Going-public

This book makes me want to book a flight and make arrangments for an interview with the Manhattan New School administration and teachers! A very enjoyable book to read, Shelley Harwayne makes you feel a part of this fabulous school she and her faculty have created.I have recommended this book to many of my colleagues, all of whom are as happy with the purchase as I have been. A very important and inspiring book for the education of young children in the new millenium!

An excellent guide for entrepreneurs who are considering IPO or Acquisition as an exit strategy. The interviews with entrepreneurs who have "been through it" are extremely helpful.

The theories in this book are spectacular. A well written book with great potential for future and current investors looking to expand their portfolios and make some serious money.

IPOs bring clear advantages to companies--notably, access to capital without having to make future interest payments! And IPOs also bring value to institutional investors in search of new ways to diversify their portfolios. But what advantages do IPOs bring to individual investors, who have only limited investment funds? Why should I, as an investor, buy into a company's IPO, rather than buying into a stock that has already been trading on the market? How can I tell the quality of a particular IPO offering? What brokerage houses are sources for IPO purchases? How do they compare? What about buying into IPOs through mutual funds--how does that differ from a direct IPO purchase? This book answers all these questions in plain English with plenty of solid, current detail.

I got burned in the past -- especially with dot-com IPOs. But after reading Taulli's book, I realized that there are many things an individual investor can do. In fact, using Taulli's book this year, I've made money on the IPOs I participated in. Taulli makes everything very clear. What's more, he does not just focus on tech. He talks about the nuts and bolts of IPOs. He also covers such areas as biotech, retail (there is even mention of Krispy Kreme). This book is certainly highly recommended.

This book draws from the experience of several hundred top school adminstrators to provide many specific and creative ways administrators and teachers can promote their school. Examples of both immediate actions and long-term plans are provided so that you can start improving your school's image NOW. This book really stresses the importance of the community's knowledge of and involvement in the local school, and suggests how this can best be accomplished. Best of all, Promoting... is written for those of us without degrees in and experience with public relations. The suggestions are simple, yet effective.

What a great book, too bad it's not easy to get a hold of one. It has some great ideas to take advantage of roof top space. I've always felt that every building should be required to replace the green space it took over with a roof top garden. The book has a few options of just that nature.

I first decided to check out this book after having read Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Guide to Investing. In his book, Kiyosaki touched on being the Ultimate Investor i.e. the selling investor, the kind of investor who puts together businesses that the public crave for and would pay a premium for. The IPO is the Holy Grail for those want to make it big. In the words of a venture capitalist, the IPO vehicle is "The Greatest Legal Creation of Wealth in the History of the Planet".

Arkebauer's "Going Public" is an excellent primer for those just starting out in understanding IPOs. Using plain language and cutting out the gobbledygook, Arkebauer takes the reader through the different stages of an IPO - from assessing if an IPO is the way to go, to assembling the IPO team, the pre-IPO steps, the IPO process itself, and the post-IPO steps. In this edition, Arkebauer also introduces the latest method of raising capital via Internet Direct Public Offerings.

I found this book to be thorough and detailed enough to satisfy even those who are CEOs and who may need a quick crash course in IPOs. One very important lesson I learnt from this book is the need for any entrepreneur aspiring for IPO, to get prepared and started from day one. Going public is an extremely complicated and tedious process. The IPO process can be made easier if the aspiring entrepreneur plans early.

For those interested in reading further on IPOs, I recommend 2 other books - "The Complete Going Public Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Turn a Private Enterprise into a Publicly Traded Company" by Frederick Lipman, and "The Ernst & Young Guide to the IPO Value Journey" by Stephen Blowers et al.

This is the perfect starting book for young men and women thinking about getting involved with startups, even if as employees. An ideal book for use in the classroom. Going Public is not superficial; it probes deeply into SEC rules and regulations and explains in considerable detail the financial quagmire of the first few years. Probably the best text on the subject.

I had the privilege of reviewing this book in manuscript stage for the publisher, and was extremely impressed. This comprehensive guide to public offerings in the electronic era delivers on the promise of its title--and in clear, engaging style. It takes a practical, step-by-step approach to an extremely complex area. It's a must for any firm considering an IPO!

About the book

Based on research questioning about 500 executives who took IPOs between 1986 and 1996. So, most IPOs came from companies who had been profitable for a few years. After the collapse of the Internet stocks, the context is similar, but I believe such profit records may not be as important as during 1986-96.

Published in 1999. So, it has comments to imply "being first makes the company valuable without profits".

About the authors and their style

Authors are experienced in their job of bringing IPOs.

This book is not at all in the class of books by Al Ries and Jack Trout, but more like a text book, covering every related point (from text book point of view). There is no prioritization or difference in emphasis of the importance of various issues involved.

Their diagram on cover of book is confusing because they have used 2-dimensions to show a linear 1-dimension process, which essentially are their recommended steps.

Book's Message

1. Define goal/success. IPO may not be the best way to achieve that.

2. Plan and start working on IPO at least one year ahead of the need.

3. Many specific to-do items: ·Revise salaries as variable salaries that include stocks rather than just cash. ·Plan personal estates. Give gifts before IPOs to family members to minimize future tax liability. Hire CPA for this planning. ·Hire Earnst & Young early. ·Clean books of accounts-use GAAP. ·Build strong executive team. ·Start working like a public company at least one year before-that is-create quarter-to-quarter profitability guidance and exceed them. Create reports such as needed by SEC. ·Build external Board. Create committees of Board members.

