Going-public

Drew Field wrote this book in 1997 to encourage entrepreneurs to bypass Wall Street and float their shares directly to individual investors. In hindsight, we can see that almost everything that Field predicted in the book was wrong, but it is precisely due to the enormity of his mistakes that this book is relevant in the year 2000. Field's premise was that brokers were ignoring equity issuance and individual investors in favor of big-ticket, M&A-style transactions and institutional deals like securitizations. This shift had created an imbalance in which struggling entrepreneurs were cut off from the capital that they needed to get their businesses off the ground. Of course, what happed in reality was exactly the opposite: A boom in venture capital and the stratospheric rise of the IPO market created an equity bubble of epic proportions, and many start-ups that should never have made it past the garage door raised hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this brings us to the present day, when an IPO backlash has dashed the funding hopes of many public wannabes. To the founders of these companies, we [...] ask: Direct Public Offering, anyone?

Considering how little has been written on the subject of Direct Public Offerings (DPOs), this book is a clear introductory text that is easy to read. As an entrepreneur considering a DPO, I am grateful for this book -- it convinced me that a DPO for our company will be successful! More than that, it convinced me there are a number of advantages to doing a DPO besides raising capital.

There are two caveats I would ask readers to keep in mind, however. 1) View this book as an introductory text. It does not contain sufficient detail to answer your every question, and no doubt, additional research will be required. 2) The author makes liberal use of trends and statistics, but many of the references are out of date: This seems to be typical of authors who rush to publish a subseqent edition of their earlier work, without going back and updating a lot of their detailed research.

Despite the draw-backs listed above, for anyone considering taking a company public, this book is a worthwhile investment at a modest price.

Drew Field writes from experience gained through more than a dozen direct public offerings in which he has personally participated. The book lays out the required rules for a corporation to raise funds by selling its stock to the public. This is a complicated subject which Mr. Field simplifies to a workable set of do's and don't's. You'll understand the steps to follow to raise funds and which regulations must be adhered to for your selected type of offering. The most compelling portion of the book contains the case histories of actual offerings. Mr. Field will show you, through real world examples, what can work for you to acquire the funds you need for your business.

Kernell's book is a good look at the practice of presidential appeals to the public for support for his agenda. This is a subject that has been ignored in presidential literature, and it needed to be written.

The problem with Kernell's conclusions that going public and a president's popularity will result in legislative success if flawed however. Kernell draws from conventional wisdom without looking at hard data while also picking and choosing instances that back up his assumptions. Bond and Fleisher's The President in the Legislative Arena show that a high popularity rating only has marginal effects on presidential success. They take a much more inclusive approach in their book, looking at entire terms of presidents Eisenhower through Reagan. When comparing the two pieces, it seems like Kernell started with his conclusions and worked his way backwards, picking out situations that fit into his assumptions.

This doesn't make the book a bad one, just slightly misguided in the conclusions. His topic is an important one that deserves more scrutiny.

Kernell described "going public" as "a strategy whereby a president promotes himself and his policies in Washington by appealing to the American public for support" (p.2). Use of this strategy is said to be on the rise as it is particularly well suited to the modern president. Kernell argued that this strategy is a powerful tactic that can be used by a president to force a reluctant Congress to go along with a certain policy, but that it is incompatible with Neustadt's "bargaining president." He described several cases where the strategy was used, sometimes it worked, other times it did not, he said. The underlying premise though is that our government has moved from being institutionally pluralistic to a more individualized pluralism where every Congressman must fend for themselves (decline of party argument). One is left agreeing that public support does give a president certain leverage in bargaining with Congress, but how the support is measured or that it definitely replaces bargaining and forces Congress to act is not adequately substantiated. The book has some interesting stories on how some policies of some presidents played out in the political arena. If you like behind-the-scenes writings on policy making and president-Congress relations - buy the book.

Sam Kernell's book is a must-read for students and scholars of the American Presidency. He artfully examines how modern American Presidents seek to persuade their constituents in a media-driven political environment. He takes Richard Neustadt's Presidential Power, and adds to it a crucial blend of modern circumstances in this evaluation. It is an enoyable read, chalked full of potentially valuable information for anyone seeeking to understand the modern Presidency and its persuasive difficulties.

