My First Mashup

Posts Tagged ‘how to take my company public’

If you are considering going public you are coming from one of two positions: you are either coming from a position of liquidity where you have the capital to spend $200k to go public on the OTCBB or you are coming from a position of weakness and you don’t have liquidity.

For the former, going public is easy, find a consultant with a solid track record and take your company public, you’re ready to go. For those of you who are coming from a weakened position due to lack of capital you should strongly consider taking your company public with a DPO (direct public offering). Typically a DPO starts with a PPM (private placement memorandum) that breaks your company into shares and prepares it for the public eye. Form D is then filed and you’re then ready to start raising capital.

The only downside is, most companies have no one to invest in the PPM and their transaction is dead in the water. A DPO is an extremely powerful process which allows you to not only offer shares to your friends, family and professional contacts but you can also team up with an investor finder company that will contact their seed capital investor database to help you raise capital fast and easy if you are willing to sell seed stock at a discount before you go public.

Be prepared to pay a modest fee upfront as well as a small equity position as these investor finder services know full well that power that they possess with their database. If you successfully contract with a real, viable investor finder service, they will most likely want to be the consulting group that takes your company public as well. Be smart; sign on with them as they will have a vested interest in your success.

They will most likely communicate electronically with their database members via email. As interest by the investor group builds, you the company owner, will have to take over the closing as it is illegal for non licensed investor finder services to take over the closing and issuance of shares on behalf of your company.

Think of a DPO with an investor finder service as the golden tuna that can solve all of your problems in one swift movement. You can find these groups by going to your favorite search engine and typing in word combinations like “investor finder’” or “investor finder service”. You can team up with a solid investor finder service and they will take you all the way!

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

So you’ve created a widget that’s going to change your industry or you have an idea that could make millions, no you need the money. The truth is, creating a ground shattering concept with multiple avenues of capitalization potential is only 1% of the equation.

Before you start trying to raise capital you have to look at your company as a whole. Are your corporate executives in place and who are they? Are they friends and family or are they the who’s who of your particular industry? Unless your brother is the premier and most sought after CFO in the widget manufacturing industry, he needs to be replaced with a professional CFO; the same goes for other executive positions.

When a VC reads the bio section of your business plan their eyes need to tear up as they see that you’ve strategically collected the best of the best in the industry for your company’s launch and you’ve just succeeded in passing the initial test of the VC. You must have an elite and specialized executive staff with a tried and tested career yielding success in previous business relationships with companies at the same stage as your company.

The next thing you have to look at is your board of directors. Again, each member must have a full bag of tricks and contacts that they intend on using liberally to help you grow you company at a rapid pace. After your business structure is sound and your board of directors is ready to start moving forward with their strategies, you need to use the contacts in the portfolios of your executives and board members to start creating strong and long term minded strategic alliances and partners that will enhance your company. These alliances must be solidified by contracts spelling out what each party will contribute to the relationship.

Leave nothing to chance, unless they are willing to sign a contract with you, it’s not a relationship that can be taken seriously and will only convert into negative baggage that will haunt you down the road. Now with all this in place, you’re ready to put together a business plan. Find a consultant who can not only author a premium grade business plan but also offer corporate structuring and turnaround services to look for holes in your business model and correct them. The author of your business plan is playing a vital role in your company’s ability to raise capital and grow. Choose your BP author wisely.

Now that your company is structured and your business plan is done you’ll need a way to distribute equity that protects you from lawsuits and gives the investors the comfort of knowing that you are ready for funding if they decide to invest, you need a PPM (private placement memorandum). Your business plan author is the natural ‘go to’ consultant for this as they already have an intricate knowledge of your business and have the writing experience to author such a technical document. After all this is done you are now ready to start talking to venture capital firms. Don’t leave the success to chance, hire a consultant that matches companies like yours up with the global venture capital market. Go to Google or another search engine and search for “investor finder” or “Venture capital finder service” these investor finders are a elite group that has substantial contacts in the funding world and can often match you up with investors and equity firms who are seeking investment opportunities like yours.

Raising capital is the last thing you do after you’ve gone through the process of structuring your company properly, now that you have, get out there and start raking in the cash! Here’s to your success!

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Structure your company should spearhead your capital raising initiative. Make sure that your corporate layout is conducive to creating and retaining investor and venture capitalist attention. You should have a solid and elite executive team composed of the best of the best that your industry has to offer and if you can’t attract those in the upper echelon of your business genre, you need to take an active approach to branding them as experts using on and offline PR campaigns labeling yourselves as industry experts who are innovating industry changing solutions. Create a stir, be controversial (but not offensive) and be ready to back up your stir with empirical evidence of your knowledge and success. You should have an advisory board and board of directors composed of industry specialists. Each individual should represent a forte that makes investors start to salivate when they are reading the bio section of your business plan. They should be able to contribute with contract negotiation, strong alliance introduction capabilities and more. When choosing professionals to fill the void of adviser and director positions you should think in terms of corporate ‘growth’ and ’stabilization’.

Next you want to make sure that your entity is prepared to receive debt and/or equity capital. You’ll need a solid business plan, don’t write it yourself, you’ll only hinder your ability to raise capital. Call a professional to write your strategic business plan. Next you’ll need a way to distribute equity or debt shares, a Private Placement Memorandum is the most common mechanism for helping companies raise capital quickly and easily while staying within the regulation guidelines of the SEC. Your PPM must be written by a professional to deliver the ultimate protection for your company while simultaneously spelling out the technical intricacies of your business to the investor.

