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, desperate time of my life, I am finally out of the tunnel and the light is strong. I don’t want to jinx myself, and I am not unrealistic about the challenges ahead, so I don’t want to wax too lyrical about how easy life is now. But, I would be lying if I said a mammoth gargantuan weight hadn’t been lifted from me. I feel lighter, younger, bouncier, and so much happier.

I used to describe my life as a mash-up between Groundhog Day and The Dragon’s Den : one never-ending series of pitches where I was politely rejected. There are a lot of similarities between pitching and dating: you don’t get it if you are looking for it, and they can sense the desperation. And I can attest to the truth in that.

Anyway, here are some of the learnings I have gleaned from this process:

1. It takes a lot longer than you plan – months and months and months. And apparently this was a quick funding deal. !!!
2. Read your term sheet very well, and get a lawyer involved early. I didn’t, and suffered a bit for it.
3. Stand up for things that are critical – in my negotiations, there were a few points that I was adamant about. I learned how to negotiate and be firm on the areas that were key for me, my team, and my current investors.
4. Find balance – I was lucky to have incredible non-tech non-startup friends and a boyfriend who soothed the woes from me on the weekends, allowing me to do 15 hour days mid-week. I needed that balance. My family too, although in Australia, were incredibly supportive and full of love.
5. There is always a way that will work – this has actually been a motto in my life… I remember once I bought a large two piece sofa before I saw the flat I was moving into. When it arrived, my boyfriend and I worked for hours trying to find a layout that would work, and we just couldn’t. But I inately felt a solution would appear, and after a few more heavings and pushes, we found it, and it was perfect. This lesson applies to so much of my life: you gotta shove and push and think and take breaks and take advice and shove a bit more, but there is a combination out there that works if you push hard enough.

My favourite quote is from my lead investor’s blog about this deal – he sums it up really well (perhaps better than he realises):

Skimbit is led by tenacious Australian entrepreneur Alicia Navarro who kept her company and vision alive by sheer force of will through a long search for the right business model and then for financing.

Yep, it sure was a sheer force of will. But I’m here now, relieved, thankful, energised and thrilled. My dream continues… to be honest, it kinda has already happened. Yes, I want riches and wealth, but really what drives me isn’t money, its proving I can do it. And in this climate, as an Aussie female with a Spanish name in London in the midst of a financial crisis, to get enough really smart and amazing VCs and Angels to fund my tech startup because they believe in me… and to have my father say he is proud of me… well, what more do I need to do, really? Oh yes, become a millionaire, but its that sense of inner glee and pride that I yearned for, and now, have.

The road still stretches out before me, but I tread it now confidently, and with a brave heart.

This has of course meant lots of late nights in the office. Sometimes we don’t eat at all (not good), and sometimes we get pizza delivered to the office for dinner (even worse). I’ve had pizza two nights in a row and feel like a bloated heifer.

So this morning, in the interests of team health and vitality, I bought a heap of fruit for the team to feast on when they get peckish.

And isn’t is wonderfully symbolic that completely unintentionally, the bowl of fruit is placed obstinately on top of the pamphlet for our local pizza place. I think there is something meaningful there for all of us

“I can either work myself to the bone, and not get everything done that I need to; or I can NOT work myself to the bone, and STILL not get everything done that I need to…. so there is little point in killing myself in the process.”

I say this, yet here I am, its half past midnight, my eyes are so blurry I can’t focus on the font before me, my back is screaming in agony, and my tummy is not at its prettiest after too much toast… and STILL I haven’t got everything done that I need to.

However, one quite hilarious outcome was the screen lost the ability to render black, and rendered it as red instead… so everything was in shades of pink. You could work on it fine, and I did get used to it, but every now and then someone would pass my desk and laugh at me for being so girlie… I then had to explain that the pink was absolutely not a deliberate choice… After a while, this became more of an issue than I like to admit!

Of course, there were other more sensible reasons to change laptops – my computer had ground to a halt speed-wise, and considering I like to work with about 20 open applications, my little ol’ PC just wasn’t coping. And the final problem was Norton’s anti-virus which managed to render my computer unusable for 30 minutes a few times a day. So, for all these reasons, I decided to buy a new laptop.

I steadfastly refused to buy a Mac for ages, despite my office-mates all using them and singing Apple’s praises constantly. And my reasons, I admit, were a little strange. Firstly, I like the IBM trackpoint (that little red thing you use instead of a trackpad), and only IBM has them. I like how I don’t have to move my hand to do everything I need to do on my computer, and again, due to the manic pace at which I use my laptop, this is a critical factor for me. Secondly, I have little hands, and I liked having a US/Aus keyboard as I could reach the Enter key easily (UK keyboards have a small enter key that is too far away for my little finger to reach while touch-typing). Finally, there was this resistance to going with the crowd – everyone kept praising Macs, it was almost not cool enough to do what everyone else did. Yes, I know, silly reasons.

