Happy Birthday, Tick. Done! Reflections on my first year back in the trenches

This time last year I was mentally wrestling with the question of whether I really wanted to strap myself in for another roller coaster start-up ride.

One year later and I have no regrets. Not a single one — despite this seeming a pretty odd decision to many of my friends (particularly in light of the lower-stress, more lucrative-in-the-short-term ‘portfolio’ career I was in the process of building). It was a decision I both did, and didn’t take lightly. There were lists. Mental lists, at least (Franz knows I’ve been a reluctant convert to Trello)…that looked a little like this.

Cons:

• I’ve ‘been around the block’ and am all too aware of the stresses, work-load and risks involved
• I hardly knew the two strangers I was thinking about sacrificing all my other interests (both financial and personal) to work with, so closely
• It’s not just about me anymore. I have 3 kids under 5. I’m permanently sleep deprived and/or ill due to the omnipresence of rivers of snot at home.
• I simply can’t travel like I could or give anything like the 100 hour work weeks that are typically required to create and scale something truly bold and disruptive (although nor am I inclined towards anything other than that)
• And perhaps most guilt-inducing… I promised my husband that it was his turn to do something a bit more reckless and risky with his career whilst I played it safer for a while…

Pro’s:

• An ever-present ‘itch’ and frustration when advising other businesses due to a preference for rolling my own sleeves up and creating personally and directly — knowing the huge (unrivalled in any other career choice) satisfaction and rewards that come from conjuring an idea into reality, value and job creation.
• Building businesses is my passion and particularly so when there’s a visionary social purpose behind it as with Tick. Done. I was, and remain hugely motivated to build a business (and indeed, a social movement) around countering some of the negative ramifications of the social web and our tech addictions and to make better sense of the explosion of content over recent years (more in my manifesto here).
• My gut felt good about these two talented, ambitious and inspiring guys I was starting to like so much. (And my gut has proven pretty awesome in the past… why not trust it again…?)

And so there it was. The not-really-at-all-difficult, ‘oh f*ck it, just-do-it’ decision made. Within two weeks, paperwork signed I found myself sat across the other side of the table from VCs I’d so recently been working with to advise their portfolios… pitching them a dream, with me back at the bottom of the start-up pile.

And so — it’s 30th April 2019… and I’d like to wish a very Happy First Birthday to Tick. Done…. To my Co-Founders who inspire me daily; to the incredibly talented early team that we’ve been fortunate to have attracted around us; to our investors, advisors and partners; and above all to our early pioneering creators and users. It’s their hard work that has propelled us so far forward over the last year.

We have a product in app-store. A well reviewed, much-loved product (that of course, can always, and is constantly being updated and improved). We have a shiny new brand and name that encapsulates our mission to sate instant curiosity and ultimately get people offline — doing, creating, fixing and playing together. We have partnership interest from around the world — technology companies, mission-led charities, brands and content-aggregators/ creators. We have an early audience of passionate users — growing daily. And we are blessed with world-leading investors and advisors excited to work with us over the medium-long term to build our global movement and realise our first mission: to empower a billion people with a million new skills.

It’s so much fun at the bottom of the pile. Awe-inspiring to go from the whiff of an idea into something meaningful in less than a year… pulsing, morphing and growing; something of value already but with so much more potential to change the online game.

Thank you team, family, friends, supporters… (oh and of course the ever-patient, supportive, forgiving husband. Sorry).