Birth of a Startup

One of the reasons I knew many years ago that I had to become an entrepreneur, was that I wanted the ability to dictate the terms of my life.

I hated HAVING to be at work at 9am, and feeling guilty and stressed if I was running late. I hated having people silently judge me if I was writing a personal email or reading a blog during work hours, and the challenge of having to always book things like dentists and home deliveries in my pre- or post- work hours. Its not that I have an aversion to work, far from it, but I hated that the times I was not performing in a ‘normal’ business way would be judged negatively. And perhaps this is more an indication of my inherent guilt, as possibly I was imagining these silent frowns of disapproval, but nevertheless, I hated feeling that way, and knew that being my own boss would be the only solution.

And I feel very lucky to have achieved my goal: I am my own boss, and I am more or less master of my own destiny.

Of course the irony is that far from working less, I am now working MORE than I ever did, when I was a normal employee. The beauty of my arrangement though, is its on my terms, and every day that passes I savour that feeling. I love that because I work best in the evenings, if I choose to start work at 10:30am, and work til 9pm, that is fine. If I need to go to the doctors, I can book at whatever time I like, and work from home til that time comes. What freedom! And if the way I work best is to stop every hour for a game of Spider Solitaire, no one is going to ever judge me. Brilliant!

The one big challenge though, is that this freedom requires a great deal of self-discipline. I love working and I am inspired by my work, but sometimes, my inherent laziness gets the better of me. Never is this more apparent than when I ‘work from home’. Now, don’t get me wrong, my working from home is vastly productive, and I enjoy the solitude to focus on something complicated. But… the lure of tempting procrastination is strong, and I find it hard to resist even though I really really want to, without the power of the guilt I feel when I am working in an office.

So, although I work for myself, being in an office with lots of other super dynamic people not only motivates me, but dispels my desire to procrastinate. I actually find the rigours of my training as a 9-5 employee actually helps and gives me discipline to go to work early, work hard, etc. I know some people are brilliant at working hard at home, and are great with self-discipline, but I have come to terms with the fact that for me, I need to almost trick myself that I am going to a normal job, in order to get the most out of my time. Of course, I do give myself some of the flexibility I have aspired to, and in all, this proves a healthy workable balance.

As you may have read in a previous post, I recently had an incident with a wayward cup of miso soup, that decided to disastrously waterfall all over my IBM laptop. I should be grateful that due to some quick-thinking drying under a ladies room hairdryer, and a kind boyfriend who spent the next hour dismantling the computer so I could dry each component, the computer remained pretty much intact: no data was lost, and I could still use the laptop.

However, one quite hilarious outcome was the screen lost the ability to render black, and rendered it as red instead… so everything was in shades of pink. You could work on it fine, and I did get used to it, but every now and then someone would pass my desk and laugh at me for being so girlie… I then had to explain that the pink was absolutely not a deliberate choice… After a while, this became more of an issue than I like to admit!

Of course, there were other more sensible reasons to change laptops - my computer had ground to a halt speed-wise, and considering I like to work with about 20 open applications, my little ol’ PC just wasn’t coping. And the final problem was Norton’s anti-virus which managed to render my computer unusable for 30 minutes a few times a day. So, for all these reasons, I decided to buy a new laptop.

I steadfastly refused to buy a Mac for ages, despite my office-mates all using them and singing Apple’s praises constantly. And my reasons, I admit, were a little strange. Firstly, I like the IBM trackpoint (that little red thing you use instead of a trackpad), and only IBM has them. I like how I don’t have to move my hand to do everything I need to do on my computer, and again, due to the manic pace at which I use my laptop, this is a critical factor for me. Secondly, I have little hands, and I liked having a US/Aus keyboard as I could reach the Enter key easily (UK keyboards have a small enter key that is too far away for my little finger to reach while touch-typing). Finally, there was this resistance to going with the crowd - everyone kept praising Macs, it was almost not cool enough to do what everyone else did. Yes, I know, silly reasons.

In the end, I went for it though. And I mitigated my first two complaints by buying an IBM USB keyboard in Australia - so I can still use the IBM trackpoint on an Aussie keyboard, on my new MacBook Pro!! And in the end, I see what the fuss is all about - it really is an utterly superb machine and operating system. I bow gracefully to all those I rebuked for so long, it is a delight and pleasure to use, and considering the amount of time I spend at my computer, a little bit of extra pleasure never goes astray!

The Apple purists around me still moan and laugh when they see me - there with an IBM USB keyboard attached to my Mac, and perhaps this little idiosyncracy helps mitigate my third concern - I certainly am not going with the crowd with THIS ol’ system!

If you haven’t already noticed (and shame on you if you haven’t!), we have finally updated our homepage to a new and funkier style. Our original homepage design was a legacy of our ultra-bootstrapping days, when I had to ply my designer friends with wine and meals so they would create a homepage design for me on a nonexistent budget. And now that things are getting better, and I can afford to pay a designer, it was time to freshen up.

So please check it out and let us know your thoughts. Better yet - become a featured skimmer by telling us about the clever ways you use Skimbit.

One interesting piece of feedback I received from the ex-Dragon’s Den judge - Doug Richard - was that I should not market Skimbit as an all-purpose research and decision-making tool (because people don’t realise they need this), and instead market it as a solution to very specific problems, and to pick a few of them. For example, its a service for organising group holidays, planning weddings, and making important purchases. And then, he says, to make this the primary message of the homepage, and indeed the whole application.

Interestingly, quite a few other people have come back with similar feedback, so its definitely something I will factor into the next version of the homepage, and definitely something I will do with my forthcoming PR and advertising campaigns.

It is fascinating operating in this web environment having come from a software development background where development lifecycles were 6 months long, and if you changed your mind about a requirement, you had to wait 6 months to request it. These days, with web applications, it is not only easy, but necessary to make rapid iterative changes to design and functionality, to see what works best. It is indescribably difficult to take a step back sometimes from something I am so intimate with, and see what will work and what won’t, so chatting to new people who hear about Skimbit and visit the site is a highly educational and useful thing to do.

So I hope you like the new homepage, and find it communicates better what Skimbit is all about, especially to those not-so-technical people out there. Bit by bit we will work our way through the whole site, so it eventually will glow with brilliance (we hope!).

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!