This book is entirely useless as a means of starting your own child care business. Any useful information was so bogged down with "true stories", grammatical errors, and religious advice that it was impossible to find. The "girlfriend" tone Dr. Simmons used becomes tiresome after the first two pages.

I was also highly insulted by the section entitled "The Main Reason Why We Do This Every Day," which depicted a large pile of money. Some of us are not in the CHILD care business just for the bucks! I would have liked more tips on daily activities for the children, and less advice on collection agencies.

I was very disappointed in this book as a whole. Ms.Simmons obvious trial and error method might inspire some made me wonder just how long did it really take her to figure it all out? The business is the care of children,and of course making it profitable. But, I found her main focus was the money. I was put off by some of her "true stories". It's very obvious she was dealing with less than the cream of society, especially the account of the 13 year old mother and her 2 1/2 month infant, a product of incest! I found these true stories not at all appealing or helpful, I don't want experiences of persons that have come and gone, especially when they were her experiences, at that time and place. Give helpful advice, not story telling! I also found this book was a "blow your own horn" of Ms. Simmons' care and concern for others, unfortunately it came out as a busy body trying to round up business! Just too much "girlfriend talk" and not enough of getting to the real reason for me buying your book!I instantly found I doubted her and equally did not trust her judgement on a subject she obviously learned along the way!

I am writing to let you know how pleased I was with Mrs. Terri Simmons's Day Care book. Her book was very informative and helpful. Mrs. Simmons is very knowledgable about the business and is very open to sharing her vast experiences. Since reading her book, my partner and I are now open for business.

I agree with the sentiments of the above reviewer, yet I wonder how such negative a review could elicit so many "stars" of evaluation. I tried to teach Nasaw's book in the context of a college course on sports and leisure, with moderate success. Aside from the discussion about white's perceptions of African Americans (a topic which, as the previous reviewer said are not themselves brought into the picture), there is little to no discussion of historical context or the social structure of the urban environments that produced these "public amusements." It seems that Nasaw's book is really part of a larger project, as there is much that needs to be filled in -- especially any detailed discussion of public amusements between 1910 and WWII and beyond. This book would be useful to the specialist of leisure of entertainment in that it is very well documented and covers a very wide territory of leisure practices. But too often the reader is left thinking "So what?" and Nasaw does little in the way of arguing WHY this particular book was written -- why he wrote it in this particular way. All in all, a rather boring and tedious book, though one which is not without its interesting historical facts.

Nasaw offers an interesting account of the rise of public amusements such as baseball, amusement parks, vaudeville and nickelodeons at the turn of the century. He argues that these amuseuements united European immigrants as "American", in part by denying access to African-Americans. Yet, Nasaw does not adequately weave his discussion of African-Americans into his narrative. Similarly, he does not discuss other ethnic groups such as Asian-Americans and Hispanics, among others to investigate their accessibility to public amusements. Nasaw also limits his account primarily to Chicago and New York, while trying to draw broad implications for the entire country. He has offered very interesting anecdotes and provided a broad history of different amusements at the turn of the century, however, his analytical framework is not without its flaws.

If you're lookin for an extensive overview of all the basic theories of IPOs, this is a good book. It's like an "IPOs for Dummies". Focus is a bit too much on Underpricing, however. I missed good overviews of Long Term Underperformance and Hot Issue Markets. Quite old (1996) so a lot of important work is not covered. New version was released 1999.

Financial economists (academics) have an interesting way of interpreting the world. When it comes to IPOs, what practitioners think and do and what the academics "think" that they do are often different.

This book is a solid contribution for those who what the academic IPO literature interpreted for them. It succeeds admirably at what it does, which is to interpret the findings of a lot of published studies in the finance journals that are hard to wade through unless you are a PhD in economics.

I teach finance to MBAs and this book was an excellent review and synthesis for me and fairly accessible to my MBAs. I understand the book has been updated in '99. That is good, since this topic is still in flux.

