It’s been a while since I posted, but before you thrust out the bayonets and skewer me, await and see how much we have been up to here at Skimbit, and they you may forgive me for my lack of editorial diligence.

As you may have read, Skimbit was selected for Web Mission 08, a networking, partnering and promotion journey to Silicon Valley with other UK based startups like Huddle, WAYN, Mydeo, Rummble, Trusted Places, and The Filter.

Startups.co.uk asked me to be a guest blogger for the Web Mission journey, so here are my blog posts covering before, during and after the event.

Before the event:

You would think considering I am going to meet the founders of Craigslist, Bebo, Friendster and the Guidewire Group in a few days, I would be panicking about what I was going to say… But no, it seems the only way one’s mind can deal with the enormity of what one is about to embark upon, is to focus on really insignificant things. Like: how am I going to get from Palo Alto to San Francisco on Monday… and, I wish I had prettier business clothes… and, I have no idea how to tip US-style!

Yes, that is right, I am off to Silicon Valley, which strangely makes me think more of breast implants than semi-conductors, but then, I’m a girl. Yes, I’m a girl, who runs a web start-up (which makes me a minority) , based in London (even further in the minority), and off to Silicon Valley for the first time. What’s more, I’m of Spanish heritage, and Australian nationality. So with this mix of cultures, demographics and experiential history, I wonder what adventures shall unfold over the next week!

I am the founder and CEO of Skimbit, a social decision-making tool that helps you research and make decisions online, with the help of others. I was chosen along with 19 other of “UK’s most promising” start-ups, to head over to the US as part of Web Mission 08. There we will network, pitch, schmooze, research, promote, and partner with as many people as possible in what I am increasingly nervous will be an exhausting, exhilarating non-stop week.

I shall document my daily trials, tribulations, triumphs and tirades via this blog, so come and join me on this journey of discovery!

Admittedly, Skimbit is still in beta phase. So it shouldn’t really be totally humiliating to have a bug.

But, in the last month, Skimbit’s traffic has tripled, so suddenly, bugs are a bigger deal, as they can potentially affect more of our users. And I LOVE my users, truly! I can’t describe it… but to have complete strangers want to use, and benefit from, something that I have worked on so crazily hard for so long, is the deepest compliment coupled with the deepest responsibility.

And so, when something goes a little wrong, I can’t abide that people who have put their faith in me and my product are experiencing any type of inconvenience. I am so prepared for them to rush off and never come back, or to be angry, or even worse, to just leave and never come back or think of Skimbit again.

Imagine, then, my joy this week to meet a user who not only has come to my site because he has a genuine need to use it (as opposed as a mild curiousity to see what my site is vaguely about!); but he also notified me of a bug, and helped me solve it. What a blessing!

Yes, there was a slight bug in the way we sent invitations to friends from the Address Book, and it took a while to find out the root cause of the bug. I kept expecting the user to get fed up and throw his hands up in disgust and frustration, which terrified me because he was a true advocate of the solution. But to my immense joy, he not only persisted, helped find the problem, tested it, and kept sending me updates, but he also - bless - apologised for hassling me! What an angel!

Thankfully, we have now corrected the bug, fixed a misunderstanding on the site, and somehow still have the attention of a user who invited 20 of his friends to use the site - what an amazing man. I can’t stop with the superlatives, it just completely blew me away how kind and helpful strangers can be.

It takes me back to those web 2.0 seminars, where all the speakers raved about "Your users will tell you when you are doing something wrong, they will be passionate advocates of your site!" and I kinda doubted it could happen. But, I just experienced the charity of users, and feel even more passionate about doing a good job for them!

My favourite saying at the moment is this:

"I can either work myself to the bone, and not get everything done that I need to; or I can NOT work myself to the bone, and STILL not get everything done that I need to…. so there is little point in killing myself in the process."

I say this, yet here I am, its half past midnight, my eyes are so blurry I can’t focus on the font before me, my back is screaming in agony, and my tummy is not at its prettiest after too much toast… and STILL I haven’t got everything done that I need to.

Some more exciting news for Skimbit… Web Mission 08 is a competition for the top UK based start-ups to head over to Silicon Valley to promote our businesses and form strategic partnerships. Initially I didn’t think it was for Skimbit - to enter you had to indicate how ’socially sustainable’ your business was, and if selected, had to contribute a sizeable sum of cash, certainly more than flights and hotels in San Francisco would have been if I bought them directly. But - I reckoned - it was a great opportunity and worth the effort, so I entered.

And when I found out I was accepted, although I was pleased, I do have to admit I had a fleeting moment of thinking "Well, I bet not many people applied, its not such a big deal…"

So imagine my surprise when I found out that over 100 start-ups had competed, and only 20 were selected! And that the judging panel included Doug Richard and Mike Butcher! And that there is huge press coverage of the event: Skimbit even managed to appear on TechCrunch US!

And looking at the agenda, I now totally realise what a fabulous opportunity this is! I’m busily trying to organise meetings with potential partners in the Valley and San Fran (if you are one, or know of one, let me know!), and am meeting with some US-based PR firms to help my ‘launch’ in the US. Very exciting stuff!!