Posts Tagged ‘take company public’

Take Your Business Public: How To Find a Consultant That Can Make The Process Easy

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

So many companies dream of going public to raise massive amounts of capital, as set up for an exit strategy, to make acquisitions with stock and for many other reasons. While your intentions may be pure and with genuine motives, you’re entering shark infested waters of boiler rooms, crooked attorneys and underbelly consultants who have made careers off of taking well intentioned executives just like you for a 24 month roller-coaster ride while they take every penny you have as your company shrivels up like week old road kill.

Just and honest consultants in the ‘public offering’ industry are as rare as the illusive white elephant. This industry exists in a cesspool surrounded by rose gardens; from afar it looks amazing and an image of a dreamland but get up and close and the sludge and odor are enough to make you run and hide. So what do you look for in a consultant? The best consulting firms are the ’boutique firms’ with minimal overhead that keep a low profile and are made up of 3 or 4 ‘partner’ consultants.

These firms typically have the experience of working with the large consulting groups but for one reason or another have decided to leave and go out on their own. The great thing is, these small groups typically have massive contacts and process your entire public offering in-house. Offering a complete turn-key solution that is managed in-house offers a huge advantage because there is accountability and you can actually build a relationship with the people that are making your dream of a public offering come true.

These ’boutique’ consultants will usually stay on board as growth consultants for the life of the company in exchange for modest fees and a pre-IPO or pre-OTCBB equity position. The large firms will hack you out at the knees and gouge you with fees while they take massive amounts of equity in your company which takes away your bartering chip when you need to offer more stock to the public to raise capital.

The small firms will also work one on one with you to show you how to use your stock to grow through acquisition and other nifty ways to use stock to grow. Seek out the boutique consulting firm and save the attorney for spot audits. Hold on to your cash. Why pay outrageous fees to lawyers when you can pay 60% less with a small consulting firm that will add all the bells and whistles for free and actually get your stock trading, usually in half the time?

Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Take Your Company Public The Easy Way

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

When raising funding, most likely investors will want their equity distribution in an SEC recognized format like a Private Placement Memorandum, also known as a PPM. This structure makes use of one of the three Regulation D exemptions stemming from the Securities Act of’33.

The three common exemption rules are Regulation D (Reg D) Rule 504, Rule 505 and Rule 506. These rules carry multiple criteria that assist businesses in raising equity or debt funding without all the stringent legalities of an IPO. These rules are defined like this: Rule 506 provides an exemption for limited offers and sales without regard to the dollar amount of the offering.

This exemption does not limit the number of accredited investors, but the number of non-accredited investors may not exceed 35 investors. (An accredited investor is any one investor with a certain net worth and or experience in the purchase of stocks.) All non-accredited purchasers, either alone or together with a designated representative must be sophisticated enough (i.e., have the knowledge and experience necessary) to evaluate the merits and risks of the investment. (An offering company typically determines the sophistication of its investors with a questionnaire subscription agreement.)

Regulation D Rule 506 requires accurately detailed disclosure of relevant information to potential investors; the extent of disclosure depends on the dollar size of the offering. Rule 505 offerings may not exceed $5 million, less the total dollar amount of securities sold during the preceding 12 month period under Rule 504, Rule 505 or Section 3 of the act. This exemption limits the number of non-accredited investors to 35 but has no investor sophistication standards. Rule 505 requires disclosure similar to that required for Rule 506 offerings, under $7.5 million.

Regulation D Rule 504 offerings allow a company to raise a maximum of $1 million in funding, less the total dollar amount of securities sold during the preceding 12 month period, under Rule 504, Rule 505 or Section 3 of the act. However, a business can raise only $500,000 by the sale of securities to persons residing in the states of Montana and Alaska, which have no disclosure laws applicable to the offering. For states that do have disclosure laws, which are 48 out of the 50 states, a business can raise up to $1,000,000. Rule 504 has no prescribed disclosure requirements, no limit on the number of purchasers, and no investor sophistication standards. So if you’re trying to raise capital using a Private Placement Memorandum, use the above criteria as a cliff-note and as long as you stay within SEC guidelines, fund raising for your company will be simple.

