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 delightfully honest about my experiences. I was no-one, and my company didn’t exist yet, so I was frank and vulnerable in all my posts. Look back and read if you are interested.

Then, I launched my website, moved to London, and threw myself into the entrepreneurial scene. I became relatively known, and my website started to be known. I started seeking VC funding, and needed to demonstrate how capable I was, and how great things were going. I found my blogging compromised, as I could no longer share my vulnerabilities, mishaps and hopes, on what had become my company’s blog.

A great deal has occurred in the last few months, which I have covered in what is now to be my company’s blog. I want to reclaim Birth of a Startup now, to return to being my personal blog, where I write honestly, with both vulnerability and hopeful pride, about what it is to be a female Australian tech entrepreneur, living in London.

So please, if you want to read about my businesses, delete this blog from your RSS feed. If you are new to this blog, add it to your RSS, but make no effort to find out about my businesses. It is best if we keep the two separate. Of course, I may have achieved nothing but stirring your curiosity, but I hope that you respect the spirit in which this blog reinvention is made. Welcome to Birth of a Startup!

If you haven’t already noticed – and shame on you if you haven’t – we have had a rather dramatic relaunch of our site. It isn’t just the great new visual interface we have built, which is simple, elegant and clean… but we have done lots of little things that overall will make your experience of Skimbit so much more pleasurable, fast, intuitive… we have learnt so much over the past year as to what works and what doesn’t and we have taken all those learnings and implemented them in our new site.

So, give it a try, and please take a moment to tell your friends about Skimbit. Sites like Skimbit really make it when their community of users take pride in telling other people about it, so please help us become known and loved. We built Skimbit to really help and be useful for any sort of internet research or decision-making task, so keep us in mind whenever you are doing any research online, or are trying to decide on something with a group!

As many of you know, we are crazy busily working on the new release of Skimbit (due this week – I’m sure you are waiting with anticipation how amazing it will be!).

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

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!