S1 Lawyers – How To Spot The Ones That Will Make Your Nightmares Come True

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 10-08-2010

I deal with S1 attorneys all day every day and most of them are entrepreneurial, hard working and interested in helping you in any way they can but there are also a lot of bad ones out there. If you are taking your company public the last thing you want is a broke as a joke s1 filing agent.

I recently had the misfortune of working with (for a very short time I might add) a New Jersey lawyer who had us all convinced by her pepper gray hair and fluency of legal jargon as a second language and quick calls to what she had us convinced where big shot investors who had millions to put into this and other transactions we brought her way.

During initial negotiations she and I sat down in a coffee shop and went over her equity position and fees in the transactions that she’d be working on for us and it was pretty simple and straight forward. I would have my team organize and structure the company and transaction and she would simply file the s1 in exchange for 2% to 3% equity. Pretty nice payday for minimal work and gaining equity in an average company producing $5m+ per year.

Read More

Take Your Company Public: Is Business A Form Of War?

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 16-06-2010

So is business a form of warfare? If it is who are the pawns and who are the kings? Let’s look at the facts and past the 1980s clichs that chant: Greed Is Good and Business Is War as those chanting these phrases are often on the sidelines and not gifted enough to be on the field and playing and have no choice but to live vicariously through those they are jealously watching.

Everyone wants to be a player but in this industry you need a lot more than drive you need connections and capability. By connections I mean global political, global corporate, international finance and more. By capability I mean nerves of steel, the ability to bath in acid and swim with sharks and eat class for breakfast. This is one of the most stressful industries I know of with a burnout rate that is off the charts and any other global consultant that I know has struggled with their demons to stay on the top of their game. Business, by all categorical definition is War.

There are winners, losers, economies rise and economies crumble all because of global commerce. Global commerce as you know is control over the masses by an elite few. The elite are not the government officials as they themselves are pawns in a much larger game that even they don’t understand. Commerce and finance are numbers on a computer screen and fractional reserve lending, the IMF and other organizations at the end of marionette strings to impose the will of the elite on the global populace.

Read More

Take Your Company Public and Globalize With Strategic Partners

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 26-05-2010

As a consultant in the business of structuring companies, setting up strategic alliances for clients, writing business plans and PPM’s and taking companies public on the OTCBB, I must admit I’ve seen my share of scams and swindling of uninformed clients. One sad issue that permeates the industry is clients who believe that their only option is to give up substantial equity while paying hefty fees to consultants who take your company public.

Here is the reality. When you are investigating the industry to find a consulting firm to work with to facilitate your ‘go public’ process, the first thing you need to do is make sure you are hiring a ‘turn-key’ solutions consulting group; meaning they need to offer everything soup to nuts in house because the second your consultant outsources anything, accountability is lost.

Next, on the issue of paying fees and also giving up equity, it should be either or, not both. If a company tells you that they want you to pay them in both upfront fees and in equity, you should laugh and walk away. In actuality the best deals for the client are those that are simply fee based, not equity based.

Read More

Over The Counter Bulletin Board, Pink Sheets or Reverse Merger? Beware of the Hard Sell Consultant

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 05-04-2010

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.

Read More

Direct Public Offering Mistakes: How To Take A Company Public

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 03-04-2010

Private Placement Memorandums and Direct Public Offerings, the most common mistakes made. When gearing up to raise capital it is typically a business owners first instinct to simply throw together a business plan and find the cheapest company to put together the private placement memorandum and then seek funding. What these professionals don’t realize is that they are doing things in reverse and often times a PPM is not a standalone solution to financial needs.

The first problem is the most companies will first write a business plan and cheap PPM and look for a capital solutions last, when strategically speaking, one should first find a full service solution who has a database of investors ready to fund properly structured corporations with well authored business plans and private placement memos. After you find a company that has a ready network of seasoned investors you will often find that this firm will also structure your business and documents so that you are able to attract the attention of these investors. Next, don’t make the mistake of hiring just anybody to write your biz plan. You need to find a professional author who is well rooted in the art of technical writing and has a solid comprehension of your industry.

Now it’s time to write the PPM. Here is a warning that will most likely go in one ear and out the other but you must never choose the cheapest service for your PPM you will regret it and this is a guarantee. Investors see these documents all day everyday and they know a template when they see it. Don’t believe for a second that you will get a viable private placement memo that will actually achieve funding for anything less than $3,000; it’s just not going to happen. There is too much work involved in putting a fund-able strategy together and you’ll never find an experienced firm to do it for cheap.

