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 to shake up my life, again, to move to a new country. Because it was inevitably going to be me that had to make the move. My dear co-founder, Joe, is married to my good friend Philippa, who runs a wildly successful fashion PR company in London, and it just wasn’t possible for him to move country without living apart from Philly, or without her giving up her company. Neither were even remotely an option.

On the other hand, I was single, with no commitments… it was inevitably going to be me that moved over to the US. But I resisted, I was scared… of starting again, of living out of a suitcase, of not having my support network of close friends, of not knowing a city intimately like I know London. I have moved country 3 times – Sydney to London, London to Sydney, Sydney to London again – and the thought of doing it again… and leaving my support network and team to embark upon a huge challenge on my own… well, I resisted.

But it was my VP Sales, Jeff Sullivan, who kicked me, necessarily, into action. The challenge of running and working with a remote team while 8 hours timezone away – he said – is hard, but its an overcomeable challenge. The challenge of losing opportunities in the US because we aren’t here, is not overcomeable. It was time, and I was the only one who could do it. So like every superhero/heroine/fantasy character I had ever read about and dreamed I could be like (hey, I’m a geek, of course I do that, you all do!), I prepared to shoulder the burden and fear, and set a date for my departure. I emailed a bunch of my friends to tell them – deliberately, so there was no chickening out. No turning back.

Within a month, I had arrived in San Francisco. Why, I am often asked, did you chose San Francisco over New York that has more publishers and advertisers relevant to my business and was fewer hours apart from London? The answer is that I had ascertained in my previous trips to the US that the kind of deals I wanted to win in San Francisco could only be won if I lived in the Bay Area, and was part of the ‘scene’, whereas the deals I wanted to win in New York I could win just by living in the US, not necessarily in New York. I also had more friends in San Francisco, and it made sense to build buzz amidst the home of geek buzz.

It has now been 3 months since I moved over. To be fair, almost half that time has not been in San Francisco – I’ve been all over the US and back to London, Dublin and Athens in that time, but regardless, this sense of ‘home’ is starting to deliciously creep in. It hits me as I drive down the I-280 amidst those grand rolling volcanic peaks; it hits me as walk down streets of such pretty fanciful facades; it hits me as I continually meet such fascinating friendly people, that make me feel immediately at home.

Hannah and I in a helicopter in Vegas

This whole process has been helped immeasurably by the presence of Hannah, one of my team who a year ago asked me if she could one day move to the US with the company, and I promised her I would do that… a year on, I delivered, and to her surprise and delight she was told her dream was coming true and she was moving to the US. Two night ago Hannah moved out of my apartment to her own flat, but before then, for two months, she and I lived together, worked together and socialised together… and strangely, it was actually fun. We explored the city together, ogled at the city’s cute dogs, acted as wing-women to each other at networking events, made each other laugh as we practised Americanisms we learnt from Jersey Shore and The Rachel Zoe Project… we cushioned the cultural shock for each other, and I can’t thank her enough for being such a wonderful. As Hannah said at one stage “There is a level of loyalty you feel for the startup you work for, especially when you are part of the early team, that other people cannot conceive of.”

So, two days before my first ever Thanksgiving, I thought it pertinent to give thanks to the ease and joy I have felt moving to San Francisco. Thank you to the people who are so willing to open their arms and welcome a stranger into their circle; thank you to the cerebral stimulation I feel at networking events here; thank you to my team back in London who have felt the challenge that distance inevitably adds to our relationship, and still deliver again and again and again. I have no idea what the future holds, where I will be in a year, what adventures, challenges and achievements are ahead of me, but right now, this is right, being in San Francisco and building my team out here, growing my company, giving this whole thing a real and proper go… this is right.  I’m glad I came to America.

Skimbit is lucky enough to have the strategic IT assistance of a friend of mine, Bernie. But Bernie is a busy boy. And besides helping us solve impossible problems and other nifty little things, he also is responsible for the innovative digital interface at brand new Soho restaurant, Inamo.

