Skimbit now has a good size team (Joe the amazing Marketing Director and Matthieu the incredible Operations Manager), but what we really need now is a CTO.

We have a team of developers offshore, but we would like someone to really champion Skimbit from a technical perspective, with experience in scaling web applications, and in building innovative services. As we are a small team, the CTO would also have to be a lead developer (so experience with Javascript, AJAX libraries and PHP essential), and probably be involved in some front end development work too. But aaah, isn’t that the joy of working for a start-up, you can be a jack-of-all-trades, and be truly an integral part of building something special.

Let me know if you or anyone you know would be appropriate. The candidate doesn’t need to have been a CTO before, but is ready (and experienced enough) to be one now, at least.

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, and most importantly, forming strategic partnerships with bookmark aggregators like Gigya and Add to Any. They were both San Francisco/Valley based, so I managed to set meetings up with them while I was there, and I can joyfully report that both companies completely understood my business, Skimbit, and agreed to include our ‘Skim this!’ badge in their bookmarking buttons.

I then managed to meet the team from AddThis.com at the Web 2.0 conference I attended in San Francisco, and managed to get them on board too. This is a huge win for us, and puts us on the same playing field as Digg and Delicious, though with a different enough focus and target market to compete effectively.

Then, potential customers for our white-label service, Skim-in-a-box… I had hoped to get leads for new clients, but as I didn’t have any meetings booked, my expectations were low. However, I was introduced to several incredibly exciting and high profile web entities, who you will all know, and they expressed not only interest, but a serious intent to partner.

I won’t spill the beans yet on who these companies are, but they will totally make my business when they come through. Understandably, I’m pretty chuffed.

From a funding perspective, my expectations were also very low, as I’d been repeatedly told US based investors won’t consider UK based companies. However, I had a meeting with a high profile seed investor, who said the distance issue – although challenging – is not insurmountable, and they are currently considering investing in Skimbit.

I had hoped WebMission would attract a lot of very much welcomed media exposure, and to my glee, this also turned out beyond expectation. In the last week I have been TechCrunched, on the BBC, the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and soon to be in The Telegraph and Spectator. Not bad for a tiny little start-up!

But I would have to say, without a doubt, the best outcome of WebMission was the networking, interaction, and bonding that went on with the rest of the WebMission team. What really stood out to me is how innovative, supportive, and ambitious us Brits (well, I’m an Aussie, but you know what I mean) are, and that although going to the US was helpful and educational, we should be darn proud of what we have back home.

So now, as I deal with the avalanche of work, leads to follow, deals to execute on, and investments to finalise, I am buzzing with joy and elation that I’m on the right path, and the light at the end of the tunnel is bright and beckoning.

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 us welcomed to San Francisco with a cocktail party thrown in our honour by TechCrunch. It was a great opportunity to meet the other 19 start-ups on Web Mission, plus our fabulous sponsors like HSBC, Oracle and UKTI. However, a long and unglamorous flight that day meant we weren’t in top partying condition, so I went to bed early in anticipation of the next day’s revelry.

And revelrous it was indeed, with us all being invited for brunch and a barbecue at the house of Craigslist CEO, Jim Buckmaster. And I literally mean his home: for the first 10 minutes I stood in wonder in his living room perched on a hill in a trendy area of San Francisco, observing his family photos on the mantlepiece, his taste in twentieth century American poets, and his pet poodle.

Jim and his wife had hired caterers and invited the glitterati of the US entrepreneurial scene for a leisurely afternoon sipping Bloody Marys and nibbling prawn salad in his living room. Utterly surreal, and undeniably interesting.

I met YouNoodle’s founder Bob Goodson and heard about his interesting hypotheses; BlogTalkRadio’s John Havens, who interviewed a few of us using his cool interview-via-mobile-phone-to-voicemail technique, at one stage from the boot of a car in German (you had to be there I guess); and Michael Birch, the delightfully unassuming CEO of recently acquired Bebo.

We then scooted off to a party in the Valley at the home of Brian Solis where in the late afternoon dappled sunlight we ate corn on the cob and talked to the founders of Google-acquired Jaiku and Techmeme.com. I kept having moments of delighted shock as I realised I was in the company of so many people I admire.

By the end of that day, we are all exhausted. And it was only Sunday! The week hadn’t even begun yet!

Today started early, with a visit out to Oracle where representatives from Facebook, Amazon and LinkedIn talked about how to internationalise and scale, and Oracle talked about their incredible company history and interesting product strategies.

I feel so privileged to be part of a group that so many inspirational companies think is worthwhile meeting. After a gorgeous lunch in the Oracle executive dining room, I left the group, and went on my own to meet a company I hoped to partner with. The meeting went really well, so you will hear more about this partnership very soon!

Now I am on the way back to San Francisco to attend an evening with Jim Buckmaster and Michael Birch, followed by one of many parties during this week’s Web 2.0 conference.

You see what I mean then? I’ve been here for only 48 hours, and we’ve done all this already! I’m hoping my stamina stays strong as the week continues to unfold its thrilling and lucrative possibilities.

It’s been a while since I posted, but before you thrust out the bayonets and skewer me, await and see how much we have been up to here at Skimbit, and they you may forgive me for my lack of editorial diligence.

As you may have read, Skimbit was selected for Web Mission 08, a networking, partnering and promotion journey to Silicon Valley with other UK based startups like Huddle, WAYN, Mydeo, Rummble, Trusted Places, and The Filter.

Startups.co.uk asked me to be a guest blogger for the Web Mission journey, so here are my blog posts covering before, during and after the event.

Before the event:

You would think considering I am going to meet the founders of Craigslist, Bebo, Friendster and the Guidewire Group in a few days, I would be panicking about what I was going to say… But no, it seems the only way one’s mind can deal with the enormity of what one is about to embark upon, is to focus on really insignificant things. Like: how am I going to get from Palo Alto to San Francisco on Monday… and, I wish I had prettier business clothes… and, I have no idea how to tip US-style!

Yes, that is right, I am off to Silicon Valley, which strangely makes me think more of breast implants than semi-conductors, but then, I’m a girl. Yes, I’m a girl, who runs a web start-up (which makes me a minority) , based in London (even further in the minority), and off to Silicon Valley for the first time. What’s more, I’m of Spanish heritage, and Australian nationality. So with this mix of cultures, demographics and experiential history, I wonder what adventures shall unfold over the next week!

I am the founder and CEO of Skimbit, a social decision-making tool that helps you research and make decisions online, with the help of others. I was chosen along with 19 other of “UK’s most promising” start-ups, to head over to the US as part of Web Mission 08. There we will network, pitch, schmooze, research, promote, and partner with as many people as possible in what I am increasingly nervous will be an exhausting, exhilarating non-stop week.

I shall document my daily trials, tribulations, triumphs and tirades via this blog, so come and join me on this journey of discovery!