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The inside story about the beginning of the end for divine interventures is a sad one. Many people truly felt that Chicago was on the cusp of a momentous success story that mirrored the success of the Silicon Valley. The term "silicon prairie" was invented and being thrown around.
The truth about the demise of divine interventures is simple. Flip and the management team went on the road show to take the company public right at the time when the bubble was set to burst. Flip turned his focus from managing his zaibatsu to taking the company public, and the president's of his greenfield companies, not used to the new, unusual business model, fell into old habits. For example Buzz divine (Marketing) began hiring web developers, which was outside the scope of their zaibatsu business model and which should have been covered by Xqsite. Examples of this began happening more frequently. The management of the greenfield companies began to revert back into well ingrained, standard business practices. Which is not surprising. To change the way business is conducted Flip should have been much more aware of what his greenfield presidents were doing, and should have worked harder to maintain the new business model that he introduced.
It is hard to fully blame Flip though, the simple truth is that the demise of divine interventures occurred because of the over inflated internet bubble. The company came out at $9/share and never went much higher than that. Read below for the death knell of divine, but by the time the company went through the RoweCom disaster most of the core people had gone, and the company was a shell of what it formally was.
A caveat, at its peak, before the company went public (and subsequent morale went into the toilet), this was THE most exciting company to work for in Chicago. They treated their employees exceptionally well. Had a beautiful work environment, free snack, free fountain drinks, pool tables, arcade machines for breaks. They had an excellent benefits package, and people truly enjoyed working there. It was an exciting time for many of the employees who worked there, and the demise of the company was sad not just for the founders and senior management.
One of the companies that was acquired by divine was RoweCom of Massachusetts, a library periodical subscription business. In late 2002, RoweCom was having trouble fulfilling its commitments to its paid subscribers. divine attempted to sell the RoweCom subsidiary to competitors. When these deals fell through, RoweCom was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. RoweCom immediately filed suit against divine, alleging that divine had improperly diverted RoweCom's operating cash to other parts of its struggling business. divine subsequently filed for Chapter 11 on February 25, 2003. In April 2003, divine's assets were sold at auction.
A list of companies purchased by divine: (incomplete)
- Data Return
- Delano Technology (August 1, 2002)
- ePrise
- eShare Communications
- LiveOnTheNet, Inc.
- marchFIRST
- Northern Light
- Open Market (August 16, 2001)
- RoweCom (November 6, 2001)
- SageMaker (April 18, 2001)
- Synchrony (September, 2001)
- Viant (September 27, 2002)
- Web Design Group (Summer, 2000)
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