One thing I’ve learned since we set up Arena is that, if you run a business, you have to pay for EVERYTHING! Especially banking.
Consumer banking is nominally free, but is rife with accusations of excessive charges, arbitrarily levied. This “free banking + costly slap” pricing model is the way high street banks bump up [...]
Filed under: Finance & Investment, Setting up on May 30th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
…I was pretending to go to my friend Ash’s wedding in Jaipur, India, whilst actually flying to sit at the feet of web gurus in San Francisco, USA.
I had a job at the time (at eBay UK), but, having agreed in principle with Steve that we should set up Arena, I then had to work [...]
Filed under: Marketing, Matters Webby, Start up on May 27th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Whilst a little retiring compared to the other girls in the customer service team, Meriem is good on the phones and always makes it known when she is on to a good call (she sits behind me). Recently, in her own unique way (jumping up and down and waving as if to guide a [...]
Filed under: Flowers, Fraud, General on May 25th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
We got this fine specimen in from Hiremech today, to begin a week’s trial – it’s an electric van. If it does the trick, we’ll get fully Arena-branded ones for all our central London deliveries.
Here’s Mariusz, Arena’s Head of Distribution, plugging her in for the first time.
And this is Tom (on the [...]
Filed under: Distribution, Ethics & Environment on May 25th, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Simple 3 step plan to throw away £229 in less than an hour and a half.
1. 0938: Think that it might be a good idea to put up some PPC, targeting Chelsea Flower Show searches. Set up campaign at default bid levels.
2. Spend an hour wrestling payroll and our online banking system.
3. 1102: Check [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Marketing on May 22nd, 2007 | 4 Comments »
9th September 2006. Saturday.
Mmmmmm…weekend. Lie in, pub lunch then laze about talking nonsense, recharging the batteries. Sounds good.
No sir! We spent the weekend installing a gigantic fridge the size of a squash court in our warehouse. Here’s the space we had to fill (that’s Arena’s Dutch masterpiece, Ronald, waving).
We originally thought (hoped) [...]
Filed under: Setting up, Start up on May 21st, 2007 | No Comments »
This little credit card thingy is just about the most important widget in our business. We need this smart card to make all our payments – to our Dutch suppliers, to employees, to, well, everyone. It plugs into the side of my laptop. If we don’t use it when we make international [...]
Filed under: Big Mistakes, Finance & Investment, General on May 21st, 2007 | No Comments »
Hello! Welcome to ArenaFlowers.com’s first blog. Ooooo. Exciting. Not quite sure what to say now. Hmmmm. *uncomfortable silence*
:)
Well, I guess as good a way as any to start is to explain why we’ve set this blog up. It’s actually not a straightforward question. After all, [...]
Filed under: General, Setting up on May 20th, 2007 | 3 Comments »
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