Episode 193
Those of us in the digital economy think a lot about growing our business, but we don’t think as much about the tech that enables customers to interact with our business. When our sites don’t run smoothly or aren’t available, our customers suffer and it stops working as our sales and marketing engine. Terms for these episodes: the site crashed or it croaked, give us a perception that sites are either alive and well or completely dead, when its health really resembles our own human health. Meaning, a website can give off warning signs that can be diagnosed and treated before anything really bad happens. It doesn’t take invasive tools to catch these; monitoring services that run without any special site access can detect issues. These tools that take a site’s pulse are also good to gauge the site’s fitness – its ability to handle business growth.
Our guest has always called Ottawa Canada his home. He has also always had an entrepreneurial spirit, supporting the local startup scene since the 2000s, which is where I first met him.
After earning his computer science degree, he began his career working at local web tech firms. A stint at a design agency stoked his enthusiasm for websites, and in 2010 he joined the parent company of Internet Service Provider and web host Rebel.com, and domain registrar Internic.ca.
He took on the role of CEO for both companies, where he saw first-hand how the internet fueled communication and value-creation. In 2013 he took on additional responsibility as a Director of the not-for-profit Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), where for the last decade more or less he has staunchly pushed for the internet to be used as a force for good in Canada.
Workwise, after stepping away from Rebel and Internic, he returned to his technical and startup roots. Based on his observation that while websites were getting easier for non-experts to build, they could make mistakes hurting their user’s experience of their site with equal ease. That led him to launch ONIK, a product that monitors website fitness.
Let’s go talk with Rob Villeneuve
Chapter Timestamps
00:00:00 – Intro
00:03:06 – Welcome Rob
00:09:19 – Monitoring site health
00:29:09 – PSA
00:29:59 – How much access is needed to monitor a site
00:41:01 – Holding different patrs of site to different standards
00:42:12 – How alerts help
00:45:21 – Knowing when enough is being measured
00:49:50 – How large sites do monitoring
00:53:09 – About ONIK.IO, how to contact Rob
People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show
Rob on LinkedIn
His company, ONIK.io
