New Year, New Blog

I've lost count of the number of times that I have started a blog but failed to maintain it. I think there are two main reasons for this: a lack of anything meaningful to share on a regular basis and dissatisfaction with blogging platforms. I'll tackle these points in turn.

I have co-founded a startup

The big change in January 2012 is that I'm now co-founder of a startup. I'm based in London and have been working hard for the past few months, setting up the company, learning a lot of code and building out our Minimum Viable Product (MVP). We have hired a couple of freelancers, are making good progress and should have something to launch within the next 4-6 weeks - maybe sooner.

This isn't the first business that I have run (I founded and later sold Prime Hosting when I was in school) but it is the first that I've been working on full time. At the time of writing, the London startup scene is starting to take off in a big way and I believe that sharing my experiences will be useful to others taking the same path. I have certainly benefited from the advice and experiences that other entrepreneurs have blogged about.

Blogging Platforms

In the past I have dabled with a variety of blogging platforms. I have used WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and most recently Posterous, but have never felt particularly satisfied with any of them (I might give my reasons in a future post). A few months ago I became aware of Jekyll. Jekyll is a static blogging engine that satisfies my need for something lightweight, that I can self host, and that doesn't need ongoing maintenance. It takes a little bit of effort to set up and learn (I still have tweaks to make) but it should make blogging more enjoyable for me.