Diary of a Start-up: Running a Marathon

Building a company form scratch is a lot like training for a marathon - it requires stamina and determination to keep going through the rough bits. We've had quite a few rough bits recently, it's been the equivalent of mile 16 when work has been done but in reality, anyone can run 16 miles if they REALLY want to. Only a certain few can run the whole 26 miles though and that's the challenge we face now.

Our web development team led by the very talented Rusty Nash (www.rustynash.co.uk) have worked wonders over the last few weeks and I'm pleased to say that we are at a point where the site has a functional sign-up, login and profiles section. Seeing this was like seeing Johnny Wilkinson handing out Lucozade at mile 20 - it really spurred us on.

Tangibility is a big part of success and for your interest, I've added below the timeline that we are currently working to. Since this structure has been in place we've been operating much more efficiently as a team, seeing exactly what needs to be done and holding one another accountable to achieve these goals. It's a lot like running; if you make sure you run the 20 mile training run, 26.2 miles will be no problem at all.

We are ticking off the miles on our way to the launch of the site and since seeing and testing the new site my confidence has been massively buoyed that we will make it there to schedule and budget. I'll be releasing the chosen name of the site within the next week or so before we unleash our design team on the whole branding of the business - another milestone to be excited about!