Ruminations
Thoughts, experiences, ideas and reflections
A blog documenting the trials and tribulations of starting and running a tech startup, of living in these exciting but challenging times, and of learning and becoming – bit by bit – the best one can be.
Announcing the launch of Navarland.com! (finally)
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 a blog for my ongoing start-up and entrepreneurial adventures be a travel blog to inspire or help anyone looking to visit some of the places I've been to demonstrate
Why I love the sea
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 worked out why I love the ocean so much, particularly when there's crashing waves. It isn't the enticement of swimming in it that draws me: I don't really enjoy
“Can I pick your brain on how to raise funding?”
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 of time for both of us... if they don't know enough to be able to articulate what specifically they don't yet know, there is probably too much they don't
Busy doing not much
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. Insane. But right now, idyllic. However, I also have my laptop open, and am.... working. Yes, working! Why, considering I have passed the reins to my illustrious new CEO, do
What not to say when in America (or, How to be understood when in America)
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 that they don’t understand a very clearly spoken English/Australian accent, because they just don’t hear them very often. Whereas those who grew up outside the US had exposure to
Fire in the eyes
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 (or rather, known I was going to hire someone) just by reading their cover letter. My Account Director, Mark, was like that. We still talk about his cover letter
Coming to America!
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 a while – I was hesitant to split our team up over two continents when we have such an incredible chemistry when we are together, and I was reluctant
Growing pains
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 incredibly challenging. Growing in size quickly whilst running and trying to keep the culture that defined and envigorated us all, would no doubt be hard. But we thought it
How to ask for advice from busy CEOs
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, but I won’t declare myself a ’success’ just yet. So it always surprises me when fresh young startup folk, trying to get their startup off the ground, come to
Kicking things off again
Its been a very very long time since I have written in this blog. The last post was such a fitting place to stop, that it felt almost criminal to sully such a poetic ending with a banal next post. However, much has happened in the last 14 months. My company has gone from a startup that literally *just* survived bankruptcy to a company now that employs 27 people and has thousands of clients all over the world. We have completed two rounds of
One chapter ends, another begins…
Boy am I glad I have separated the corporate blog from my personal blog. I have written now a very sensible and official post on the corporate blog about our funding round, which took me a very long time to write, as I kept wanting to burst into admissions of honesty. However, I restrained myself, but now am ready to pop. Here is where I can say what I really feel. YIIIIHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After 13 months of easily the hardest, most stressful, challenging, exhausting, demoralising,
Reinvention
When I first started this blog, I had a grand vision. I would write about the trials and tribulations of starting a web startup, imparting the wisdom I picked up along the way, and the mishaps that would no doubt trip me up as I trudged on. Part of my strategy was to keep my burgeoning company name a secret, to build anticipation and a community around my soon-to-be-launched website. This strategy partly worked: a small following tracked my progress, and I could be
Server downtime today
Apologies to anyone trying to access Skimbit today. We have been beset by problems with our hosting company (intermittent slowness, frequent unexplained downtimes etc) for some time now. I perhaps stupidly have stayed with them because 1. they are a British startup and I want to support them, 2. they have fantastic account management, and 3. I have changed server providers three times, and really wanted to avoid doing it again if I could. However, our entire set of servers has been down ALL
Drink Tank shenanigans
We have been very busy here at Skimbit headquarters. Busily putting together our exciting new version of the site, filled with lots of little improvements that will make you all smile (we really think it will!). So, due to this crazy busy bee-ness, I’ve missed the last couple of Drink Tank events, the fabulous networking parties hosted by Huddle. But, my sense of duty overwhelmed me (I mean, one owes it to the community to put in a good partying effort every now and
“Its a small world afterall…”
We are growing bit by bit - welcome the newest member to the Skimbit team, Tamas from Hungary. We are continuing our trend towards being a hugely multicultural company: we have an Aussie (me), English (Joe - well, he is kinda Aussie though), Ciaran (Irish), and Matthieu (French). What will our next recruit be? We are all busily working towards our soon to be launched new design… bet you are all waiting with baited breath to see what we come out with?! We think
A day in the park
Skimbit has changed a lot since I past posted. We are now a team of four, working in new offices in Shoreditch, London. We are working hard on our new visual design, on speed optimisation, on usability enhancements, and great new features. We have launched a really snazzy monetisation platform that is - we think - a world-first method for monetising user-generated content in a non-obtrusive way. You won’t even realise it is happening! We are really proud. We get to earn money and
Web Mission 08 – the aftermath
And finally, my final post on Startups.co.uk reflecting on Web Mission 08 and what it has meant to Skimbit: I have been back a few days from my Web Mission expedition to San Francisco. It’s taken me this long to recuperate and take stock of everything that went on. I’m still in a state of shock and awe. It was a beyond successful week, exceeding even my overly ambitious expectations. Pretty much everything I’d hoped would happen, did happen. What, you ask? Well, firstly,
Web Mission 08 – the middle
And here is my mid-trip post from Web Mission 08: It’s Day 2 of Web Mission 08, and I have not stopped yet. From the minute we landed in sunny San Francisco, we’ve been schmoozing, networking, visiting, exploring, learning, and, inevitably, drinking. The only thing I haven’t done enough of is sleeping… But what with unavoidable jetlag and a frantically buzzing mind unable to rest as I constantly think of what I should do next, I suppose sleeping can wait. Our first night saw
Kicking things off again
Its been a very very long time since I have written in this blog. The last post was such a fitting place to stop, that it felt almost criminal to sully such a poetic ending with a banal next post. However, much has happened in the last 14 months. My company has gone from a startup that literally *just* survived bankruptcy to a company now that employs 27 people and has thousands of clients all over the world. We have completed two rounds of
The glory of helpful users
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