Liam's got issues: Dec/Jan

I end the year as I began it, writing this brilliantly insightful column in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In January I came as the guest of Grameen veteran Imamus Sultan who had attended the Wavelength launch event in October last year. And I'm here now to run Inside Grameen, a five-day event in partnership with Muhammad Yunus and his social business partner Groupe Danone, the French dairy product behemoth.

We have delegates from all over the world, social entrepreneurs, corporate leaders and others who are as intrigued as I am about how Yunus does things at such scale with such impact.

It has been quite a year as Adie, Jessica and I have built our new business, made mistakes, had some fabulous times and continued to pay our mortgages.

Start-up is bloody tough and the challenge of balancing the brute realities of selling stuff profitably and keeping the Big Vision Thing alive is not to be underestimated.

Our biggest problem was to find a viable business model which enables us to bring social innovators and entrepreneurs together with people from the corporate world.

We tried and failed to find sponsorship - one potential went tits up and we walked away from the other because it turned out they didn't share our values. So we thought to hell with relying on others, let's just build it and if it's good enough people will come to us.

And so Wavelength Connect was launched at the end of October. It's a club really, offering members world-class learning, leadership development and super-charged connectivity to help them take their enterprises forward. I'm glad to report it sold out in three weeks and we go live in the new year. That old lesson for entrepreneurs - trust your instincts.

So, two years after leaving my last 'proper job' as CEO of Fifteen, I go into 2010 really looking forward to it. Next year will be interesting. Will we be governed by old Etonian multi-millionaires? Will Peter Holbrook at the Social Enterprise Coalition live up to our high expectations? Will I take on staff and have to be a terrible manager again?

Anyway, for now, asalaam alekum and happy Christmas to you all.

Contact Liam on Twitter @LiamABlack or visit thesamewavelength.com