Call 267-233-0183, Private Placement Memorandum Services, visit Princeton Corporate Solutions to get more info about Private Placement Memorandums and passing Due Diligence

Is Your Company Going Public? Grow Quicker With Good Publicity

Monday, December 21st, 2009

As a publicist, I can’t help but laugh when I turn on the television to see an author on a talk show telling the audience about their book or flip on the radio in my car and hear the morning DJ interviewing a self proclaimed expert of some new weight loss program where you can lose 500 pounds in 48 hours.

I’m not laughing because of the content but because I know how much they had to pay a publicist to get that interview. I know that all the questions are predetermined and that the publicist who convinced this individual that TV and radio were the only way to get in front of the public is living in the’70’s and can’t seem to adjust to the new concepts of massive publicity for pennies and the young, hip publicists that have transformed the process of ga

I don’t mean to offend any publicists out there but I’m going to tell the public a little secret. If you are seeking massive explosions of publicity for your business, book, musical act or future celebrity, there is a process that will blast your ‘brand’ to 10,000,000’s overnight. There is a process that will put your brand in front of your target market in hours, not weeks. There is no waiting on approval from a television network or radio channel.

That secret process is a combination on online video distribution, press releases, article marketing, social book marketing, blogs and a few other online media distribution combination that will take your brand campaign from 0 mph to 100mph overnight. When you are interviewing publicists or brand recognition marketing specialist keep this in mind, any publicist can get you on TV or the radio with a couple calls since both of these media genres are constantly in need of content and truth be told, the results you’ll get are very minimal from these to publicity mediums.

The central questioning of your interview should be quizzing them on their online media campaigns and viral media expertise. Don’t spend a dime until they’ve convinced you that their online strategies are on the cutting edge and cost effective. Online marketing strategies can literally have the internet screaming your name in hours.

Want Publicity, that works? Check out Princeton Corporate Solutions. Call 267-233-0183 for a Publicity Marketing firm that can deliver.

Private Placement Memorandum (PPM): An Art of War Approach To Corporate Finance

Friday, December 18th, 2009

The psychological profile of business proprietors and entrepreneurs in general boasts the critical ‘Risk Taker’ element which allows one to take the leap from the financial security of a 9 – 5 job to the dicey waters of action based, success based income generation meaning: No Sales = No Money and No Food.

Many of these risk takers function within the realm of right brain communicative as opposed to left brain analytical which passes over the critical detail oriented solutions that are mandatory for raising capital. It is crucial for someone of this profile to hire a professional to come in and cross the t’s and dot the i’s in preparation for corporate fundraising efforts. After this is facilitated the entrepreneur needs to prepare mentally and emotionally for the turbulent road ahead.

Raising capital is no easy task and after the company is properly structured and you have an investor finder service, market maker or broker dealer in place to sell or promote your funding cause, you must step back, take a deep breath and prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. This preparation should start with the concept of ‘objectivity’ when you talk to investors, some will love your business model while others see an investment in your company as a waste of time. You must take these critiques, good and bad with a grain of salt. Don’t get caught up in the habit of emotionally reacting to these ideas from outside sources, don’t allow your mind to attach itself to an investor’s idea of your company or it will drive you insane and you’ll find that these emotional ups and downs will find their way home as your family will quickly be affected by your emotional fluctuation.

The second thing you must do is read and absorb the knowledge in such books as “The 48 Laws of Power” and “The 33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene and of course “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. These books deal with strategy that can easily be translated into the business world and can help you prepare mentally for the art of fund-raising. Read these books cover to cover and then read them again. Absorb the intricacies and strategies that these books offer and make it a point to use these concepts in your daily professional life; believe me, you’ll be glad you did.

