I have done a few months back when seeking funding from the bank, but that budget was based on surviving on £25,000, which meant stripping things back to absolute bare-boned essentials. I could continue to operate in this way, but the truth is, it will kill me, and to get to market faster and make a real impact, I need staff and I need a marketing budget. So I now need a new budget and plan to reflect this alternate path.

The challenge is coming up with customer growth figures. All revenue projections hinge on customer numbers (unique users for www.skimbit.com and new clients for Skim-in-a-box), but I can’t get around the fact that it is all pure estimation. My other entrepreneurial friends who have secured Angel funding say that of course it is, and that I should be prepared to defend wildly optimistic figures as the basis for the kind of revenue projections that will interest Angel investors.

Now, this is where being an inherently honest person gets me into trouble as an entrepreneur. I have trouble saying my site will be used by 20 gazillion trillion people in 3 years, because although it is possible, it is largely luck that determines what site becomes the default for a particular category. You can certainly influence luck, and I absolutely intend to try, but I can’t tell you with certainty that Skimbit will achieve this. I can give sensible estimates based on the uptake similar sites have achieved, but it is still all totally finger in the air stuff.

And with business plans, the advice I have been given is to aspire to deity-like status, which again, I have an issue with. There aren’t many deity-like sites out there, and I am pragmatic enough to accept it may not happen to Skimbit. And it needn’t: a good quality site can still generate a healthy profit without being the new Facebook. And in my opinion, a presentation to investors that stated this, is surely more believable - and therefore I am more believable - than promising what is clearly a wildly overstated estimation created purely to seduce investors. I can’t believe smart successful Angels are so gullible as to believe it, so why state it?

So, I am making a stand. I will propose what are sensible realistic growth numbers, and clearly state that although I might not change the world, at least I will make it a little better, and if you approach that task with integrity and transparency, there are enough people out there that will respect that, and make you profitable. Well, that is my hope anyway.

How do I intend to do this? The trend for social shopping sites seems to be to push products (that of course they have a vested interest in), or to try to alter the way you search (which people find intrinsically suspicious). I have adamantly stated from the beginning that Skimbit won’t alter the way you search: you have your way of searching the internet, which you trust and understand, and I don’t intend to replace that. I do offer an embedded Google search in Skimbit, and I do earn a little money if you click on a sponsored link from the search results page, but everyone knows that, and its a fair and transparent contract between me and the user. Also, there is an advantage to using the Google search embedded in Skimbit, as Google over time works out what sites are more attractive to people that use Skimbit’s embedded search, and over time the results are even more relevant to Skimbit users. Again, nothing surprising or evil in that.

And I do offer advertising on Skimbit: currently its Google ads, but I will soon offer advertorial-type ads directly to advertisers. This will be transparent, relevant, and hopefully useful to the user using Skimbit to research a purchase decision. I will be launching another innovative advertising format (to be announced) with the goal to create unintrusive yet appealing forms of advertising that users are willing to engage with. Its the Holy Grail, of course, but worth aspiring to.

Anyway, wish me luck as I tread along this path of honesty and openness. I may not make as much as other ruthless players, but I do believe I will make more than enough, without compromising my morals.

As the year draws to a close, I get very sentimental and nostalgic about the last 12 months. And I have more reason to be in awe about this past year than almost any other. Here are the top 5 things that have happened to me/Skimbit in 2007:

1. Turned 30

Every woman dreads it. Whilst men seemingly gain wisdom and respectability, woman fear they will lose attractiveness and ’settle’. Considering that the year saw me still working full time while building Skimbit in Sydney, there was an element of this. I had little money to spend on finery, and Sydney was suffocating me with its ’settling’ perogative. Then the advent of turning 30 in January sent me in a flurry of ’shoulds’. I should have been a millionaire by 30 already. I should feel totally happy and fulfilled. It was scary stuff, any one that says otherwise is to be doubted.

