I still remember leaning over a friend’s shoulder in the late 1990s, watching him work on what would become our first website. In that moment, something felt magical. We had taken our club’s printed newsletter and transformed it into a living thing—an actual website that could be viewed through a web browser anywhere in the world.
For me, with a background in computer programming and professional services, something just clicked. The creative possibilities of building websites sparked a passion that directed me into giving this new business technology a go!
I officially founded BeareWare in May 2000 in Nashville, Tennessee, with a commitment to providing permanent Internet-based technology solutions to the small business community.
Our first official client was Corporate Commuinications, an Investor Relations firm who hired BeareWare in May 2000 to develop a full Intranet-based contact management system that manages CCI’s client, attorney, auditor, transfer agent, proxy, distribution, and media releases data in a 30-plus user environment.
Many of our initial website clients were amateur sports clubs related to the Australian/American community in the Hillsboro Village/Vanderbilt Area. Most of our initial small business websites came from those relationships.
Peter Beare at an Internet Cafe in New York City early 2000’s. When ever we travelled in these early years we would locate the nearest Internet Cafe which was our lifeline for serving clients.
Microsoft Publisher
At BeareWare, our earliest websites were built using Microsoft Publisher. With its minimal page-design capabilities, our client sites naturally evolved from our roots in creating newsletters for non-profit organizations. As a result, these early websites centered heavily on content, stories, and photos, carrying a distinctly amateur, journalistic flair that reflected both the tools of the time and our passion for storytelling.
Around the year 2000, Microsoft Publisher — part of the Microsoft Office suite — was commonly used by small businesses and individuals to create simple websites, especially for those without formal web design training.
Earthlink
In the early 2000s, BeareWare used EarthLink as its primary hosting provider for client websites. For each project, we set up an individual hosting account through EarthLink, then handled all ongoing hosting and site management on behalf of the client. This allowed us to offer a seamless, fully managed web hosting experience during a time when reliable third-party hosting solutions were essential.
Websites hosted on EarthLink in the early 2000s had a very distinctive, nostalgic style shaped by the technology and design norms of that era. EarthLink was one of the largest internet service providers (ISPs) in the U.S., and it offered personal web space to subscribers
Office Location
BeareWare’s first office was located on Natchez Trace in Hillsboro Village, just steps from Vanderbilt University. We operated out of the separate loft apartment at the back right of the property, using it as a dedicated space to meet with clients and collaborators. The front parking bay provided convenient access for visitors, making it an ideal location and setup for launching a new website business.
BeareWare Logo – 2000-2011
BeareWare Launches Healthcare Ethics Website www.ethicsconsultant.com
Nashville, TN – February 4, 2003
BeareWare, a technology company that provides Internet and Windows community solutions, launched ethicsconsultant.com today. The ethicsconsultant.com website provides direct access to an experienced healthcare ethics consultant—for real-time coaching, mentoring, and education services—on the web. Target clients are (1) healthcare organization ethics committees and their members; (2) interested physicians, nurses, pastoral care staff, social workers, pharmacists, compliance officers, quality assurance personnel, patient representatives, educators, attorneys, and administrators; and (3) patients and their advocates…
BeareWare Powers 2003 Australian Festival
Nashville, TN – September 7, 2003
Organizing an event of any size is a major undertaking. When presenting an event such as the Australian Festival, the largest Australian Festival in North America, the logistics of data management and presentation are enormous. Coordinating Sponsors, Press, Exhibitors, Vendors & Participants – not to mention the general public – can become a major challenge…
BeareWare Fun Fact
The ticket crew included BeareWare associate Shane Clohesy, Peter Beare with Mary Brace, Fred Buck & Tom Hansen of Lightning 100 – Circa 2003
Lighting 100 Online Ticket Processing
BeareWare was certainly looking at many options to grow our business in the early days and that included processing tickets online for Lightning 100 local concerts. We would setup and sell concert tickets online and then would bring the list of sales to the enterance area working with Lightning 100 to verify ticket entry!
Corporate Communications 2000
Corporate Communications (CCI) is one of the country’s largest investor relations (IR) firms, serving primarily small- and mid-cap publicly held companies nationwide. Their focus is to help publicly held companies “be public” by building credible, visible and effective investor communications programs. BeareWare was hired to develop a full Intranet based data management system that manages CCI’s client, attorney, auditor, transfer agent, proxy & distribution data in a 30 plus user environment. The system was developed using PHP and MySQL.
Ethics Consultant 2002
The Ethics Consultant Group was formed primarily by combining the resource talents of associated faculty from the Center for Clinical Ethics at Summit Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, and the Samford University Healthcare Ethics and Law (HEAL) Institute, Birmingham, Alabama. Others with graduate and fellowship training in clinical ethics and years of experience in providing clinical ethics consultation services in large tertiary medical centers with teaching programs complete the Group.
Welcome to BeareWare’s e-NEWS
January, 2003 – Edition I
G’day and welcome to the first edition of BeareWare e-NEWS. BeareWare e-NEWS has been developed to give clients, partners, and prospective clients a quarterly snapshot and update of the current events, products & happenings within the BeareWare Community…