This is NOT a "how to" go public book. It is a valuable conpendium of how economists think about IPOs.

Compares the impact of German and UK financial markets on corporate governance, ownership and financial performance during the 1980s. Fails to find a correlation between ownership patterns and financial performance. The German system favors firms with low risk and where the benefits of monitoring outweigh the cost of low portfolio diversification. The UK system is better suited to high-risk, high-tech firms, where founders are able to sell out rapidly. editor, CorpGov.Net

The book provides the basic "terms & rules" of stock trading and tries to go deeper in trading small companies stock and IPO's as well as some basic indicators supposed to guide investing decisions. Well, maybe the timing is not right but I don't find something new or interesting. Perhaps it's good for the beginner...

If you want to know how to get into the latest hot IPO, you probably can't. But don't let that dissuade you from reading Robert Natale's book, in which the Bear Stearns money manager argues that the quickest way to get rich is by investing in small cap stocks. Despite his enthusiasm, Natale is no wide-eyed cheerleader for the small cap market. He acknowledges that these are risky investments that are susceptible to devastating downturns and wealth-sapping manipulation. It's not the sort of argument one would expect from a small-cap guru, but Natale makes a convincing case. He also provides a solid primer for beginner investors, as well as guidelines and mathematic formulas that will help any individual investor evaluate small stock and IPO investments. We at getAbstract recommend this book to anyone interested in boosting the returns on a personal portfolio.

This book recalls the story of an early 1990s startup company's journey to the public market, with the climax being its Going Public Day.

Because it was writen by a reporter, the book reads more like a broken-up newspaper article than a story. Each chapter is a tangent to the company's journey to IPO day. Some are more relevant than others. Furthermore, the author has a style of switching persons while telling the story, which makes for confusing reading a times.

However, the book does provide good insight into detailed trials a company faces during its IPO route. If you are into IPO non-fiction it may be worth your read. If you enjoy entrepreneurial non-fiction, then I highly recommend "Startup - A Silicon Valley Adventure Story"

Though I found the book to be humorous and at times enjoyable, I felt the author could have done a better job trying to prove his point. It was hard to tell whether he was trying to say going public is the best way to maximize profit or if it is the best way to bring on an early heart attack. He blatantly describes the travails of MIP's computer company as they try to go public (he describes the extraneous hours, constant, and fears). Though he was trying to show that despite the problems and hard work there is a substantial gain, I was so sucked into the pitfalls that I wasn't sure if the gain was worth it. I would recommend this book to people who want to learn about going public versus staying private, it will help you know what you're getting yourself into.

I'll preface my review by stating that I'm not an entrepreneur, I had the book for a class. I'm not really sure what the purpose of this book is. Almost every paragraph is referenced from somewhere else, leading me to wonder if the author ever had an original thought. The diagrams are either far too complex or convey no real meaning, and it seems like their only purpose is to illustrate the author's competency at using block diagramming software. The editing is poor: there are many misspelled words and rambling sentences. For example, the front cover misspells "angels," referring to angel investors - look at the cover picture here. There is some useful information in terms of corporate structure, but it's probably information that could be more easily obtained elsewhere.

First, this book contains some excellent information on Entrepreneurism in the "information/computer" arena. I have made it the required text in a graduate class I am teaching. Having said that, this may be the most tedious book I have ever read. To quote a representative sentence taken from page 122,"The technological strategic planning process provides the new venture team with a method of focusing the enterprise formation process, and is crucial in commercializing any technological concept." The book is written in Dissertation-ese. Approach with large pot of coffee.

This work should definitely be required reading for anyone even *dreaming* of becoming an entrepreneur in a technical field. Dot com ceo's should definitely keep this book on hand. As far as content, the table of contents speaks for itself. It leaves no stone unturned. It provides excellent contemporary examples of entrepreneurs and their success stories (you'll recognize them), as well as entrepreneurial examples such as the 'entrepreneurial exit' (which is increasingly common today) and the concept of 'serial entrepreneurism'.

Very highly recommended.