Tech service providers haven't all gone bust

June 12, 2001

BY JANE APPLEGATE

Two years ago, industry analysts predicted small-business owners would be managing most of their business operations online--including payroll, human resources, marketing and sales. It didn't happen, and many of the small-business-oriented application service providers went bust, but there are a few good technology-driven solutions for budget-minded business owners. One company provides low-cost teleconferencing, another transfers funds and the third provides affordable marketing and design services to small players.

When corporate interior designer Paula DeGroot was ready to build her Web site last year, she went to Creativworks, a national advertising, marketing and PR agency with headquarters in St. Louis. The company focuses its attention on serving small and mid-sized businesses. The focus is on quick service and low prices. A basic business ''image builder'' package from Creativworks costs $1,799. It includes logo design, business cards, envelopes, letterhead and revisions.

''If you're a small business, the big agencies aren't going to call you back,'' said Keith Alper, CEO and founder of Creativworks.

Alper, who launched Creativworks three years ago, said the company has three storefront agencies in St. Louis, San Francisco and Indianapolis, and plans to open another dozen stores.

Unlike traditional agencies, Creativworks does not work on spec and requires a 50 percent deposit on all projects. Spec work, or providing free design, is a convention within the advertising industry. Agencies often create entire campaigns to woo big clients--hours of work clients are not obligated to pay for unless they decide to hire the agency.

The site Creativworks built for DeGroot, www.degrootdesigns.com, cost her about $5,000 and won a Summit Creative Award for best business-to-business site.

Business owners seeking to cut banking fees are checking out CheckSpace, a Bellevue, Tenn., company that provides online payment solutions. CheckSpace client Edith Woodworth sells macaws, cockatoos and parrots at her Birds & More Exotic Bird Shop in Clarksville. She markets her birds to buyers through a Web site and ads in Bird Talk magazine, then ships birds, cages and supplies via air delivery to bird enthusiasts all over the country.

Last year, Woodworth's supplier, a bird breeder in Florida, asked her to sign up for an e-payment service from CheckSpace, to save the cost of doing business together: www.CheckSpace.com.

Woodworth now uses CheckSpace to pay suppliers and receive payments from her own customers.

Woodworth pays the same flat rate of 95 cents whether she's receiving $100 or $10,000. Credit cards typically charge between 2 and 3 percent of the transaction total for processing, which can add up to big amounts--$20 or more on every $1,000. ''It's much better than credit cards for me,'' Woodworth said.

Businesses that use CheckSpace can pay anyone they choose. If the recipient is a member, then the sender pays no fee (the recipient of the funds pays 95 cents). If the recipient isn't a member, the sender pays 50 cents, and CheckSpace will send out a paper check.

Companies, reducing business travel to trim costs are relying more now on video-conferencing. Toronto-based Astound grew out of an earlier business that designed computer presentations for companies. Now, it has added features that allow a number of people to log onto Astound's Web site and look at the same application-based presentation together.

For an additional cost, streaming audio and video presentations can be added to the conference, with a live chat feature, though the virtual meeting itself is still best conducted via conference call on standard phone lines.

Steve McWilliam, the VP of marketing at Genesys, a France-based video-conferencing company that recently acquired Astound, said many companies use Web-conferencing as a qualifying tool to screen potential customers.

Astound's service costs $15 per person per event for streaming audio, and $25 per person per event for streamed video--an ''event'' is a meeting that lasts up to three hours. For those who want to use the service often, an annual subscription is also available to a ''virtual boardroom'' that costs $720 per seat for a 10-seat room. Once the system is in place, any user in a given location can use the ''seat'' to join a meeting. A basic version of Astound's conference service is available free, for up to three users on its site at www.astoundcorp.com.

Contact Jane Applegate by e-mail at jane@sbtv.com, or by mail to P.O. Box 768 Pelham, NY 10803.