Fast-forward nearly a year. Today, the privately held EqualFooting will launch Equidity, a subsidiary through which the company hopes to sell the use of its technology to a bigger audience. As part of a broad redirection of the original business concept, the new venture will sell large financial institutions, such as FleetBoston Financial, software that enables businesses to apply for loans online. A year ago, selling to small businesses over the Internet was the Next Big Thing, viewed by several firms here and nationally as uncharted territory in making businesses more efficient through the Internet. Executives of the three companies said they discovered a central problem with their dreams of transforming how small companies do business.
Small businesses are slower to adopt cutting-edge technologies than bigger competitors.
And they're diffuse, and thus more expensive to market to. After underestimating those barriers, the officials said, they are retooling, hoping to survive the dot-com shakeout that has claimed so many others. It's the adoption. The idea was to produce a Web site to provide information to small businesses on management strategies, as well as selling office supplies. The site employed about 50 people at its peak, but laid off all but 10 of them to cut costs during the fall.