Then, I turned 30. And things started to change. I realised I was still as energetic, vibrant, and capable as all those twenty-somethings, but boy did I trump them in terms of experience. I realised you only age when you let yourself, and I was certainly not going to start then. I danced and revelled and twirled and lived extraordinarily, and now realise the gift of 30 is acceptance, less self-hate, and wonderful clarity. Plus a great party on yacht on Sydney harbour!

2. Met my developers

The risk of choosing to have your website developed offshore is that they do not feel part of your organisation. They don’t see you, they don’t hear you, they don’t get paid directly by you. Its near impossible to impart your company’s culture and ideals purely via a Skype chat session. But when you are boot-strapped, you just have to try. So I did… I bought them vouchers to have massages, I gave them bonuses, I even gave them equity, everything I could to make them feel that Skimbit’s success was also their success.

However, the crowning act was booking a flight to see them. That meant flying to literally the other side of the planet, from Sydney to Bucharest: not an inconsequential task. But joyfully done, and the rewards made it worthwhile. You get to bond with your extended team in way that text-based communication can never achieve. You get to know them and what motivates them. You get to understand their work conditions… it all makes a difference in the end, not only to how they feel, but how you communicate with them going forward. I have been back now a second time, to celebrate the launch of Skim-in-a-box launch, which we did in hearty style!

3. Took a break

I had been working so stupidly hard. Can I even begin to impress how hard it is to work a full-time job, and then start a business up in your spare hours, whilst living alone. I had the gift of amazing friends and family, but it was still lonely, tiring work. So, when a few different goals coalesced into a real plan to head around the world for 7 weeks, it seemed like what my soul needed. I felt so stuck in a rut - Skimbit was up and running, but it was in very much an alpha state, and I just didn’t see how things could change. So, I packed my backpack, and headed over to Munich, as you do.

I planned to visit my developers in Romania, reunite with my old home of London, and be bridesmaid at a wedding in Vancouver. So, if I was to buy a round-the-world ticket, I may as well take advantage of it and fit a few other places in. And so I did, also squeezing in Munich, Berchtesgarten, Vienna, Madrid and Ibiza into that mad glorious trip.

That trip represents one of the most significant phases of my life. You know when you feel some divine power has finally decided to cast their eye on you and make things happen that move your soul and test your mettle. Well, this was it. At the end of that trip I felt so intensely alive, blessed, and empowered. It was JUST what I needed, particularly as that trip also led to the biggest change of my life, which was…

4. Moved back to London

During the aforementioned trip, while in London, the wildest set of events happened that led to me presenting the newly conceived concept of Skim-in-a-box to potential clients, who loved it and signed up for it on the spot. As a result of that success, and the adoration I felt being back in London, I made an instant and never-doubted decision to leave my family, friends and life in Sydney, again, and move back to London to pursue what was undeniably a more lucrative and buoyant web application sphere. In the space of one month, literally, I worked full-time, developed the full functional specifications for Skim-in-a-box, started a company in London, sold my car, my furniture, moved out of my flat, packed my entire life up, and attempted to say farewell to my loved ones. It was almost a relief it was so quick - if I had too much time to think about it I might have lost my nerve. I had little money, London is the most expensive city in the world, and I was used to living very comfortably.

But I fought down any doubt, and did it. And you know, the second I landed, I have never felt so joyful. Despite growing up in Sydney, I have realised that London is my home. There is a peace coupled with joyful expectation here I have not felt elsewhere… like anything could happen, and it would be ok if it did. I like that.

5. Given Skimbit my all

2007 is above all the year I decided to give my all to Skimbit. Up until then I was risking only some savings and a bit of spare time. This year, it was a large pile of my savings, and all my time, spare or not spare. And truly, I have loved every second of it. Not being able to buy shoes or handbags… its taught me self-restraint; not being able to go out and party… its saved me money and waistline; working 15 hour days… it will all be worth it in the end. I’m certain of it. I have a fantastic business, people around me that believe and support me, and an unwavering conviction I’m doing the right thing. I’ve never felt so sure and so complete.

Thank you 2007 - you will go down in my life annals as the best year of my life.