Read More

Take My Company Public”: Here Is How To Have A Successful Offering!

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 31-03-2010

So many companies dream of going public both as a growth and exit strategy but unfortunately few succeed with this process. The third party audit, sponsoring of the S1 and 211 by a market maker and SEC comments stage is just one of the obstacles involved with taking a company public. The attempt at going public and actually achieving a symbol are two entirely different things and if you are lucky enough to achieve a symbol there’s a completely separate area of expertise needed to keep your stock trading and to preserve a company’s longevity in the marketplace.

Here are some things you need to keep in mind when gearing up to take your company public. Forget everything that you’ve read and heard and pay attention to what you’re about to read because this is the straight forward, objective reality of the process. First, do not hire an attorney to take you public as they will take you on a long drawn out process to get as many billable hours as possible, instead, hire a consulting firm whose sole business model is to take companies public and take advantage of the relationships that they have with attorneys. This is the first rule: hire a consulting firm that offers a complete A to Z turn-key solution for taking a company through the process of going public, achieving a symbol and preserving the trade with a solid, ongoing post public investor relations strategy.

Next, when you’ve decided on a consulting firm evaluate their team, don’t ask for references to call to research their track record, better yet, ask for symbols of previous clients and links to the Edgar database to check out current deals in the comments stage. The proof is in the empirical track record, not potentially fraudulent phone references that are easily engineered and BS.

Read More

Going Public? Here Are The Keys To Your Success

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 24-03-2010

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.

Read More

Take Your Company Public: Have Investors Begging To Invest!

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 21-03-2010

As the economy worsens and banks continue to crash and the US dollar is losing its place as the world currency American entrepreneurs need alternative funding solutions that cater to ongoing capital needs that take advantage of the international finance stage as opposed to domestic institutional lenders.

Many companies, for the first time, are considering going public as a viable option but where does one start on this trek? How much does it cost? What type of lawyer and consultants do I need? Who sells my stock? Etc.

The reality is, going public is fairly straight forward if you have a product or service that lends itself to an invest-able option to global financiers. The process of a start-up or small/medium size business going public usually begins with the basic business plan (50 to 100+ pages in length) and a Private Placement Memorandum (Regulation D Rule Exemptions 504, 505 or 506).

Read More

Take Your Business Public: Anatomy of an S-1

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 20-03-2010

Your company is growing. Now you are ready to start raising serious capital and you here the public fund raising markets. Here are the basics of your S-1 filing. Know the lingo before you hire a consultant. Because companies must adhere strictly to SEC regulations, initial prospectuses are similar in their organization. Each S-1 generally consists of the following sections:

Front Section — An S-1 contains a small amount of information not available in a prospectus. In this first section, you can quickly find the issuing company’s phone number and get a vague sense of the future offering price.

Cover/Inside Cover — The prospectus cover outlines the general terms of the offering, including names of the underwriters, number of shares offered, and pricing information. The actual share price is absent from a prospectus until the day of the offering.

Read More

Easily Find Investors and Financing For Your Business, Guaranteed!

Posted by | Posted in Marketing and Advertising | Posted on 11-03-2010

Easily Find And Secure: Angel Investors, Private Investors, Institutional Investors And More! Raising capital for a start-up, corporation in expansion mode or a company in virtually any position presents it’s challenges and roadblocks. There has been no period in recent history that can simulate the difficulties that current entrepreneurs and executives are having when trying to achieve the procurement of venture capital. The standards have become more stringent and the cross-collateralization of personal and corporate assets as security for loans has virtually become a mandatory prerequisite for any type of funding, equity or loan based.

When initiating the process of raising capital one should take into consideration the use of a combination of funding options such as but not limited to: traditional venture capital, bank institutional, institutional equity investment, hedge fund lenders, private money lending, angel equity and loan investment, a private placement memorandum as the mechanism for raising capital distributed in shares, international equity based funding, the reality of taking your small business public on the OTCBB and many other concepts of capital raising that can be placed into a simultaneous strategy.

It’s a common mistake among entrepreneurs and executives to place all of their attention and time into one singular aspect of the above funding concepts. Instead, you should pick a multi pronged approach and go after multiple genres of financing for your business. Some avenues will yield success, some will not but you are more likely to achieve incremental funding successes as oppose to one gargantuan, be all and end all finance victory.

Read More