A Free Company was an army of veterans loyal exclusively to the employer who engaged them.
Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries they delivered on whatever task was asked of them, independent of any crown or court, and so were called free.
Today
A modern Free Company. One client at a time.
We are veterans of decades in product marketing at Apple, Nest, Cisco, PayPal and Airbnb. Like the companies of old, we take on a single client and give them every working hour we have.
We don’t sit outside the building. We join the team, learn the product, and stay until it ships, so the story is told in one voice, from the first brief to the keynote. The result has been some of the most successful launches of our clients’ most important products.
Clients
Before Free Company, we learned the craft in-house at Apple, Nest, Cisco and PayPal.
People
Richard Townhill
Co-founder
Thirty years finding the story inside the product. Richard championed the creative apps at Apple, led product and marketing for collaboration tools at Cisco and RingCentral, and ran global product marketing at PayPal. Through Free Company, he has been embedded with Airbnb since 2020, shaping the story behind its twice-yearly product releases.
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Kirk Paulsen
Co-founder
Kirk spent his Apple years launching products from the first iPod to Apple Watch, directing worldwide applications product marketing and speaking for Apple to the press at launch events. He has shaped product strategy, interface and messaging at the C-level. Through Free Company, he has been embedded with Airbnb since 2020, advising on its summer and winter releases.
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By referral.
We don’t pitch or advertise. New work reaches us through people we’ve worked with. That said, if you have a launch that matters and believe we’re the right people for it, we’d like to hear about it.