Months of waiting (and gardening leave) couldn't really get me ready for the moment the business actually went live.
If I’m honest this has been one of those weeks that I’ve dreamt of for years… but it doesn’t come without significant pressure.
The need to get involved in just about everything is enormous (I've even become a dab hand at web design) and I've started to remember what it's like to "get my hands dirty" again.
But that's what start-up life is all about and why I'm doing this.
This week, we've put the aforementioned web design into practice and launched our website. is not perfect but we're running with Mark Zuckerberg's mantra that "done is better than perfect".
I’ve convinced our investors to invest (significantly) in more talent. An 8am Monday morning meeting with Jenny [Biggam] and Jarvo [Mark Jarvis] from the7stars, asking to them to part ways with more cash before we’ve even launched, isn’t easy, but we’ve got a new name coming to the business that will completely change our capabilities. More on that to come soon.
I went "old school" and spent the entire day rest of the day writing postcards to intermediaries and media owners, announcing that we are open for business.
It took yonks but as a "modern agency with traditional values", writing by hand gives that personal touch that we're after.
I used the power of social media for the first time properly. Tuesday evening was spent posting my "Back in the game" view on to Linkedin, Twitter and Medium – it was very interesting to see the comments that came back.
We had our first meetings with our new client on Wednesday, one that we can’t mention yet, but we can soon – and it's worth the wait as they're a great one.
It's so good to be working with clients who appreciate the way that we work and are trying to change the game. Early 2017 will be an exciting time for both us and them.
Later that day, a call came in to invite us to new pitch alongside one of our creative friends, so we'll be busy with another exciting brief during December. We couldn't have asked for a better start on that front.
On Thursday we engaged K2 performance coaching to help us embrace the unique opportunity to build a distinctive culture from the outset.
I’ve learnt that it’s very hard to change culture and behaviours once they have set in, so the chance to set them has to be now.
I set up our bank account and at the same time had to replace my lost company credit card… I had that for all of three days. The rumours that I left it at our public house namesake are completely false.
And finally, I’ve been registered as a director of the business at Companies House. No turning back now.