Intend Change
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Intend Change was a consulting business launched in 1999 by Joe Firmage, Toby Corey, Wayne Tsuchitani, and Bruce Gilpin. Operating out of Palo Alto, California, it leased offices from USWeb/CKS, another consulting firm started by Firmage and Corey, where Corey was still chief operating officer. The arrangement also included having USWeb as "the exclusive provider of technology and integration services" to Intend Change clients. Intend Change was also supported by two venture capital firms, Softbank Technology Ventures and Crosspoint Venture Partners.
Firmage called Intend Change "a venture construction company." The company planned to advise Internet startups on how to develop a business plan and obtain venture capital. In exchange for its services, Intend Change would take a ten percent equity stake in the client.
Intend Change managed to start five companies before being folded back into these entities about a year after its own launch. The first of these was Electron Economy, a company founded by Firmage, Corey, and Vincent Gulisano, focusing on transaction logistics in e-commerce. Other launches that followed included Infrastructure Defense (or iDefense), a network security research company, Invesmart, a financial services portal, and HardCloud, an online community for extreme sports. Another effort was online training provider iGeneration, a rebranded version of an earlier spinoff known as USWeb Learning.
In dissolving Intend Change, some of the principals moved to more direct management roles to try and keep these companies going. Corey stayed with Electron Economy as CEO and also took over iGeneration temporarily before handing it off to Gary Millrood. HardCloud was managed briefly by Tsuchitani before shutting down when a merger with surfing site Swell.com failed to materialize. Meanwhile, Firmage moved on to another project, working with Ann Druyan on a science portal.
Invesmart and iDefense continued under their own management teams, while iGeneration was eventually liquidated. Electron Economy managed to secure Egghead.com as a client, but Egghead went into bankruptcy in 2001 and Electron Economy was sold to another company, Viewlocity. VeriSign ultimately bought iDefense in July 2005 for $40 million in cash, leaving Invesmart as the only one of these companies still operating independently.
[edit] References
- Delevett, Peter. "USWeb co-founders intend to change funding for startups". Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 1 October 1999.
- Jastrow, David. "Intend Change Heads Toward Final Frontier". CRN, 26 June 2000.
- Jastrow, David. "HardCloud Wipes Out". CRN, 3 October 2000.
- Roberts, Paul F. "VeriSign Buys Security Firm iDefense for $40M". eWeek, 14 July 2005.
- "Viewlocity acquires Electron Economy". Atlanta Business Chronicle, 26 September 2001.
- Wilder, Clinton. "Ex-USWeb/CKS Exec To Help Startups". InformationWeek, 21 June 1999.
