Simplifying Website Buying: An Interview with Rapid Diligence

With virtually every industry moving and embracing the technological era, it is no surprise that business, more specifically the process of buying businesses, is headed that way too. The process of buying websites online and treating them as businesses for profit is expanding as well and Rapid Diligence aims to help investors with the due diligence process.

What is Rapid Diligence?

Rapid Diligence is a website due diligence platform that allows website buyers and investors to conduct due diligence in an automated manner. We are the first in the space to be doing this without all of the hassle that goes beyond manual due diligence. There’s a lot of people who have come up with creative solutions and ways to conduct due diligence in this space but nobody automated the process, which makes it both intriguing and challenging for us.

What was the backstory to this idea?

I run a small Private Equity fund where we purchase web businesses and when I was doing due diligence a few of these businesses, I realized a lot of the stuff I was doing was mechanical and could be automated and that’s how Rapid Diligence was born.

What do you hope for in the long-run?

Getting our company in the hands of investors and buyers who are in the space of buying web businesses in the short-run but ultimately, we would like to be providing automated due diligence to larger subsets and markets whether it is larger mergers and acquisitions or moving beyond the website space and into general Private Equity. Essentially, we want to take due diligence, a manual paperwork process, and turn it into an automated software process.

How do you see this impacting the financial industry?

I think the financial industry would simultaneously embrace and challenge what we’re trying to accomplish here. Because there are already so many methods and processes set in stone with due diligence for the M&A space — both at a larger and smaller scale — many would be skeptical that a software could understand and pin down all of the important components of due diligence as accurately as a trained Analyst, for example. However, I think this issue has been true with every industry that has tried to automate something. Ultimately, if we can really make it work, it would be an invaluable resource to a lot of people but I do foresee pushback during this process and from the space in general.

What has your success been thus far?

We have been able to create a sophisticated web application in a relatively short amount of time. We’ve designed a lot of unique and valuable algorithms and have created our own, proprietary processes of consolidating data from APIs and databases to display that information in a consumable manner for our users. I can confidently say that what we have done in such a short time period typically takes significantly longer to get done and even longer to get right. On top of that, we’re all full-time students so I am really proud of our progress there.

Any advice for a starting entrepreneur?

I would say it will always get difficult, especially as a student and though it is a cliché, you have to really love what you are doing. There are a lot of times when working on a startup or building a company or software doesn’t make rational sense, simply because of the financial, mental and emotional difficulties that are almost always involved. The only way to justify the work is by having a true passion for what you’re creating. If you feel like you are solving a legitimate problem and it helps you get up in the morning, it’s worth it at the end of the day because you know you are helping or impacting someone’s life.

Aside from that, I would really recommend a having a strong support structure in your life. Building a business, transforming your industry, becoming an entrepreneur are all tough undertakings so you want to ensure you have people — or at least a person — in your life that will help you get through the tough times and celebrate with you through the good ones. Regardless of how mentally tough you consider yourself to be, even the best of us have our breaking points.

Where can we find you?

You can check us out on our website or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.