San Clemente Business Rated Fastest
Growing in County The Orange County Register | November 2007
FireSocket analyzes customer satisfaction with online
software, leading pack in sales growth.
By ANDREW GOOD
The Orange County Register
SAN CLEMENTE - Scan your eyes over the list of fastest growing Orange County
companies, and you’ll see plenty of entries from Irvine.
But when professional service firm Deloitte & Touche issued their Technology Fast 50
last month, measuring quick growth in the past five years, San Clemente’s FireSocket was
at the top.
It was an honor, certainly, says CEO Jonathan Ord, who started the online customer
relationship management service with business partner Brad Perry in 2002. Like other
CRMs, FireSocket helps track customer experience everything from sales to complaints
to follow-ups. It’s all done online, where a specialized program charts every interaction a
customer has with a company.
They specialize in providing for automotive dealerships and insurance companies right
now, with a mortgage-specific branch due to launch in first quarter next year.
They’ve been so busy in the past five years, Ord said, that the Deloitte award took them
by surprise.
"From a company perspective we bootstrapped this," he explains. "We have no venture
capital funding. We have no external investment. We have no debt all our data center
equipment is owned by us.
"When Deloitte gave us the award, we were able to take a step back and say, man, this is
cool, ’we’ve accomplished something.’ Then the next day we just go back to work."
With just over 50 employees, many of them San Clemente locals, FireSocket has grown
6180 percent since launching. Talk to Ord about its early days, and there’s a hint of relief
in his voice: After deciding to start the company, Ord and Perry took a year off, working
for free to study customer interaction in automotive dealerships. After copious notetaking
and pestering employees with questions, they knew enough to specialize in serving
that industry’s customers.
In 2001, Ord recalls his wife calling and asking, "Is this really going to work?" In early
2002, when money was still being sunk into the company to pay developers, he recalls
her calling again: "Is this really going to work? We’re sick of eating lentils and rice for
dinner!"
By the end of 2002, they had 16 dealerships signed up, were profitable, and have stayed
profitable ever since.
As Ord says, what he does "is not rocket science." Companies have maintained sales,
follow-up, and complaint tracking systems for years. The problem, usually, was each of
their systems, whether done through paper applications or on computer spreadsheets,
were disparate and unwieldy.
FireSocket essentially puts all the customer information in one place, and maintains
simple drop-down menus and transitions to locate it quickly when needed.
"I thought it’d be neat to come up with a selling system, for owners to enhance and create
the ideal customer experience at their store," Ord said. "Technology enables process, and
process enables people."
