A truck, a tractor or an industrial machine could come with thousands of options, and many of them did not work together. FirePond made the software that kept those choices straight. A salesperson, or a buyer on the web, could configure a product, see a price and get a valid quote. When FirePond filed to go public in early 2000, companies were rushing to move their sales online.

A Minnesota Tool Goes Online

FirePond grew out of an older Minnesota company that built configuration tools for manufacturers. It bet that the web would turn this back-office tool into a front-door one. If customers could configure and price their own orders online, manufacturers could sell more and make fewer mistakes. They could also spend less on the long back-and-forth of complex sales. FirePond already had paying customers when it filed.

$3.16 a Share in Cash

FirePond priced at $22 a share in February 2000, weeks before the Nasdaq peaked. Spending on e-business software fell steeply the next year. The company cut staff and faced shareholder lawsuits from the offering period. In 2003 an affiliate of Jaguar Technology Holdings bought FirePond for $3.16 a share in cash, about $11.7 million. Its run as a public company lasted less than four years.

Cover: Fire Works on the Night of the Fourth of July, Winslow Homer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for fireworks over dark water (fire on a pond).