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10 Realities Today Cause Startups To Bypass An IPO

Startup Professionals Musings

Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is up from the dead zone, but is still half the rate back before 2000. In my view, the key reasons that IPOs have lost their luster from an entrepreneur and investor perspective include the following: The US IPO process is still stumbling.

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Airbnb S-1 (Part 1): So How Profitable Is This Thing Really?

View from Seed

One of the most highly anticipated startup IPOs of recent years, we now get a peek inside Airbnb’s business. You can read various articles out there which will give you the cursory facts about Airbnb like their overall revenue or profitability or how their business has faired here in 2020 in the COVID environment.

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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

We had nascent revenues, ridiculous cost structures and unrealistic valuations. I learned to avoid unnecessary conferences, avoid non-essential costs and strive for at least a neutral EBITDA if for no other reason than nobody was interested in giving us any more money. Until we weren’t.

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6 New Venture Ending Alternatives You May Contemplate

Startup Professionals Musings

IPO – public company initial public stock offering. According to National Venture Capital Association statistics , only 16% of venture-backed startups recently used this alternative, due to high liability concerns, demanding shareholders, and high costs. Most experts don’t recommend this approach as your default strategy anymore.

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6 Key Rules To Stay Competitive In The Digital World

Startup Professionals Musings

Short-term earnings per share may be low, even as revenues and cash burned are high. That means that many companies are now forgoing the rush to go public (IPO), in favor of major equity investments from specialized venture capital funds, such as Japan’s SoftBank. These tolerate negative cash flows for growth.

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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

As a reminder, the Dot Com bubble was a five-year period from August 1995 (the Netscape IPO ) when there was a massive wave of experiments on the then-new internet, in commerce, entertainment, nascent social media, and search. Massive liquidity awaited the first movers to the IPO’s, and that’s how they managed their portfolios.

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6 Strategies For Startup Exit That Investors Accept

Startup Professionals Musings

IPO – public company initial public stock offering. According to National Venture Capital Association statistics , only 16% of venture-backed startups recently used this alternative, due to high liability concerns, demanding shareholders, and high costs. Most experts don’t recommend this approach as your default strategy anymore.