The Secret Entrepreneur

Every blog post I write seems to begin with an apology for not writing as much as I’d hoped or promised.  As good as my blogging intentions have been, it’s been hard to find the time to tap out a few hundred words here and there, especially when there is so much going on – both in my life and at SendSocial.  Every hour feels like a commodity at the moment.

It’s Sunday night – well, Monday morning now – and I’d planned to go to bed hours ago, but my head is whirring away with ideas and I’m in such a creative mood that it would be foolish to waste that by climbing into bed.  I wish it was possible to plan when these bursts of inspiration would come; then, maybe, I would be able to arrange to see my accountant on a day when I’d got more than only a couple of hours’ sleep.

I started my second semester at university in January convinced that I would be able to see my business management course out, at least until the end of this academic year.  Not two weeks into the term, and I’d decided to take a leave of absence to pursue SendSocial and my other business interests on a full-time basis.  Things were getting to the point where my management course was proving to be little more than a distraction from the excitement of being an entrepreneur, and the prospects of never having to write another essay or sit another exam were too much for me to ignore.

Most of my friends at university don’t know about my life as an entrepreneur (they probably think I’m just some lazy layabout who never manages to make it into lectures), and it has been weird juggling my entrepreneurial exploits with learning about Pareto efficiency and other obscure economic principles, on the odd occasion that I was able to drag myself to my university’s Waterloo lecture theatre.

So I did it.  I took the leap.

And I don’t regret it.

A lot has been happening behind the scenes here over the past few weeks – things that we can’t talk about just yet – that have me more excited and confident than ever about what lies ahead.  We quietly released our API a few weeks ago, and our first partner integration will be complete in the coming weeks.  The prospect of being able to ‘send via SendSocial’ on your favourite ecommerce websites is something that I am looking forward to, and our API allows this to happen.

Part of me wants to spill the beans on everything else that we’re working on, but I’ll most likely wake up to a barrage of angry emails and phone calls if I do.

I’ll blog about them as soon as I can, and that’s a promise this time.  Right now, I’m going to go to bed, open my eyes in the morning, and continue to enjoy the journey.

Somebody wake me up in three-and-a-half hours, please.

140 characters and a few thousand emails later

We’re excited, to say the least, that SendSocial will be launching to our investors in just over 24 hours’ time.  I’ve just been reading through some of the very first emails that the team exchanged when Ben first floated the idea, and it really is remarkable that, in the 8 months since then, we’ve built and are preparing to launch this thing.

I had butterflies in my stomach when a myHermes courier turned up at my house bright and early on Monday morning to collect an address-less parcel.  Even the courier was impressed – the first time she’s collected something like this, she said, but most definitely not the last.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: one of the things I love about SendSocial is that we’re all entrepreneurs.  We’re all passionate about what we’re doing and what we’re trying to achieve.  I glanced at my watch the other night to see that it was 4.30am.  Quite how I was still bursting with energy at that time, I’m not too sure.

It might have been the coffee, but even at that time of night, emails were flying into my inbox:  “What if we do this?”, “That could work…”.  There’s such a buzz within the team at the moment, I think it highlights the fact that launches are always fun and we’re really grasping this one by the horns.

Most people I speak to love the concept, but a concept is of course a very different thing from a business that people will use and appreciate.  That’s why tomorrow is very important to us – it’s the first time that real people can see what we’ve been working on, and you’ll be able to send and receive requests from the off.

We’re conscious, as well, that people are going to come up with ways of using SendSocial that we’d never even have thought of.  And, for our investors, it all starts tomorrow.  We can’t wait to hear your feedback – good and bad – on the site.

Oh, and if you’re not an investor, there’s no need to feel jealous (well, maybe a little): we’ll be opening our doors to you before long.

Early morning inspiration

As anyone who has been in this position before will testify, the weeks before launching a new business are some of the most exciting, stressful, daunting and incredible times.  Writing this at 3am on a Monday morning – when I need to be awake in a matter of hours – my head is a buzz of activity, and it’s no wonder that everyone on the team could barely contain their anticipation on last Thursday’s conference call.

Antony and Marc are continuing to do a great job putting the finishing touches to the website.  Bug testing is going well and I’ve been busy putting the final copy text together.  We almost have a finished product now, and we’re just waiting to send out the first of many address-less packages.

A lot of our time over the past week has been spent discussing launch plans and working out how we can maximise our coverage, and we’ve come up with a few cool ideas.  The story behind how SendSocial began is interesting in itself, and we genuinely think that the innovative nature of our offering will resonate with the public.

Our timing probably couldn’t be better either, with the postal service in the news daily at the moment.  It was announced a few days ago that there are going to be more Royal Mail strikes at the start of November, which means that post will remain a fiercely debated topic for the foreseeable future; or the coming months, at least.  And, whilst strike action is annoying and disruptive, it makes sense for us to try and capitalise on it; our launch date could not be better.

