Getting Started

AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Find local people with specialized skills
These include an SEC auditor and a securities attorney. I can help with referrals.

Begin an audit

Ask your attorney to review the structure of your business
Clean up any loose ends in your corporate structure.

Contact various investment banking firms
Tell them your audit is in process. Submit unaudited financials and business plan. Ask for an underwriting agreement with your company.

Locate a shell corporation
Submit your financials and business plan. Discuss strategy. Look at an available specific shell. If the features and budget look OK, ask for a letter of intent.

Search your soul
Going public is not for people who have formed a pattern in life of not finishing what they start. Unforeseen obstacles will arise. You will invest both significant time and cash to move through what follows. Unless the advantages justify your commitments, you should remain private. Going public can bring both the challenges and rewards of a lifetime.

ONCE COMMITTED

To secure your reverse merger partner, sign their letter of intent

Complete the SEC audit of your company's financial statements
Send the audit to your attorney, IPO and shell contacts.

Select reverse merger or IPO process
Keep the process going. Stay flexible. Do not burn bridges. You will need the shell company in the likely event that your IPO stalls. Your investment banking contact may later want to make a market in your shares even though they did not do your IPO.

CONSUMMATION

Sign an IPO underwriting agreement with your investment banker OR
Acquire control shares and finalize the reverse merger agreement

File appropriate registrations with the SEC

Once effective with the SEC, you must file appropriate forms with the NASD or OTCBB.
In the case of an IPO, you are over the hump assuming the investment banking firm performs. If they do not perform, return to the reverse merger plan, acquire control shares and finalize the reverse merger agreement.

Your shares trade. Celebrate!

Begin investor communications

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