Now that your company is structured properly, you have a business plan and a PPM, you are ready to start raising capital. Your first call should be to a corporate turnaround consultant with an arsenal of global funding contacts composed of all the necessary contacts such as: venture capital firms, private equity firms, angel investors, private investors, accredited investors, structured finance firms and so on. This turnaround consultant, if they are part of an established firm (always use a small boutique firm if you can find one, they are much more affective and one on one than the larger firms and tend to get the job done quicker without the headaches) they will have a service call and ‘Investor Finder’ service. They will reach into their gargantuan bag of contacts and give you so many funding options your head will spin, thus, making your fund raising efforts fast and painless.

Now that you achieved your first round of fund raising it’s time to get serious. Yes! It’s time to take your company public. Stay away from Pink Sheets and Reverse Mergers, you’ll only regret it. If you are a smaller business or a startup, your best bet is the OTCBB. Go back to your turnaround consultant and have them start putting you through the sec audit, sec registration, FINRA registration and Market Maker joint venture and S1 filing. They should be able to handle the entire ‘going public’ process for you and in 4 to 7 months, you’re public and trading.

Be sure to take advantage of the multitude of strategies to capitalize off of your securities. Remember there are many ways to capitalize off of your shares, selling shares through your market maker, continuously engaging in heavy PR to stabilize and enhance your stock price and another way that many entrepreneurs don’t consider as an option when raising capital, the almighty hedge lender will can lend your company money against your collateralized securities. Yes! Use your stock as security for financing. After you pay off the loan, line of credit or lease you get those shares back (be sure that your lawyer audits your contract with the lender to keep away from any convertible stock clauses). So now you are raising capital by selling stock as well as the ‘on demand’ loan or LOC concept of security backed lending.

Congratulations! You’ve just completed ‘Real’ corporate finance 101! Now get out there, put your company together and start raising the capital you need.

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Private Placement Memorandum authoring and the process of taking one’s company public are services that require extensive experience and the ability to look at a deal objectively and peripherally to evaluate all the angles to enhance the ability of the client to achieve funding in a timely manner.

Many times, when I’m hired to structure a company before funding, they will be under the impression that my evaluation is a mere formality and they are ready to go. Often I’m the bearer of bad news when I have to break it to the client that their company has more holes than Swiss cheese and 30 to 60 days away from starting the fund raising process.

They will often get a second and then third opinion and usually run into the same thing before they eventually find their way back to our firm. As they call around to consulting firms they perpetually experience the ‘hard sell’ by firms who ‘need’ the business because they lack the rewards and referrals that come with cultivating each client relationship because they take on and spit out deals so fast they hardly remember their client’s name during the transaction.

This mentality dominates the larger firms because of their gargantuan overhead while the boutique firms can take a more personal approach because they have a steady flow of business and referrals because they are not stressed about bringing in the next big deal so they can meet payroll and keep their lights on. The smaller companies that focus on turnaround consulting, private placement memorandum authoring, top tier business plan writing and taking companies public usually take a one on one approach to the consulting process and will rarely pressure clients to sign on because their phone is ringing off the hook with previous clients who want to hire them for the next stage in the evolution of their company’s growth.

This business is all about relationships. Ditch the consultant that applies the high pressure sales tactics and seek out the smaller, more personalized groups that don’t ‘need’ your business but will cultivate and value it.

Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

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Going public, the ultimate in the evolution of companies who are seeking access to powerful global finance options for rapid expansion, deepening corporate roots and gaining industry prominence as a true powerhouse and player. The process of going public is technical yet pretty straight forward: business plan, Private Placement Memorandum, Direct Public Offering, Financial Audit, S-1 filing, SEC comments phase, SEC approval, FINRA approval, symbol and then you’re public.

Never price shop for consultants that take companies public and be weary of consultants that will start off a conversation by answering questions geared toward price and giving you quotes without understanding your business first; without the proper information a realistic quote can’t be given anyway.

When you’ve found a consultant that you’re comfortable with you’ll need to get a solid understanding of their full range of services. Of course you’ll want a consulting firm that will handle all of the above for your company but you’ll also need to consider the post IPO services. What happens after you’re public? The reality is, selling off stock in a rapid fashion to raise capital is the last thing you want to do, instead you need to approach your consultant and market maker on how to cross collateralize your securities to raise equity loan capital.

This can be done easily and quickly if you’ve brought on the right group of advisers to expand your company to the global public. When considering the idea of taking your company public it’s important to note that there are many ways to raise capital after you are public without selling off chunks of your company (consult your financial advisers for more information).

Next, when deciding on a consultant they should also have solid investor relationships to assist your company in raising the capital necessary to go public. A true turn-key consultant will have a database of investors seasoned in the process of pre-IPO finance and will often times jump at the chance of investing in the PPM and DPO phase at a discount for companies that are in the process of going public as this almost guarantees that the investor will double or triple their initial investment when the company achieves public status.

Out of the hundreds of consulting firms that offer the ‘take your company public’ service, there are only a dozen or so that actually offer the complete full range of services needed to successfully accomplish public status in a way that maintains investor confidence and corporate longevity. Do your research and find a firm that is well seasoned in the turbulent waters of this industry.

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

categories: Take my company public,take your company public,how to take your company public,how to take my company public,why take your company public,Princeton corporate solutions,take company public,take company public otcbb,take company public pink sheets