Inamo is a new type of restaurant, where instead of a waiter with a notepad, you have a table with a nifty laser control panel you navigate yourself. You fiddle a bit on the table with your finger, and you can do everything, from ordering all your food and wine, seeing what it all looks like before you eat it, watch the chefs cook it via chef cam, and most excitingly, change the illuminated virtual tablecloth with a myriad of colours, patterns and photos. Plus you can play games, view local maps, call cabs, and have full control of your bill. For those who hate trying to catch a waiter’s attention, and who find the process of ordering food almost as much fun as eating it, it very much appeals.

Anyway, Bernie has been involved in designing this interface, so for the past few months I have been hearing about all the challenges he faces… things like, is it obvious enough how to scroll down (as he says “I don’t know what else to do other than a large red pulsing arrow!”), is it obvious that ‘Service’ includes your bill, and many more fascinating user experience issues. Inamo has been in ‘beta’ for the past fortnight, offering half price meals while they iron out their glitches. Eager to both support my friend and to take advantage of a bargain, I decided to take the Skimbit team there for a much deserved team dinner.

And boy was it fun! Matthieu would not stop changing the table-cloth on me, it was pink with flowers one second, then blue stripes another, then a ravishing set of umbrella images… quite the whirlwind. Ciaran successfully played a picture puzzle game, and I salivated over every gorgeous image of food that was projected on my plate.

Apparently you get £10 off for each bug you find, but it was a pretty solid system. The only bugs in the system were the staff who perhaps need to seem a little more excited to be part of such a cool new restaurant, but I guess if you design a whole restaurant based around the premise of the superfluousness of waiters, then perhaps they might feel a bit miffed. They still get a 10% service charge though, and it kinda was a bit funny the 7th time they brought us the wrong thing we ordered, but being part of a young overworked company ourselves, we accepted the glitches as growing pains, and have faith it will improve with time.

The food was fabulous though… the chef is ex-Nobu and Hakkassan, Asian-fusion, rich and delicious. I’d recommend it thoroughly, if for nothing else but to enjoy Bernie’s great system design!

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 then!) and I extricated myself from my computer at the earliest in months in order to head to Bermondsey and attend Drink Tank.

Ciaran, my fabulous Senior Developer, came along, luckily as I always seemed to get a bit disoriented in the caverns of London Bridge station, and he steered me gently to the venue: first the Huddle offices, followed by Village East (a charming bar in Bermondsey).

And as always, I realised the second I arrived that I was doing myself a disservice by skipping previous events, as besides the opportunity to catch up with my ol’ Web Mission pals Andy from Huddle, Andrew from Rummble, Soks from Trusted Places, David from GroupSpaces, Alex from Latitude, Olli… from everywhere I think, I got to catch up with old friends: Nick from Fav.or.it, Nigel from ZygoHubs, Richard from ZebTab, John and Andy from Wigadoo, the generous and amazing Zuzanna from Huddle, and the glowing Yuri from City Amigos… and I got to meet new fabulous people like Emily from Hatch PR, Bindi from Microsoft, and Ian from Psycuity. It was a busy night.

It must be said, the Huddle guys know how to put on a party. At one stage it felt like trying to get into the most exclusive party in town (which I guess, it was) – with queues, door bitches, guestlists, drink tickets, and delicious nibblies. It was heaving and loud and intense, but that’s what you want in a party, so there were few complaints (although Emily and I did sneak into a calm alcove for a proper non-screaming-above-the-noise chat).

It’s funny: I’m currently helping a friend of mine who is about to start his own web start-up, and he is asking about how I built the entrepreneurial social graph I seem to have achieved in under a year of moving back to London to live. It is in describing in detail – after being questioned thoroughly – the steps I have taken to get here… wherever ‘here’ is, that I realise how actively I have pursued it and yet how organically it has happened, this immersion into such a supportive, incestuous, dashing, entertaining, fascinating crowd of entrepreneurs, or as Alex Hoye put it, “The highest density of Twitter users in the UK in one room”. You realise why they say being an ‘entrepreneur’ is more about personality than ability, because it all comes down to who you know, and people like to ‘know’ people they like, if you catch my drift. And I can honestly say that even if my endeavours don’t turn out the way I plan, at the very least I have had (and still am having) the most gloriously entertaining time, being a part of London’s entrepreneurial scene. And its events like Drink Tank that make this happen, so thank you Huddle and the many sponsors of the event for helping build this fabulous ecosystem.

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 you will like it – be patient with us, we want to do a good job.