If you want to read just 7 pages, read these: 25, 37, 56, 65, 74, 108, 170

Aimed at executives considering an IPO, the 'IPO Value Journey' is also of use to staff in pre/post-IPO companies to understand about market perceptions of companies & ideal "success factors".

The lightly referenced, well structured chapters span: the CEO's journey; the journey's early vital steps; chart your transaction strategy; chart your personal strategy; create the winning team; complete your IPO platform; be the public company; the IPO event; and deliver the value. Useful appendices span: outline for a business plan; selecting the stock market; registration exemptions and resale restrictions; overview of the SEC and SEC rules and regulations; simplified registration under the small business disclosure system; and glossary.

Strengths include: the concise factual (dry) writing style; good use of exhibits and checklists; and useful easily-accessible content addressing legal, accounting, reporting, board issues (amongst others).

Weaknesses include: need for more sidebar success story anecdotes (which integrate the steps); mostly US focus; and relatively superficial analysis evidence supporting the success factors and 'journey' metaphor.

Overall, a very useful working book, to be read with something like 'Confessions of a Venture Capitalist' (ISBN 0446526800) or 'E-boys' (ISBN 0812930959), for a fuller life-cycle, energetic view of the IPO journey.

This was a highly readable discussion of the issues most companies will encounter during the 'going public' process. It conveys a lot of the experiences of preparing to go public that are not normally available in one book. Excellent coverage of strategy, accounting and reporting issues, SEC disclosure requirements, and the IPO event. Although the writing is accessible to a non technical reader, highly technical topics are well covered.

Now that the dust has settled, the volatility of the stock market during the dot-com boom is a memory that is already disappearing in the rear-view mirror of our collective conscious. It is time for the stories and histories to be told - the recent film Startup.com chronicled the rise and fall of, as you might have guessed, a dot-com startup; this book from Stephan Paternot, cofounder of theglobe.com, is ostensibly in the same vein.
After a prologue talking about the euphoria of IPO day (on which theglobe.com's share price jumped by 1000% before closing up 700% for the first day), Paternot (with a little help from a ghost-writer) talks the reader through his early life, up until his entry into college at Cornell, and the founding of his company. I say, "talks through his life" - that is precisely the tone of the book. It comes across as more than a little rushed, though the story is consistently gripping enough that it scarcely matters that the author's writing style would not be out of place in a Dick and Jane story. There is no doubt that Paternot and his friend and business partner, Todd Krizelman, were in the game right from the very beginning, and created what was probably a terrific Web site that became the Apple Macintosh's number one online community destination. For a pair of 20-somethings, this was a wonderful achievement, and Paternot is rightly proud of his company and its achievements. Some might say a little too proud, and the hubris in the book is sometimes breathtaking; for example, it might surprise aficionados of the internal combustion engine to hear that apparently the Internet is the most important human invention since movable type... though there is little doubt in my mind that the author's enthusiastic knack for hyperbole was probably what allowed him to convince a number of business big-shots to buy into his vision (most notably the ex-Chairman of Alamo Rent-A-Car, Michael Egan).
The book continues on, talking a great deal about stock price movement, and betraying the author's bitterness that theglobe.com was never quite so over-priced as so many other dot-coms (theglobe.com was one of the first companies whose value slid dramatically). Dust-jacket hints about salacious stories of an unconventional rebel wild-child flying in the face of the business establishment are few and far between, unfortunately - I was hoping for a few more tales of bacchanalian debauchery, but Paternot's life doesn't sound too different to that of most young, professional Manhattanites.
Nonetheless, it's certainly an interesting read by a talented person - that talent may not be in the literary field, but then you would hardly read the autobiography of Richard Branson and grumble about lack of literary merit. Ultimately, though, the book fizzles out in a rather unsatisfying way, and I was left with the overwhelming sensation that it was as if the company had never really existed... Perhaps it is fitting, then, that despite Paternot's pride in the fact that his company was still operating at the time of publication, all that is left of theglobe.com today is a message on the Web site: "In 1995, theglobe.com confirmed the Internet's power to connect people worlds apart. Unfortunately, after six amazing years, theglobe.com closed its doors on August 15, 2001... Thank you for your patronage and for the incredible support over the years. Sincerely,
theglobe.com"

I really enjoyed this story. Having grown up in the same time I could relate with the description of reality as the writer describes. He is clearly not a writer by profession, which makes the book seem even more genuine and accurate. This book is a keeper!

I just finished reading this book and I just wanted to say that I think this story is very fascinating. It was akin to reading a private diary. ( I wish I could write like that too.) To be so young and hit it big is the sort of thing that people dream of, myself included. I am 30 years old and so I can relate to some of the things he went through. As was pointed out, on the one hand, Steph and Todd had to conduct themselves as mature businessmen running a company. And on the other hand, he wanted to act the way other 23-year olds act, fun-loving and party-going, with boundless energy.

The last chapter, The Second Coming, was my favorite, as he poses self-searching questions about what new direction to take with his life. I find myself in the same position at this very moment. Good for him that he found his calling--- writing and acting. Hope to see the movie when it comes out.