RapidSpike entrepreneurs debut their website monitoring startup

THE entrepreneurs behind RandonStorm have officially launched Leeds-based website monitoring firm RapidSpike.

RapidSpike, the brainchild of Andrew Mason and Robin Hill and their team of developers debuted to the industry on 30 September at the Ecommerce Expo at the Olympia National in London.

The firm has already outgrown their offices in the Round Foundry Media Centre, a creative hub in Leeds which has recently been sold for £31.5m, with 500 signed up to the beta version of their capacity testing offering.

Former founders of RandomStorm, a cyber security testing firm which was sold last year for £10m, announced their venture earlier this year.

Co-founder Andrew Mason said: “We had always planned on a three-pronged attack, with this launch being the first phase. We were planning on launching in the new year, but we were three months ahead of schedule because we wanted to go for the Expo.”

Co-founder Mr Hill said: “It was good for developers to go, they don’t always get a chance to talk to end users usually and understand their needs.

“Social selling is key and we’re using social networks to reconnect with people we already know as well as new contacts, so it’s a fundamental part of engagement.”

Though the firm has a large cross-section of mid market firms already signed up, larger corporates are also taking an interest in the firm’s offering. Mr Hill said: “Larger corporates are interested because they have big monolithic businesses and they like the simplicity of it.

The firm is looking to other revenue streams, such as selling licences for their software to web agencies that are looking to partner with them, such as Leeds’ own Enjoy Digital.

Mr Mason said: “One thing we were amazed about are how volatile sites are, through stress and mismanagement, and how detrimental this can be to a company’s web presence.

“Some sites are rock solid, but there are some companies whose sites are up and down all the time, even larger companies.”

So far they have had sign ups from across the globe, on virtually every continent.

The pair said: “We’ve been excited by the opportunity and surprised how wide the opportunity actually is since we launched and the further down the path we go
, the more expansive it is. No one else in the UK is doing this, and we can provide services to anywhere on the globe.”