Posted: 07/2000

Dot-Com Company Becomes Sprint Agent
BY TARA SEALS

GoPublicNow.com (www.gopublicnow.com), a business to business financial portal for companies that want to attract capital and go public, signed an agent agreement Tuesday with Sprint Business
(www.sprintbiz.com). GoPublicNow.com is Sprint’s first dot-com agent, and the carrier says the move indicates a trend towards “thinking outside the box” in alternate channel sales.

The recently debuted
GoPublic.com provides tools to access capital resources and public markets, as well as advisory services, through a network of qualified service providers. By joining the Sprint Connection Program for Partners
(www.sprintbiz.com/programs/partners/index.html),
GoPublicNow.com can supply communications services to businesses and entrepreneurs that use its financing and business development resources. Sprint is listed on GoPublicNow.com’s website as the company’s “Telecommunications Partner,” and the portal has added an online request form for information about Sprint products and services.

“With this agreement, GPN users and member companies to the web portal site can purchase a wide range of Sprint’s services,” says Bruce Berman, GoPublicNow.com’s CEO. “Member companies not only gain access to the entire GPN financial syndication network, but also powerful communications tools, such as Sprint’s long-distance, wireless, web hosting and ASP services.”

The financial portal is the first such company to become a Sprint agent. According to partner territory manager Woody O’Keefe, signing e-business companies as agents brings opportunity to the carrier. He also explains that Sprint plans to build the model into a trend. “We’re very excited because it opens up the e-commerce channel for the partner program,” he says. “That’s a whole new market.”

The carrier is talking with four other dot
coms, but the potential growth is being explored carefully. “There’s no cookie cutter set of rules for the
e-business set because it’s so new and so dynamic, and [the web-based companies] all operate differently,” says O’Keefe. “That’s why we’re trying to be flexible so that our partnerships are good for them and good for Sprint.”