Doug Lockyer
David Papworth

Riptide Communications was founded by Doug Lockyer (Business and Creative) and Terry Wight (Technology) in early 1996. The mission originally was to bring Blue Chip brand and visual communications standards to interactive communications. By late 1995, the World Wide Web still resembled a collection of randomly shuffled Yellow Pages ads, and interactive agencies were yet to emerge.

Within months Doug and Terry began to formulate plans to develop an enterprise level online transaction solution, predicting the emergence of e-commerce later that year.

The strategy of maintaining superior interface and visual communications standards, and supporting these front ends with clean, robust transaction systems met with luke warm response from a market that did not yet feel the need to compete for quality as well as Internet realty.

Revenues from two clients (Computer Networks Partners and Cambridge Technology Partners) for 1996 consisted of $5,000 in cash, a second hand HP printer and a 2 year old PC.

Terry left the firm amicably to pursue database work for actual money. Doug stuck stubbornly to the Blue Chip standard proposition...