It was mid-2001. Five years in existence, ITWeb was dominating its market. The traditional ‘trade media’, still our main competitor for marketing budgets, was heading for extinction. Still, I firmly believed there was a place for a credible print publication. Online wasn’t nearly sufficient for us to reach all key segments of our market – we needed diverse platforms to achieve this.

I was in advanced acquisition talks with one of our competitors, despite having reservations about buying its print titles. You can revamp a publication, relaunch it as something completely new, but building the audience and client base takes both time and money. Acquisition of the existing business, I thought, would accelerate our foray into the world of print.