One thing that I’ve loved about being a part of SendSocial has been its open nature.  Ever since Ben offered Twitter users shares for re-tweeting his original message, I’ve been struck by your helpfulness and enthusiasm, both on and offline.  Regardless of how great a team we have, SendSocial owes its existence to social networks, and it is ultimately social network users who are going to define our success – so we’ve been determined to engage and take your views on board as much as possible.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than the feeling that I’m part of something big, something exciting, that has the potential to change the world.  It’s what being an entrepreneur is about, and I know that the others share my views.  I really hope that you’re as excited as we are, and if there’s anything you want to say to us, please say it.  If there’s something you think we should do, something you think we shouldn’t, someone we should be talking to, speak up and let us know.  Heck, if you want to recommend a blend of coffee (mine ran out the other day), we’d love to hear from you.

We want you to be a part of SendSocial as much as we are, and share our enthusiasm and excitement.  It would be great to learn a little bit about our investors and other well-wishers.

A postal revolution is on the horizon

Friday the 13th is a day steeped in mystery and superstition. Some people won’t leave their house, and others dare not even get out of bed. People say it’s the day when bad things happen. But we’re excited. It wouldn’t be an over-exaggeration to say that we can’t wait.

After watching the days, months and weeks fly by, we’re almost there: SendSocial is coming.

We’ve been testing our systems internally for quite a while now, and we feel we’re ready to go public. On Friday 13 November, SendSocial will launch in closed beta, before going live to the nation a few days later, on Monday 16 November.

Our recent blog silence hasn’t been because there’s been nothing to report, but quite the contrary. We’ve been so busy making the site look good and work well, agreeing partnership deals and planning world domination that it’s been hard to find time.

So here it is, the update you’ve been waiting for:

Courier partnership
We’ve been working closely with with one of the UK’s leading independent courier networks, myHermes, for a number of months now. myHermes is the consumer arm of Hermes UK, who deliver over 100 million parcels every year, and the partnership gives us national reach.

This collaboration has really brought Ben’s idea to life. myHermes will be able to read our unique, address-less delivery labels, ensuring absolute privacy for our members.

We’ve tried to simplify the postal service too. Our process is easy: as long as you know your recipient’s Twitter ID or email address, you can make a request. Once we hear back from your recipient, you simply confirm the weight of your package, make payment, print our delivery label and wait for myHermes to collect and deliver it.

When Antony first demoed this on our weekly conference call, we were all stunned at how simple and painfully easy the process was, and we’ve had the pleasure of watching an awesome process become amazing as he’s coded upgrade after upgrade, and integrated everything with Marc’s striking designs.

How we compare with Royal Mail
Not only are we easier and less time-consuming to use than Royal Mail, but we’re actually cheaper too – almost half the price in some cases. We will collect and deliver an address-less package weighing up to 2kg for £3.99. At the same weight, Royal Mail will charge you £4.41 for a delivery-only service.

We don’t strike either. Royal Mail already have a backlog of over 30 million items: not a good thing in the run up to Christmas and the busiest postal period of the whole year. Working with myHermes means that we won’t be affected by Royal Mail strike action, and will be able to stick to our 3-5 day delivery period regardless of what the unions decide to do.

Not just on Twitter
When we began working on SendSocial, the intention was to use Twitter as our medium, but we’ll be launching with email too. Email is a universal thing, and we’re confident that it will widen our appeal from the word ‘go’.

I hope this update has given you a taste of what’s to come. We’re counting down the days to launch with excitement. If you’re superstitious, there’s no need to worry – myHermes will collect from your door, so you can experience SendSocial from the comfort (and safety) of your own home.

Jonathan (@groob)

The true power of social networks

I keep being asked what’s so great about Twitter: “it’s just Facebook’s status feeds”, “I don’t want to know what you’re having for breakfast”, etc. etc., but it really plugs an important gap – as the creation of Send Social shows.

The fact that Twitter’s so open means that it’s easy to get in touch with people who you don’t know well enough (or at all) to send an email to. It’s unlike Facebook, which I keep for the preserve of people I know and have met. The creation of Send Social really represents what’s possible when the right platform is there. Ben’s initial idea has, in just a few days, spawned a great team who I’m really looking forward to working with, but none of whom I would be in contact with were it not for Twitter and Ben’s original ‘what do you think of this…’ tweet.

In two days, around 50 emails, brimming with ideas, have been sent around the group, and I can’t imagine how many other creations and similar partnerships Twitter may have created and will go on to create. The social network makes finding the right people easier, and it’s breaking down contact barriers.

It’s fitting that a business being set up to serve the needs of social networks has spawned from one – I wonder if it’s the first?