The next thing you want to do is to study great strategists like Napoleon and Machiavelli. One thing that you will realize almost instantly is that these investors are out for their own gain, period (Why wouldn’t they?). They will try to attract your attention with the right hand while their left hand is reaching in your financial records looking for chinks in your corporate armor to make their case for more equity for less investment. You need to be able to analyze, not just the words of the investor but also all the other elements of their expression such as: intonation, facial gestures, eye movement, standing and sitting positions and other ‘tells’ that can give you an insight to what they are truly trying to communicate so you can anticipate their next move. These are just a few things to consider before entering the world of venture capital. Raising money for a business is a daunting task only to the unprepared.

Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Real Funding Takes Strategy. Get It Together or Give it Up Before You Try!

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Whether you’re trying to raise debt or equity capital there are still certain unwritten rules that apply that cater to the mentality of today’s investor and funding community. Certainly there are scores of private placement memorandum and business plan chop shops that wouldn’t know how to properly consult with your company or write a fundable document even if they wanted to but they will gladly take your money to throw together a template and try to pass it off as custom work.

The issue is this, it’s not necessarily the consultant, though these fly-by-nights shoulder a large portion of the blame, but the client usually doesn’t even have the proper structure in place to attract a funding source even if they had the most incredible PPM and business ever to hit the venture capital marketplace. Here is a simple (very basic) way to evaluate your company to find out if you are properly structured to attract capital. Have a corporate meeting and ask yourselves the following questions: What type of corporate structure do you have and why did you choose that particular structure? Break down your executive infrastructure, where do your individual executives stand in your industry, do the unthinkable, Google everyone’s names; are the people running your company real industry players? Are all the basic positions accounted for (president, CFO, controller etc)? Next, look at your advisory board and board of directors. If by some miraculous act of God you actually have these two groups represented in your company, how did you qualify them? Sorry but if you have an attorney on your board because he’s, um…well, an attorney, that’s not good enough.

You need an industry specific legal guru who not only spells out the intricacies of your business genre’s regulation but they must also be actively qualifying potential strategic partnerships as alliances for your company. He should be reaching into his client base and actively picking companies that could enhance your company in distribution or in any other way that will have a profitable outcome for all involved. Each of the members must be serving a similar purpose.

Next, on what criteria are you basing your share price or loan amount? If you don’t have a clear cut ‘use of proceeds’ model, you need one. This and many, many other questions need to be asked before you are actually ready to raise capital and in all reality, until your corporate structure is in place you shouldn’t even attempt to write a business plan or a private placement memorandum. If you are serious about setting up your company to attract investors you need a turnaround consultant, you can’t do this on your own. There is an entire industry that centers around structuring companies for their first and ongoing capital raise.

Before you blackball your company by prematurely attempting to raise capital, the critical concepts you need to keep in mind are (precisely in this order): corporate structure, infrastructure, advisory board, board of directors, use of proceeds, business plan, private placement memorandum, investor finder, funding. Look at each aspect listed here as its own item, break it down and analyze every minute aspect of each element and look at everything objectively and eventually your company will evolve into a structure that is fundable and stabilized for years to come.

For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Public Companies and the Power of Good Publicity Marketing

Friday, December 18th, 2009

The process of bringing in huge amounts of powerful publicity to increase brand awareness and client conversion rate while simultaneously increasing client satisfaction can easily be achieved in just a few steps.

To start off you need to understand that publicity and marketing are actually the same thing because the former, if done properly, achieves both branding and client conversion. A business that is trying to raise awareness of a particular brand or product must first realize the cynical mind of today’s buyer.

Before a business owner can prompt a potential client to buy, you must first create company legitimacy. Legitimacy can be induced by using online methods such as web commercial uploads to video hosting sites, helpful article submissions, social and news bookmarking that answers questions for potential customers as well as video and audio pod-casting.

