Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Ups and Downs

Junkk.com is nothing if not a roller-coaster ride. And just when you
least expect it, a little boost comes in that makes things look that
littel bit more rosy. A while ago we'd been invited by BusinessLink
to apply for a Business Growth Grant, basically a 'keep up the good
work' cash boost. As we had already enjoyed fair support we were not
to sure whether we'd be in line when this was doled out, but it would
have been silly not to apply.

Well, we got it!

The project that it will fund is where we feel we need the most
urgent 3rd party help (sadly grants seldom can go to 'us'), which is
to get the siet from a B2B entity to a truly consumer-friendly
portal. Not before time, as we are now actually 'live and out there'.
And we are aware that there are issues of design and navigation
within the site that need to improved to tell people what is going on
fast, and give them what they want faster.

So tomorrow we're meeting our It gurus sound-i (www.sound-i.co.uk) to
initiate it all. We had planned for it, but the money simply was not
there before, and now it is. We feel it will be a critical upgrade.

But also we are further encouraged by the endorsement this implies.
This is an investment in a business that sees the environment as
something worth making as accessible as possible to the general
public, and in so doing becoming self-sustaining as a consequence.