Intend Change

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 raise a reported $225 million and 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 to keep these companies going. Corey described the strategy as "a move to reduce risk, retrench and ensure basic business fundamentals." He stayed on 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 several clients including Sony, providing e-Fulfillment for the PlayStation 2 and Egghead.com (Egghead went into bankruptcy in 2001). Electron Economy was acquired by another Softbank portfolio company, Viewlocity, in September 2001. VeriSign ultimately bought iDefense in July 2005 for $40 million in cash, while Invesmart, the last of these companies still operating independently, was bought by StanCorp in 2006.

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