Profile of Steve Reeves

Hi, I’m Steve Reeves, founder and owner of Front Office Box.

I make every decision about the software (luckily somebody else builds it), pay every bill, take every support call, and work hard to help people get the most out of it.

The Software as a Service is provided by Widespread Solutions Llc, incorporated in Illinois and owned by me and son, Gareth. (He’s the technical guru, but isn’t involved day to day in Front Office Box.)

The concept behind our software started with a question he asked me “What happens when the cost of software falls to zero?”

We built Front Office Box (FOB) to find out

I’ve been involved in sales and sales management for more years than I care to remember, and mostly in small (to medium) businesses. Whilst there’s been lots of software available to help small businesses with accounting and personal productivity applications, the most important of needs has been ignored. That’s managing the “front office” where the business interfaces with the outside world – sales, customer service, projects, getting things done.

We decided to build “an app for that” and FOB is the result. My input related to the need for a joined up process, from sales funnel all the way thru delivery and customer service. Gareth added the need for the software to be intuitive, flexible and capable – so people would actually use it. He built the prototype, called Briefcase at the time, and we asked some friends to use it.

Feedback from these friends surprised us. They reported dramatic improvements in productivity and customer service and suggested improvements we hadn’t thought of. So we decided to do the job properly and get help with design and development. That’s where FOB came into the picture.

Now we have people around the world using it, across the USA, in Asia, Australasia, Africa, Europe and South America.

We’re continuing development, all driven by people who use the software everyday to manage their businesses, and we’re doing it within our capability to fund it, without debt, and with fixed costs close to zero.

At some point we’ll decide how to make money out of it, but that can wait. For now we’re focused on creating value for people who use our software. The rest will come later.

Here are some of the places you can find me.

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