apFrog Enterprises was founded in 1995 by Michael Wood, a San Francisco lawyer who worked for the law firm Cooley Godward. Cooley Godward specialized in representing growing high-tech firms, and Wood often represented entrepreneurs securing financing for new companies. Wood got the idea for LeapFrog in the late 1980s, but he remained at his job while laying the groundwork for his new corporation. When Wood's son Matthew was three years old, he had already mastered the alphabet. He recognized all the letters, and he seemed on track to becoming an early reader. Yet Wood's son had trouble connecting the name of the letters with the sound the letter made. Wood hoped to find a toy that would help Matthew master phonics. But after scouring area stores, Wood could not find anything suitable. A phonics educational toy did not seem to exist in the toy industry at that time. Wood realized he might be able to make his own phonics toy while looking over the work of one of his Cooley Godward clients. This client was investing in the chip technology developed by Texas Instruments that was used in talking and singing greeting cards. Wood wondered if similar technology could be used to put chips in some kind of manipulable letters. Then when kids squeezed or pressed the letter, the letter could produce the sound associated with it.