These methods should assist the potential client by answering their questions and informing them of their options as opposed to a ringing sales pitch. By offering free information which will assist future customers with helpful, insider information will create a buzz about your company which will increase market share and sales conversion because you are proving that you are the powerhouse in the industry.

You’re demonstrating to future customers that you are more concerned with holding their hand and guiding them through the tumultuous obstacles of making the buying decision based off of industry facts than a sales pitch. An informed client is the best client which will increase customer retention.

You may find that as you start achieving sales with this new concept, your customers are more informed therefore their expectations are positioned properly which will lead to more client satisfaction.

Using this concept you’ll never have to worry about the time consuming maintenance of having to satisfy the inappropriate demands of an uninformed client.

Inform those seeking your services before trying to sell them, you’ll find that the sales process is more streamlined and your customer satisfaction will shoot through the roof. There is no other sales or branding method more powerful than this.

Want to find out more about Publicity Marketing, then visit Princeton Corporate Solutions’ site on how to choose the best Corporate Publicity Campaign for your needs.

Take Your Company Public and Get Through Due Diligence Fast With A Good Publicist

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Think about it, if you’re making the costly mistake of paying your publicist to pitch radio, print media and television executives to give you a minute and insignificant slot in their barrage of media hodgepodge so you can go in, swallow your pride, look like an idiot to the masses then walk away with your tail tucked between your legs it’s time to wake up and experience the cutting edge hybrid publicity marketer and all the power that goes with it.

Truth be told today’s reality is that the industries of the publicist and the advertising firm have merged into one, crystal clear beacon of light that has transformed the promotional industry forever. Publicity marketers are a very small and difficult to find group of online promotion guerillas that blast the internet with everything that the search engine craves and more so that your company comes up over and over again on the natural search results for industry specific keyword phrases that demand attention.

There are no spam or black hat methods at work. Publicity marketers grew up as personal computers became popular and were in college in the’90’s during the internet boom. These were the guys that kept companies moving after the tech crash and soon, their services became valuable to venture capital firms with IPOs to publicize, viral media to cater to the promotional needs of video game and film companies with a new hit and corporations that needed rapid reputation repair or solutions to a hostile competitor that was taking more than it’s share of a niche market.

The publicity marketer has the creative capacity to plunge his hands into the on the emotional programming of the consumer while simultaneously and gently cornering them in a way to trigger that internal buying mechanism that exists in the subconscious mind of everyone. Real publicity marketers can take any company, concept or brand and make it an online sensation in a very short time.

Publicity marketers are the new generation, web 2.0 promotional guru. If you’re still paying separate companies for your publicity and advertising needs, it’s time to track down a publicity marketer for one, ultra-powerful, turnkey solution that will start generating results immediately.

Take Your Company Public, Visit Princeton Corporate Solutions site or call 267-233-0183 Corporate Publicity at it’s finest

Take Your Company Public: Your Technology Business Can Raise Capital Fast!

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Are you trying to raise capital for your start-up or corporation in expansion? Have you exhausted your traditional institutional sources and hedge fund contacts? Don’t lose hope just yet! First of all, take all those pamphlets and brochures from banks and other traditional lenders that are lying all over your desk and toss them in the trash…they are absolutely useless.

Banks don’t have your company’s best interest in mind as they are hardly even staying afloat in this economy. Today’s institutional financier isn’t qualified to run a bath let alone a bank. Don’t put your future in the untested hands of a 20 something knucklehead. After you’ve tossed all that useless info in the trash, clear your head and then look at your company and ask yourself a few tough questions: Is your company invest-able? Do you and your executive staff have a pedigree that investors deem as seasoned enough to take their money and make affective use of it and not lose it? What proprietary concepts/technology/patents do you have that give you a larger market share with the proper cash infusion? What is your current capital/debt situation?

