It’s often said that the key ingredient to a successful startup is the quality of the team. Well, that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about the coming launch of my friend Stuart’s new venture, Tripharbour. Stuart’s simply bonkers about travel – he lives, eats, breathes and now sets sail in it – so it’s no surprise that he’s been hatching a travel-related business (“Tripharbour is getting ready to connect you to your perfect cruise holiday with the web’s first combined cruise community and cruise planning and buying site”). All that is great, but what really excites me about this opportunity is that Stuart is a sublimely talented business guy to boot, and that is a truly rare ability. I know this about Stuart for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that he’s a mesh colleague; you need to watch the team he puts together – they are going to put on quite a show (you can watch Stuart’s chops on tonight’s episode of Fortune Hunters, actually). Go Stuart go.

My mesh colleagues Mark and Mathew have some thoughts on Tripharbour as well. Update: Stuart has a post up on his own blog as well.