Hoover's started as a book publisher called The Reference Press, printing thick handbooks of company profiles. Its writers turned annual reports into plain summaries: what a company did, who ran it, who it competed with. By 1999 that work lived on the web as Hoover's Online, free for basic profiles and paid for the deep ones. The Austin company went public that summer, when every investor suddenly wanted to research stocks from home.

A Bookstore Founder's Handbook

Gary Hoover, who had earlier founded the BookStop chain of bookstores, started the company in 1990. His longtime friend and business partner Patrick Spain joined within weeks and later became CEO. The staff wrote and published reference books on companies and industries. As the web grew, the bet shifted. Hoover's would sell its database online, earn money from ads and subscriptions, and license content to newspapers such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Subscribers could read detailed profiles of more than 3,500 companies.

Into the Dun & Bradstreet Files

Hoover's priced its IPO at $14 a share in July 1999 and traded on Nasdaq as HOOV. Ad revenue faded after the dot-com bust, and the company leaned on paid subscriptions from businesses. In early 2003 Dun & Bradstreet, the giant of business credit data, bought Hoover's for $7 a share in cash. Hoover's kept its name for years afterward as D&B's company research service.

Cover: New York, from Brooklyn Bridge, Joseph Pennell. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for the Manhattan skyline (a city of companies).