Best Startup
A quick introduction about what your company does/your values/mission.
We are Aptranet, and our goal is to improve the performance and security of web applications, while reducing businesses’s operational costs and complexity.
Tell us about yourself?
Hey there, I’m Thomas, the Founder of Aptranet. It all started with me diving into programming in order to find out how our every day technology works. Things we use every day like social media apps, calls, emails etc. Long story short, I started building a social media app for learning purposes and reached a point where I was searching for the best way to handle media files. As I scoured the market for a Content Delivery Network (CDN), I hit a wall – nothing quite fit the bill; they were either too pricey, too complicated, or lacked in performance. This quest expanded to cover issues with file storage, DNS, servers, API gateways, etc. making me realize that others probably faced the same challenges. A few months later, with my knowledge in backend and frontend programming, databases, and networks, I envisioned a service provider that prioritizes top-notch performance, security, and ease of use, all while staying affordable – essentially addressing the very issues I had encountered.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Keep doing what you’re doing and prioritize your health a little bit more. Losing weight made a tremendous difference for me in building the company. It provided a significant energy boost, enabling me to operate effectively on fewer hours of sleep without feeling constantly tired.
What problem does your business solve?
We solve performance, security, and scalability issues for businesses, while also tackling complexities. Simplifying the operational framework leads to smoother functionality and fewer hiccups.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
As I mentioned in the “Tell us about yourself” question, I mainly encountered the issues we are solving myself, and trully realised how complex, expensive and difficult in general is for a developer to build their dream application.
What is your magic sauce?
Our magic sauce is our extensibillity. The great thing about being a startup is that you start from scratch. That means you can use the latest technologies, the best practises and that you can build a completely secure and performant software having learnt from the mistakes already made by your competitors. Some examples are having set up multiple failovers in different regions for maximum availability, knowing how to architect your infrastructure for infinite scalability and taking advantage of the modern, latest hardware.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
What we want to achieve is to skyrocket other businesses’s online presence. That means delivering exceptional and always online digital experiences while beign secure from attackers. We have really exciting and innovative plans that we would love to implement in the near future, that would make businesses easier to operate than ever with the best performance and security possible while reducing their costs.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
It’s a tough question because the challenges seem endless. I’d say our most significant hurdle has been architecting our complex interconnected systems. We’ve had to design multiple systems that seamlessly work together to achieve the results we’re so proud of today. It’s been a real rollercoaster because we’re not content with just being “good” – we’re striving for nothing less than “the best”. That’s why we’ve gone back to the drawing board and completely reprogrammed and revamped our entire business not just once, but three times. It’s all about our commitment to delivering top-notch quality!
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We want businesses of any size, from MSBs to large Enterprises and even developers to start partnering with us. There are so much more to come, we are just getting started.
