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!).

6 Mar, 2007

Death of my social life

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:29:28+00:00March 6th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

I finally caught up on all my sleep this weekend, so I am ready for the onslaught of the next fortnight. We are in the final stages of development before user testing begins, so its when I need to be more actively involved than I have been to date. This means I have to do

6 Mar, 2007

Heartbreak – my first seed funding rejection

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:30:53+00:00March 6th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Well, I finally heard back from the seed capital fund I had requested funding from. I guess unsurprisingly, they declined. Their reasons were that they didn't have enough evidence of market validation and limited proof that I had the experience to execute on the plan. But of course, come see us later when you are

28 Feb, 2007

I’ve decided I want seed capital

Alicia Navarro2019-03-09T18:44:49+00:00February 28th, 2007|Birth of a Startup|

So, despite earlier posts declaring I was going to get my startup launched all on my own, and the self-evident pride I felt in calling my little venture a 'self-funded startup', I have decided I need other people's money. You see, I work full-time, and do all the work I need for my business at

15 Feb, 2007

Top 5 things I have learnt so far

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:48:07+00:00February 15th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Lessons & Advice, Ruminations|

I've been working on my little business for the past 8 months or so now, and most of that time was spent developing the idea and getting it ready for development. So here are my top 5 learnings that I have gleaned in that time: Don't worry about NDAs. Firstly, they don't really protect you;

15 Feb, 2007

The challenges of finding a business name

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:51:12+00:00February 15th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

Its hard enough thinking up a clever, original and catchy company name. Its made infinitely more difficult by then having to see whether the domain name is available. The process of coming up with my company name (which is, of course, still under wraps for now!) was an arduous and frustrating experience. I came up

14 Feb, 2007

Am I disadvantaged being based in Sydney?

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:49:16+00:00February 14th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Random musings, Ruminations|

I read an interesting post (with interesting comments) on one of my favourite blogs Read/Write Web about whether the location of your web business matters to its success. Read the post here. I found it interesting because I had met up with the Director of ad:tech the evening before, and we discussed the relative merits of

7 Feb, 2007

White versus colour in web site backgrounds

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:54:30+00:00February 7th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Ruminations|

In designing my soon-to-be-released web application, I pondered for a while over what colour background to use. A trivial concern you may think, but I am aware of the potential it has to affect the way your site is perceived. My obvious initial assumption was that I would go for a white background. When aiming

2 Feb, 2007

To work or not to work…

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:55:48+00:00February 2nd, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Random musings|

Not that I have a choice at the moment, but not a day goes by when I ponder on whether I can do this – whether I can start an internet business – while working in a full time job. Obviously I need money to live, and I have the unfortunate curse of requiring quite

30 Jan, 2007

Designing a logo

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:34:35+00:00January 30th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Lessons & Advice, Ruminations|

Now, I admit, I made this a bigger deal than perhaps it warranted. On the other hand, why start a company if you don't aspire to be the best: if you aspire to mediocrity, you will likely achieve poorly, its by aspiring to greatness that you at least achieve mediocrity. It all began with the

29 Jan, 2007

Negotiating contracts – part 2

Alicia Navarro2019-02-24T18:35:46+00:00January 29th, 2007|Birth of a Startup, Lessons & Advice|

Once the price and scope of works was finalised between myself and my supplier, it was time to finalise and sign the contract. This process generally involves lawyers and long documents and much to-ing and fro-ing, but we are a small company, and my supplier is as well. There were no lawyers involved on my