i have a big love for small enterprises. a lot of respect should be afforded to people who are willing to take risks in order to run their own startup companies, and the culture that surrounds startups is pretty cool in and of itself. it’s a bit strange, but i’ve always liked it a bit strange. lots of interesting things happen when people decide that there’s a problem that needs to be fixed, and they’re going to be the one to fix it.
that being said, i’ve never been terribly interested in the standard ‘startup’ model myself -- probably because the politics of the situation doesn’t really interest me. a pattern we’ve been seeing for years now is the tendencies for anybody with a good idea in the tech industry to be bought up by the giants. it’s not necessarily a bad thing, either; it means that people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to manufacture or provide service on a large scale now have access to the resources they need, but let’s just say a six-figure salary and a company mansion aren’t exactly on my bucket list. ;)
this is why it was so appealing to me to work on a project that had very little to do with technology. trendlistr.com is an “online fashion marketplace for pre-loved clothing”, as described by louisa rogers, the m.d. and owner. that’s how i’d describe it, too, and i think it’s an excellent concept, so i wanted to work on it as soon as i heard about it. i don’t really know much about fashion aside from a certain someone, so i thought it’d be fun to throw myself completely out of my confort zone. the next month, when we were both at rise and design again, i sat down at a table with louisa and had a very interesting discussion about her project. she agreed to hire me, we worked together for a few weeks (this is actually the less interesting part of the process, at least for a blog post), and her site went live into beta about a week ago and you can visit it here. you should definitely check it out, and tell them i sent you. you won’t get a discount of any kind, but tell them anyway, why not. working on this was a lot of fun, and i hope i get to do many similarly odd and out-of-comfort-zone things in the future.
p.s. - here’s what louisa sent me for my testemonials section (at prohacker.co.uk, visit now to pitch me your oddly viable ideas):
“Working with Selby in the run up to my website launch made things easier and allowed me to focus on the marketing activities, leaving him to test the technical systems. He was thorough, punctual and communicated well. The testing process was facilitated by two meetings, and my personal lack of technical understanding was no barrier to Selby who was able to explain things in layman's terms so that I could be aware of the progress of the project.“
- louisa rogers, m.d. of trendlistr.com
all of which makes me sound very proper and professional, which i appreciate, it definitely lends the rest of the blog post some credibility. catch you all next time. ;)