As a journalist I find myself ghost writing books for self absorbed executives and politicians and never able to take credit for it. I usually get a call from the executive’s publicist and they want me to write a bunch of garbage about his soft side, his humanitarian side or his golf swing. The article is written, published, the clients happy and I feel like a sell out with no journalistic integrity because in this industry, to pay the bills means to compromise and do things you don’t like. This interview was different, completely different.

When companies contact us about going public they will typically start out by saying something like, “I’ve been watching your videos and have been following your company in the media for a while now” or “I’ve been reading your articles about globalization and going public over the past few months and…”. My point in stating the above is this, I’ve never had a company that calls and says, “We were going to get a corporate line of credit but figured we’d go public instead”. Companies that are going about this the right way will have spent time preparing their company to go public and they’ve taken the appropriate initiatives to set up post public finance options, investor relations and other efforts that are conducive to their company performing in the aftermarket.

Before you decide to go public allow me to paint a picture for you. You’re on a crowded beach, the water is warm, the waves are calm and you decide to break away from the crowd and confidently swim a little further than everyone else. All is calm; the sun gently warms your back as one stroke after the next takes you further from the beach and closer to the distant horizon. A few minutes later the sun is covered by clouds and like a bomb ‘BAM’ a crack of thunder, lightning lights up the sky and buckets of rain begin to pour from gray clouds. You look back and the entire beach is deserted.