A high school English class is an unlikely birthing ground for a high-tech business. But it was there eight years ago, at Skyline High School, that four buddies decided they'd like to make a little money and indulge in their love of technology and the Internet.
Christian Larsen, Allan Oepping, Tyler Colbert and Ben Black did more than 300 projects, relying on word of mouth to bring them business — some of it from major companies. While they were in college, some of them talked their way into getting English credit for developing a program that would diagram sentences. They were the "go-to guys" who would tackle any project you wanted, if it seemed doable and interesting.
That was the beginning of what is now called Pacific WebWorks. It's had several names and incarnations. What hasn't changed is the sheer joy of taking a project and getting it done, said Larsen, company co-founder and president.
Pacific WebWorks in an application service provider (called an ASP by technology buffs) that helps small- and medium-sized businesses expand onto the Internet by providing applications that let them do most of the work themselves so they don't have to hire information technology specialists and buy expensive Internet equipment.
It's part of a growing trend, letting someone else bear the brunt of the cost to provide the hardware and software, and it yields pretty extensive savings over do-it-all-yourself costs.
"Today we have several million dollars worth of hardware and millions of lines of code," said Jamey Johnston, vice president of strategic alliances and a founder of Logio, which Pacific WebWorks recently acquired, folding some of its veterans into the younger company's management team. "We are here for companies that want to use the Internet's functionality with a realistic idea of what the Internet can or can't do." The company started changing in 1998, when Larsen told one of his partners he thought they'd missed the boat. Instead of doing a customer's projects for a fee, he wanted to design software to allow the customer to take control of his or her own business.
Partner LaMar Taylor's father helped with the initial funding. But it was a scary transition. They went from making money to earning nothing. They handed off their existing services. "It took me several months to convince the others," Larsen said. "We were doing well with what we were doing."
Of the original four, only Colbert had moved on to something else.
Today, the other three young entrepreneurs are still with Pacific WebWorks. They're seasoned veterans who'll need a few more birthdays to reach age 30. And they've watched their enterprise change and flourish. After a year as engineers-for-hire under their original name, Utah WebWorks, they carved a niche. They're players who have purchased other companies, from Logio to Silicon Valley-based IntelliPay Inc. Two years ago, they went public. They trade on the OTC board as Pweb.
Although the company is not an Internet service provider, it does host its clients' sites.
The company, which has 35 employees, has 5,000 clients who use the company's complete set of tools and about 30,000 who are using a less complete selection of applications, according to Marlys Haugo, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
Those tools are marketed under the banner Visual WebTools. The latest version, V4, includes six different programs for Web site creation and hosting, promotion and communication, tracking and reporting. The six products include WebWizard, to design Web sites; ClipOn Commerce, an e-commerce management program that has merchant account and gateway processing compatibility; WebContacts, for managing contacts; WebChannels, an e-mail marketing tool; WebProfiler, a questionnaire and form-generation tool; and WebStats, which collects statistics and feedback for the client.
Jake Lunt of product fulfillment said it takes a several hours to go through the Web site design tutorial on your own and start creating Web pages. But the company also specializes in extensive training in the use of its products.
Besides Pacific WebWorks' applications, it has a team called Rent-a-Pro, Web-savvy graphic designers who can be hired to do the work for those who aren't inclined to design their own Web sites.
They're regrouping once again, Larsen said, examining whether to go to a mid-market distribution model, using resellers instead of doing it all themselves.
They're in the right place at the right time, Larsen said. E-commerce and consumers are looking for tools. And outsourcing to ASPs lowers the cost to companies. It's a growing trend. "The Internet doesn't exist in a vacuum," Johnston said. "This provides a new channel for an existing business, with practical tools and technology to extend their business onto it with the knowledge we already have. Companies use our tools to sell sinks, clothes and more."
E-mail: lois@desnews.com