Thoughts in Time

That’s essentially the message I got from MaxJet this morning.  I was excited about my flight on MaxJet - an all business class cross atlantic service.  Flights for my next required trip to the UK had been so expensive that I’d decided to pay in the difference personally to fly MaxJet rather than coach on a typical carrier.  Oh well, after a little searching, I found that new seats had opened up on Virgin and that I could fly cheaper Premium Economy the dates that I wanted to fly than flying economy (someone tell me how that happens), and overall will save quite a bit versus my original ticket.  Airline ticket availability and price fluctuations still baffle me.

Anyways - Merry Christmas to all. Best wishes for this holiday season and for the coming new year.

Our official first day of renting our place in London was today (Christmas Eve).  When we officially move will depend on my work visa. Until then, I’ll be back and forth a couple times for work.  Can’t wait to get fully settled in. You would think as an entrepreneur, I wouldn’t mind being unsettled.  I think having my personal life in order makes it a lot easier to deal with the fast pace of a startup.  Oh well, we’ll deal. Good thing I have Kellee who has been such a great enthusiastic partner in this move - Kel - I love you! - we’re going to rock London

Part of the process of moving to London involves my getting a work permit to be able to reside and work in the U.K.  I was able to get some initial advice through the UK Trade and Investment Board. After considering working with a law firm, I decided that I could save the company money by putting together my Visa application myself.  Luckily, I am able to apply under the Highly Skilled Migrant Program (HSMP).  It’s a fairly straight forward way to apply, where you qualify by demonstrating that you meet a certain number of qualifications such as education level, prior earnings, competency in English, etc.

The only difficulty is that you are required to provide original documentation supporting everything.  And in some cases that isn’t even enough.  For instance, my degree from Yale is issued in Latin… so I had to get an official translated version of the degree.  Luckily, this seems to be a fairly common request that Yale gets and they helped me take care of it.  Other items I had to provide included wage slips from Higher One, an original birth certificate, and a letter from my dean at Yale stating that my degree was taught in English (I don’t know if any engineering degree is really in “English”), but at least that’s the language they claimed the textbooks were in .  Everything’s been sent, so now I just wait and see. I did file a petition to make urgent so hopefully it will be processed quickly. Then I have to go to a consulate to get the entry approval…

I got back from the UK wed evening. Today - Thursday - both the movers are here, as is the snow.  They got here at 7:30AM. Luckily that felt more like 12:30.  Since we’re moving to a smaller place, not all of us our stuff is going, however there is still a large volume of stuff that is being packed and moved.

I’ve got to say, there’s a lot to be said for hiring experts. There is no way I could pack like these guys.  Fast high quality packing is no joke. 147 boxes later, I feel confident that our stuff will arrive undamaged at our place in London… All this and they finished before the snow really started to come down.

After the Edelman event, I joined a couple of Edelman employees and clients at a private club called the Hospital.  Not the sort of private club we have in New Haven (a little different from Mory’s or the Q club), it was quite a treat.  I didn’t get to fully explore the place, however it was clearly high class.  6 stories - Great bar, places for food, functions, and I think there were other facilities as well. Definitely will have to learn more about what it takes to be a member and what membership has to offer. Marcus - thanks for having us along!

I’ve worked with Edelman with Higher One, and have great respect for them as a company.  It’s amazing the business the family and management have built.  I have been privileged to know Renee for a while, and finally got to meet Richard at this event in Mayfair.  I only hope that a company I help found will have such long lasting success. Congratulations again!

Today Araz and I got together with Carrot Communications on our messaging outline for the launch of the business. It was an enjoyable session with all of us coming to some key conclusions about how we’ll segment our market and the subtleties of our message.  We’ll be refining the messaging and using it as the backbone as we launch in early 2008.

After a brief stop back in the U.S. for the annual Higher One holiday party and a board meeting, it was back across the pond.  This time of year is terrible for flights.  I do have to say, my first flight on a Boeing 777 was pretty pleasant.  American Airlines has more leg room than Virgin in coach, and although the service wasn’t as good as Virgin’s, it didn’t matter as I was fast asleep for 90% of the flight.  It feels good to be heading over for a 100% work focused trip.

We have an accepted offer on a flat- woo hoo…As long as everything comes together with references, etc we’ll be living in Hampstead, an area in Northern London. We’ll be one block from the Hampstead Heath - a huge 1,000 acre sort of cross between a city park and a natural park area.  I was hoping for 1000 square feet.  We ended up with 860, but it’s well arranged and will meet our needs.  We’ll have 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms - ideal for visitors… If you’re planning on coming to see us - let us know when .

Our accomodations that is.. In CT, we’ve been lucky enough to live in a beautiful 3,000 square foot house that I worked with a great architect (Bogue Trandowski) to design after having a fire there Christmas Day 2002 (wow -that was 5 years ago!).

In London we probably won’t have more than 1000 square feet (at the most) - oh yeah, and we’ll be paying 2.5x as much as for our place in CT… It’s even more expensive than NYC. Not ideal for a startup.  Oh yeah… that’s why we’re centering most of our operations (tech, tech ops, and customer service  in sunny Cape Town, South Africa)

Kellee and I talked about this.  How much space does one really need.  We calculated that the space we really use in our house is ~1400 square feet, so maybe we’re not downsizing so much.  Good thing we don’t have kids yet!