I've been meaning to get a puppy for a while. I am not alone in feeling immense joy in the presence of a dog's simple adoring love. While I never had a dog growing up, I lived with a gracious Labrador called Hunter when I lived in a house-share as I started Skimlinks. I would
When I chose to step down from being Skimlinks' CEO 11 months ago, one of my (many) goals was to launch a personal website that would achieve a few things: re-publish the "Birth of a Startup" blog I wrote over 11 years ago when I was first starting Skimlinks in my bedroom in Sydney be
This post was written in my journal, while sitting on a bench overlooking the Pacific, during a week-long workshop on Offering to the Divine at Esalen (I wrote about the overall experience here). This rumination on the sea is quite beautiful, and probably the only piece of writing I'll share publicly from that week. I've
One of the phrases I generally dread from a solicitious email or conference attendee is "Can I meet with you to pick your brain on X?". It is such a broad topic, and generally it means the asker is so far from being ready to do X that my help may well be a waste
I'm a few days into my London-based post-CEOship. I've been phenomenally lucky that these days have coincided with a totally unseasonal heatwave, and I'm currently sitting on my sun-drenched balcony in short shorts and a big hat, listening to the sound of a duck frolicking in the canal water below my balcony. And its mid-April.
I have now had the pleasure of living in San Francisco for 3 months, and have experienced a great many times the frustration of either being misunderstood, not being understood at all, or even worse, laughed at for the quirks in my speech. It is unfortunately a testament to the nationalistic focus of many Americans
This is my guide to hiring: look for the ‘fire in the eyes’. I look for someone who’s eyes twinkle when they talk about their hopes and ambitions, and when they talk about your company. Someone that has that sparkle of brightness, coupled with a personality that you warm to straight away.I have hired people
My team and I recently made one of the hardest decisions we have ever made. Despite being proud of being a UK-based company achieving success internationally, it was becoming obvious that to take ourselves to the level we wanted to, we needed to set up a physical base in the US. We had resisted for
We always knew it would happen. The day after we closed our last funding round, I sat with my team, there were 9 of us, and we said “You know things are going to change from now on?” We knew it, that hiring more people and growing quickly was going to be fabulous but also
I’m at a fascinating point in my startup journey. I am still growing my company, I don’t think of myself as a success yet. Not until I’m wildly profitable or I’ve been acquired for a suitable amount will I think of myself as ’successful’. So far, I’m doing alright, and am on a good path,
