Believe it or not… it’s been one year since we created our little startup – Jackson Fish Market. Our first blog post — Hello World — was back on November 20, 2006. We try not to pat ourselves on the back too much here… given that we have what feels like an endless amount of work to do to get where want to be. That said, we are proud of the work we have done over the past year, and feel it’s worth recounting our modest accomplishments:

• Shipped They’re Beautiful! (twice).
• Shipped Invitastic.
• Helped Microsoft ship Tafiti.
• Worked with a couple of startups and a couple of big companies to help them make great user experiences for their customers.
• Took off five weeks in August. (Yes, I’ll list that as an accomplishment given that it felt super counter-intuitive at the time for an embryonic startup to shut down for a few weeks.)

There are all sorts of other small accomplishments including Walter exploring new technologies, Jenny stretching her skills and impacting a slew of efforts of ours and others, working with some great folks who contracted for us, building a small blog following, and me being much more confident in some of the mechanics of running a small business. :)

I think the best way to characterize the year is that we’re ahead of where we thought we’d be, and miles behind where we’d like to be. But I suppose that last part is pretty standard.

Ultimately, we’re a small and happy crew. The fact that today, on our first anniversary, we’re starting our winter break probably contributes to that happiness, but I’d say shipping multiple times was an even bigger contributor. Thanks to everyone who helped/contributed in any way over the past year. We’ve gotten lots of great advice, coaching, and support. We had great and patient clients bet on us, kickass contractors help us do great stuff, and of course, thousands of folks on the web use our small sites. Finally a big thanks to our friends and families for their support as well as “volunteering” to be guinea pigs for our software stylings.

Have no fear, even though Jackson Fish is closed for our winter break, flowers and invitations will continue apace while the front office is closed. We’ll be back Thursday, January 3, 2008 ready to try and ship more cool stuff.