Wow! Almost two years ago SupaDupa was a flimsy idea with barely a leg to stand on! This is our story so far...

Trying to prioritise the feature road map, Happy Birthday gluten free cupcakes

We wanted to create a place for artists, photographers, fashionistas, jewellery makers, designers and the freely spirited to exist with their creations and weave their way into the lives and hearts of people whom have grown increasingly tired of the dominance of high street sameness. From art to design, our underlying motivation was to create a means by which creatives can continue to innovate by living off their passions. 'Love comes first, and our new venture would provide artists a means to stoke their passions by making a living from it. We believe that the world would be a better place if innovators and the culturally exuberant can continue to live out their vision. But, creativity is often stifled when risk is introduced and the result is the mundane. SupaDupa's mission was to remove that risk and allow anyone with an idea to have the confidence to 'have a go!'..

Guy and Jason preparing invitations for the Best of British event, London

The night before - Best of British invitations

Junior, Fede, Guy & Fede (tired) + Kido

Against all odds, the long nights punching at our keyboards struggling through the very heart of the recession and two babies later, we mustered our courage to approach people queuing on the street to present their products at the Liberty's Best of British event in London. This was our beginning.

Queue for the Liberty's Best Of British event, London

Jason & Yemi keyboard punching

Let's rewind.

So, right from the very start we were very aware that if we were to do this thing well there was no way we could do it alone. We needed real people to tell us what was good about the software we were building and what was off the mark.

Early days usability prototype for the back office 'Shop Design' section

So, we went about trying to find photographers, artists, fashionistas, illustrators and jewellery designers; a discerning crowd of Über creatives we intended to subject our ideas and ourselves to. We decided that if we are to succeed we must hold ourselves accountable to these people and let them offer us candid observations about their experiences using our software.

The unstoppable Katherine Sandoz in her studio

Facing rejection because of a funny name

The getting in touch bit was the easy part. Persuading someone to take a chance and stake their reputation on software with a funny name no-one has ever heard of before was the hard part. With nothing but a promise and lots of Skype conversations, emails and an array of screenshots sent back and forth across the email wires (we didn't even have a website) was all we had to convey what was a growing prototype that has slowly taken the form of what you see today.

Katherine Sandoz's live interpretation of our logo, oh, la, la!

Through our members' generous feedback and often tyrannical suggestions for improvements they gave us the ability to see the software we embarked on through their critical eyes. Boy, they kept pushing the boundaries by redefining our quest for simplicity and user empowerment but it's a relationship that continues to work and we value it immensely.

Veronique Meignaud's work still bewilders us - this is her interpretation of the SupaDupa logo

Above all, our early members provided us with a continued and underlying raison d'etre. Our work needs to live up to their relentless search for artistic perfection and consequentially makes us better at our own craft. For all of what they have given us we were and are so grateful, so much so that the only way we thought it fitting to express our gratitude was to give away a Free Unlimited account for life to each and every one of them who took a chance on us in those very early days.

Alexis Deforges, who runs shop.phonografic.com is one of our earliest (and most daring) adopters

We continue to learn and evolve with each new step in the process constantly perfecting, tweaking building this immense platform that we hope will contribute to the way creatives and entrepreneurs think about launching their ideas. It's been an insanely challenging couple of years and the start of many great ongoing conversations. Here's to the ones we have yet to begin.

Guy, Jason, Yemi, Fede