If, after pondering these questions you’ve come to the conclusion you honestly, truly have something worth pursuing then the next step is to look at the reality that your company is worthy of a public offering. Stay away from Pink Sheets and be weary of reverse mergers and in reality your company won’t qualify for the NASDAQ so the quickest way to raise public capital is the OTCBB (over the counter bulletin boards).

OTCBB is an SEC regulated platform that has a solid investor following and market makers that can effectively promote your stock to rapidly raise capital. Don’t let these difficult economic times steal your dreams of corporate prosperity and personal growth.

If you have a solid business concept, there is a way to fund it. Look into the OTCBB, it’s your best bet for an inexpensive public offering with a direct path to long term funding.

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Reasons To Take Your Company Public

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

There are several reasons why a company would decide to go public; here are some of the advantages. Liquidity is a popular reason for going public via OTCBB or IPO, many global lenders and private equity groups will lend against stock collateral. Private companies lose time jumping through hoops with various FICO driven line of credit and lending programs with outrageous interest rates while a public company can strategically offer stock for sale or collateral. Run a solid company with growth and a sea of content stock holders and you’ve got your own cash register to grow your company.

Another popular reason for going public is to offer stock options to key employees which creates and retains loyalty while reducing cost of compensation. There is no better way to have employees go the extra mile day in and day out than rewarding them with a piece of the company. Stock options are also a way to attract those prized executives that are in demand.

Having a public company allows massive buying power from the perspective of growth through acquisition. Find a company that is the perfect strategic alliance and buy them with company stock. This method of expansion has served the interests of top tier companies since Standard Oil.

What about those companies owned by an individual or a close knit group of entrepreneurs who are getting up there in age and need to start thinking about an exit strategy? Public companies demand higher sale prices and sell faster because of the flexibility of the structure. We could go on and on about the advantages of going public.

Start-up companies wishing to investigate this concept of fundraising you may want to consider the OTCBB, this is a solid and regulated formation to trade your stock publicly with stock holder confidence as opposed to a lesser trusted option called Pink Sheets. For corporations with some age and capital and IPO may be the best way to go, though this process is expensive and can take more than a year, it’s worth it for the right companies.

Want to Take Your Company Public, then call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 Go Public via OTCBB, IPO or PPM. We offer Complete Turn-key, affordable solutions.

Offering Memorandum: The anatomy of an Offering Circular

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

If you are going to start raising capital for your start-up or established business you’ve most likely been advised to have a Private Placement Memorandum written for your company so you don’t get in trouble with the SEC for selling securities without the proper structure.

The Offering Circular section of your document is crucial. Most likely you won’t be authoring this document on your own as it is wise to outsource this necessity to a trained consultant or attorney who specializes in PPM docs but you should be familiar with the basic anatomy of an Offering Circular so you can understand the PPM as a whole.

Here is a general breakdown of the sections of your Offering Circular, they are as follows (there are a few technical sections left out to streamline and simplify this explanation):

Amount of company equity you want to make available, escrow agent info, address and phone number, business locations presently and in the future and why have you decided on these locations, pertinent information about the company (date of incorporation , purpose of creating this company etc), risk factors in your industry, history of operations, time lapse from start-up to operational stage of the company, talk about the ins and outs of your competition, dependence on management, detailed description of the company, government regulations in your industry, who is retaining control of the company, dividend details, how did you arrive at the arbitrary offering price., details about officer’s salary, use of proceeds to repay loans due to officers and director, additional use of proceeds, in depth break down of business (summary, management, strategic partnerships etc), company balance sheet demonstrating assets, liabilities, shareholder equity etc.

This has been a general breakdown of the offering circular basics. Please consult your consultant or attorney for a more in-depth description. A Private Placement Memorandum can help you raise capital quickly and easily and is often the pivoting mechanism for a public offering. Take advantage of this valuable instrument as you pursue capital for your business.

Need Information about your Offering Circular, call 267-233-0183 Take Your Company Public contact Princeton Corporate Solutions.