Freeworks Focuses On Little Folks

Brandweek, Oct 18, 1999 by Susan Kuchinskas

Freeworks.com is hopping on the application services provider bandwagon with an ad-supported suite of free services targeted to individuals working in small businesses. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's site goes live today. It will offer Internet-based forms, routing, monitoring and work-flow tools to handle administrative tasks.

Founded last January by four members of the Intuit team that produced personal finance software Quicken, Freeworks.com will focus on the 34 million small business employees, rather than their two million bosses. The theory is if enough lower-level employees jump on a service, decision makers will request it for the whole company.

The advertiser-supported site will launch without ads in place; Freeworks.com vice president and cofounder Tapan Bhat said the company preferred to create ad inventory before selling it.

Freeworks.com plans to use creeping registration, asking for more demographic information on a voluntary basis as users become comfortable on the site. It will be marketed through distribution partnerships such as placement on portals; those deals are still being negotiated. A banner campaign breaks on Oct. 26, the date of the site's official launch, with a print effort scheduled to break in the first quarter of next year, both from San Francisco agency Scheyer SF.