Our history starts back in 1995. The Internet was a military network designed to withstand a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union.

It was then opened to the public, and we joined as one of the first service providers in South Africa. In the beginning, it was an uphill battle for us. No one knew what a website was, and no one knew what email was. We had to explain the concepts, and then getting them to pay us to provide these brand-new services was complex.

Fortunately, we persevered, and the reward was excellent. We were invited by Mark Hamil, Star Wars, to appear on a TV show. Unfortunately, we were in South Africa. During the dot com craziness, we had people offering to buy. In hindsight, we should have. I could have retired, but I was enjoying myself,

This all came crashing down on Friday, the 14th of November, 2008. A hurricane hit the area, the only one in the region’s recorded history. Unfortunately, our home/office was directly in its path. The damage to the structure was over R1 500 000, which did not include any equipment. By now, all our customers are addicted to email and their websites. We couldn’t replace all the equipment and set everything up quickly enough, and we lost most of our customers. UKZN and a few others who did not rely on their email for business were more flexible.