In the end, I went for it though. And I mitigated my first two complaints by buying an IBM USB keyboard in Australia – so I can still use the IBM trackpoint on an Aussie keyboard, on my new MacBook Pro!! And in the end, I see what the fuss is all about – it really is an utterly superb machine and operating system. I bow gracefully to all those I rebuked for so long, it is a delight and pleasure to use, and considering the amount of time I spend at my computer, a little bit of extra pleasure never goes astray!

The Apple purists around me still moan and laugh when they see me – there with an IBM USB keyboard attached to my Mac, and perhaps this little idiosyncracy helps mitigate my third concern – I certainly am not going with the crowd with THIS ol’ system!

I remained quite calm considering, instantly rushing down to the toilets with my laptop cradled in my arms like an injured child, and sticking it under the hand-dryer in an attempt to evaporate some of the moisture off it. I just hope the heat didn’t cause more damage than it healed.

However, when I tried to turn it back on after the drying process, it remained lifeless and unresponsive. I rang up my male friend who works around the corner, and with the offer of a screwdriver and a roomful of techie men, I rushed over in the hope of salvation.

A half hour later my little laptop lay with its organs ripped out, screws lying like fleshy debris around the table, and me ardently mopping up any moisture I found with a paper napkin. It is now sitting in a coma state in front of a fan, whilst I sit on a spare computer praying and willing it to health.

Did I have a backup? Well, two months ago I did… so it won’t be the end of the world if its lost… and I’m fairly confident I can resurrect the memory and implant it into a new laptop. But it is still a bit of a disaster.

Please – dear readers – send my little laptop some good health vibes, and lets hope it decides to work again despite its bath in miso soup.

So in a similar vein, I am excited to say we didn’t do as bad as we could have in the Mashable Social Shopping awards. Considering we are very new, still building up our community, still improving our design and functionality, I didn’t expect to do well in such an established category.

But thanks to everyone that voted, Skimbit has managed to… not come last! I’m quite pleased with that… we still have a long long way to go, but if Skimbit’s current users and my network can push Skimbit up to compete against much more established sites, its a sign of good things to come. Well, that is how I am going to interpret that

However, besides not coming last, there have been several other useful outcomes of this exercise: firstly, it got me in touch with one of my favourite bloggers, Allen from Center Networks who is interested in finding out more about Skimbit. And it also is going to help in my current process of securing Angel funding… as to be TechCrunched and a nominated for top social shopping site of 2007 in my first week of beta launch, is not a bad way to start, is it?

See, it’s useful to find joy in such simple things!

What I am trying to do at the moment is just focus on obvious bugs that would impede a user’s ability to use or understand the application. I tend to get distracted by smallish design issues, which take up the developers time.

I have also been testing the application on a number of different computers and operating systems and browsers, and have been quite stunned at the degree of variance between these systems. It actually got me a little down for a while, after a particularly nasty Safari testing episode. But Emi and the team at Brainient have powered through and we are getting there. To my immense joy we fixed a tricky Internet Explorer Ajax bug that was the curse of my existence. Its getting there…

The other good news is a Flash developer friend has helped me out with a wonderful homepage design, and its incredible the difference it makes to the professional appearance of the site. I’m heading to his house shortly to finalise a few things, and then the homepage will be done!

So, dear friends, if you can bear waiting a short while later, I will come to you one almost perfect application!!

The hardest thing to deal with is lack of human contact outside of work hours. I live alone, which I love most of the time, except when all I do after work is go home and work til late. It can get a little lonesome.

The next hardest thing to deal with is the physical pain. No matter what you do, sitting in front of a computer for 16 hours a day, all week, is going to hurt your body. My back, neck, shoulders, and head are pretty much in a permanent state of anguish. I’d love to see a physiotherapist, but that requires time and money, neither of which I have in abundance at the moment.

So, I just find myself willing to be bestowed strength from my ancestors, hardy Cuban peasants and Spanish labourers, who lived tough lives without complaint. My life can hardly be called tough, comparatively. So I work long hours and my back hurts. I also live in a beautiful city, have a lovely home, and am surrounded by supportive friends and family. When my site becomes successful, all this will have been worthwhile, and even will enhance the value of the story. This is what I have to keep reminding myself!

But over the past few months, I have been lucky enough to have a few regular visitors, and although I have never met these people, their words of encouragement and advice tickle me with pleasure with each message they leave.

So, Val from Digital Labs, Alex from Microsmeta, Dennis and Jason from Thought and Theory, Thor, Lisa from Just Be, Leisa from Disambiguity, and many others, just a word of thanks! You really put a smile on my face.

