UK #VRM #API #OpenSource website
I thought I’d take a moment to talk honestly, and describe how I got to where I am in business. Lots of people look back with rose coloured glasses from whence they came, claiming it was all a plan, and every decision they made was planned to get to the point they are at now.
Perhaps thats the case for them, it wasn’t for me. I wake up every morning with five business ideas in my head. Luckily I have the technical ability try some of them out, and I swear, 99% fail miserably. I don’t invest much in each idea. Perhaps a day or two, and a few hundred pounds at most, so I can afford it, in both time and money, but I keep going.
One idea, RegCheck.org.uk worked for me, and you can perhaps see it in the domain name, that I had little faith at the time. I bought a cheap domain name, and I didn’t even create a new database for it, I lumped it in with other projects. I put it on the same server as everthing else.
It made no money for a year, perhaps one customer, maybe two. Then I discovered that the API only worked on the DVLNI (Northern Ireland), and it was overpriced. I spend a little time on it, making it work against the DVLA (UK), and dropped the price by half. Then it started getting picked up by users from all over the UK.
Once the momentum started, I decided to invest more time and money in it, and I quickly expanded the site accross europe, and the USA. Once it hit the USA, then the serious money started. A few major customers, and I was on a roll.
From there, I focused on quality, making sure the API was fast, accurate and reliable, and that made the difference. I added a few more countries along the way, and improved my sales pitch.
Revisiting where I started, I’m almost ashamed of my UK domain name, it sucks. I got a better domain, but I’m not sure if I wanted to rebrand. So I just put a free website up there, at https://www.vrmapi.co.uk – it’s open source on Github, feel free to clone or fork it.
Perhaps I’m nearing the end of this run, but from humble beginnings, I’m happy with where it has taken me.
Network Programming in .NET 