Birth of a Startup

In 2006, while dealing with a relationship breakup, I started a company in my living room. To keep myself sane during that lonely, stressful, exciting time, I started a blog. I called it Birth of a Startup, and I meticulously documented all the highs, lows, and (very many) mundane moments, over the first few years of building my first company.

The blog went dormant for a while, but I managed to rescue the posts and resurrect them in this new blog. I plan to continue adding to this section of my blog as I continue to birth new startups, and make all sorts of new mistakes along the way. Enjoy (and scroll down to 2006-2008 posts to have a solid giggle at how naive I was!).

10 Sep, 2007

Big news to announce

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T17:14:48+00:00September 10th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Its quite startling to sit here and attempt to summarise what the last 2 months have meant to my startup. The last time I wrote to you was the eve of my departure from Sydney for 7 week trip overseas. The trip - besides being fun - had the following goals: developing a stronger bond

27 Jun, 2007

Point made – pre-launch for blog readers!

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T17:37:00+00:00June 27th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

I have to thank 'Anonymous' commenter who left this very direct and very true comment on my last post: Lot's of I's. I this , I that, ... Why not use the readers of this blog for a pre-launch and ask *them* for instance if the obvious flaws are acceptable or not. bottomline, ask for

25 Jun, 2007

Am I wrong to be pedantic?

Alicia Navarro2018-10-03T19:23:44+01:00June 25th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Its been a long time since we started developing my site... many many months. It is a relatively complex application, and I have the extra challenge of financing it with my own savings, and using a (brilliant) team of developers in Europe, whilst I sit here in Sydney... so its not too terrible that its

19 Jun, 2007

Still going…

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T17:39:03+00:00June 19th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Apologies again for my lax communication. Its just that the message has not changed overly. I'm still almost there, but not quite ready for public consumption. Sometimes I think its just that I'm terribly pedantic and proud, but there are some pretty major bugs in it still, which are getting worked on, but just not

9 May, 2007

The final touches

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T17:45:20+00:00May 9th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

This is the frustrating part. My site, my darling site, that has taken almost a year to coax into being, that is almost ready, is still not launched! Its almost ready, but some major issues are holding off its full launch. The Homepage is the main thing - a designer friend has kindly offered to

26 Apr, 2007

Being frugal

Alicia Navarro2018-10-03T20:03:02+01:00April 26th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

The challenge with starting a business using your own savings, is you have to try to achieve elegance while being stingy. A few of my challenges at the moment: I need a legal opinion on my site so I can get public indemnity insurance. Just to get the Terms of Use document written is $4000.

25 Apr, 2007

I’ve launched softly

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:13:18+00:00April 25th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

A massive apology to those kind souls who have been supportive and interested in my burgeoning business. I have been terribly recalcitrant in keeping this blog up to date, instead distracted by the ever demanding nature of work and late nights. I have lots of good news though to finally impart. Although not yet launched,

5 Apr, 2007

Life-long ambitions

Alicia Navarro2019-03-04T13:15:20+00:00April 5th, 2007|Birth of a Startup|

I have been extraordinarily busy. What with working a full-time job, trying a launch my business (which is very close!), in the midst of starting a second one, trying to stay fit, see family, have a vague concept of a social life... well, sleep is definitely the thing that is suffering, but I figure I

25 Mar, 2007

It’s been a while…

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:16:18+00:00March 25th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Apologies for my scarcity of entries lately. Life has been tough and busy lately. My day job has gotten hugely demanding, and I'm on the verge of launching my business. Life has become all about work at the moment, and my sleep levels, social life and exercise regime have suffered. I keep thinking surely this

13 Mar, 2007

Writing an ‘About us’

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:17:59+00:00March 13th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

For the last few days I have been in issue logging mode. Days and days of testing, describing issues, thinking analytically about flow and logic and aesthetics. Now, my beleaguered developers have an avalanche of issues to deal with (bless them, they are getting through them valiantly), and I can turn my attention to all