Its so lucky I love it.

But its true, I have actually been turning down social engagements, which is really hard for me to do. I can’t say ‘No’ very easily, particularly when I really want something, so this situation is challenging for me. I’m the queen at procrastination normally, but its my savings on the line here, I really can’t afford to be frivolous.

So barring a sleep-over with my best friend whose boyfriend is out of town, I will be a sitting here in my little flat, chatting with my brilliant developers in Europe, writing Help text, testing code, giving feedback on new designs, etc. I’m sure two weeks of no social life won’t kill me… right?

Quite a few of my friends are gay. Its Mardi Gras season in Sydney at the moment, which means it’s a very busy time, particularly as almost all my gay friends have senior roles organising the various events around Mardi Gras. Its busy for me as I tend to be asked (and quite frankly, I very much enjoy) to volunteer wherever I can. So this past weekend was Mardi Gras Fair Day, a fun day of markets, shows, stalls, and general revelry at Victoria Park. Check out ‘Fair Day’-tagged photos from Flickr to see what it was all about… stunning setting on a gorgeous day, drag queens, gorgeous men, loving lesbians, dog shows, hula hoop dancing, a Sea of Hearts, picnics, etc.

My friend who is Marketing Chair for Mardi Gras came up with this idea (well, the English did it first, but he was the first to do it in Australia) to create a pink Australian flag. Its just a bit of fun – for those living outside Australia, let me give you the quick run-down on the significance of this: Each Australia Day there is a big music concert called Big Day Out. This year, organisers of the event asked if people could not bring Australian flags with them, in case it incited bigotry-based riots (reminiscent of the horribly embarrassing Cronulla Beach incident of 2005). This request caused a public outcry, with the organisers finally backing down, and festival-goers in turn acted very peacefully, and abundantly decked out in the Australian flag.

So the presence of an Australian flag at a festival like Fair Day was a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour. Making it pink, was a cheeky little twist to it, offering gay Australians a flag they might choose to humorously adopt. All in all, it was incredibly well received, particularly as sales of the flag were going to charity. I was enlisted to help sell the flags, so there I was happily strolling around the sunny park, chatting to lots of people about the fun idea that the pink Aussie flag represented.

Towards the end of my day, a man of Aboriginal descent approached me, and asked me fervently if I had a pink Aboriginal flag. We had heard angry whispers throughout the day as we passed from people clearly not fond of the Australian flag, due to its colonial heritage, but this was the first time I was directly accosted. I was quite flummoxed… and stammered something of the lines of ‘No, sorry, we don’t. The angry man continued ‘So why is that?’, and I feeling quite uncomfortable said ‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t organise that flag, I’m just selling it’, which in retrospect, is a bit lame, I admit. The man stared at me intensely, and said ‘You understand why I’m upset, don’t you?’ and then stormed off.

Not wanting to launch into a debate about indigenous Australia or the Australian flag, what this encounter made me think about (I told you there was a point to this story) was how its just not possible to make everyone happy.

Even if we had made a version of both the Australian and Aboriginal flag in pink, you would still get anti-monarchists upset that we were supporting a flag with the British union jack on it, or people that disagreed with changing the flag in support of a gay cause, or migrants who may have wanted their national flags represented… the point is, no matter what was done, there would be someone violently opposed to it. So do we try and accommodate as many requests as we can, ignore the complaints and go ahead, or do nothing in the first place. This – I propose – is a common challenge in designing a new business.

I will no doubt get a lot of feedback, advice, issues raised, features requested, etc, during soft launch of my site, and the challenge I know I will face is deciding which items to take on board, and which ones I will have to decline, even if they are entirely valid, because its simply not possible to accommodate everyone’s desires and still make a quality product with a strong and memorable impact. Of course, I will aim to cater to as many people as I can, and make as many people happy as I can, but I will need to stay focused on what my site is trying to achieve, and do that really well, rather than be mediocre to many people.

Its possible I won’t get that balance right: that I will decide against a requested development and inadvertently turn away potential customers that I could have easily accommodated in my design. But like anything in life, I have to accept that I will make mistakes, and instead of worrying about it, focus on learning as much and working as hard as I can to minimise these occurrences.

What are your thoughts?

Why this lunacy! I hear you ask… Because I am stuck in the Catch-22 situation that if I don’t exercise, I feel sluggish and tired, but to exercise means to have less sleep and therefore also be tired. I have now gone for a few months experimenting with the theory that I feel less tired if I get more sleep and less exercise, but I don’t think it has worked – I am hideously tired all the time. So I am now experimenting with my new hypothesis: that pushing through the initial pain of insufficient sleep and throwing myself out the door for a jog will actually increase my energy levels and reduce the amount I need to sleep. I will let you know how it goes… I’m on day 2 of this plan.