How likely are you to go public, anyway?
“We have the greatest e-commerce idea in history. We’ll be the Amazon.com and e-bay of industry X. We plan on raising venture capital in the next three weeks, and we will have our initial public offering within 18 months…by the way, do you know where we could find some good technical people, and maybe a CEO?”
—Several anonymous entrepreneurs
The sentiment I hear from new entrepreneurs is wonderfully optimistic. Incredibly inspiring, visionary, and touching. It’s especially touching in its naivete. Here are some statistics forwarded from a friend of mine in the financial services industry. Think about them before you blithely declare your intent to IPO in the next 18 months…
The number of listed companies is:
NYSE – 3,088
NASDAQ – 4,895
AMEX – 786
TOTAL 8,769
Interesting Fact There are currently 10,719 mutual funds available for investment, almost 2,000 more than there are stocks to buy!!
The number of IPO’s over the last several years:…
This article is continued in the Entrepreneur’s Companion volume 1. Click here to purchase.