How it all began

In the beginning, today's core Chapter Eight team worked for Regional Independent Media (RIM), the publishing magnate. Their main job was building 34 websites for each of the key newspapers in the company, including the Lancashire Evening Post, Sheffield Star and the flagship Yorkshire Post. The country's most established regional newspaper, The Yorkshire Post, was one of the first titles to embrace on-line publishing in tandem with print publishing.

The websites created for The Yorkshire Post and its siblings was an unimagined success - over 4 million readers turned to it as a news resource and a directory for all of the usual things that you find for sale in newspapers.

Mario Thomas, charged with heading up RIM's online technology strategy, realised that the potential of online publishing could be extended to fit sectors other than information providers. So, taking with him his core team, they set up Chapter Eight in 2002.

Within eighteen months, the company mushroomed from a micro business into Leeds' fastest-growing digital agency. Chapter Eight moved out of the 2 offices within which it had germinated, to take over nearly 6,000 square feet of space on the top floor of a listed textile mill in Leeds City Centre and offices in the heart of Soho in London.

From within Castleton Mill, the Chapter Eight story has expanded from a novella into an encyclopaedia. Now the company is sharing its internet expertise across many sectors; from retail to publishing, manufacturing to leisure, transport services to the arts, Chapter Eight designed and built websites are growing a diversity of businesses.

For owner-managed SMEs to blue chip companies, one aim prevails: to embrace the internet as a profitable route to market.

You could plough through an entire book about this, or you could open a new chapter right here...