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.

Ah yes, but when it sounds too good to be true it is and when it seems too easy of a negotiation…it is! When she sent us the contract she felt the need to add a few percentage points to the tune of 7%, making a total of 10% equity and she also was charging an extra $10k to fill in the blanks on your prototypical PPM doc. Why did she jack up the price? Her response was, “This S1 will have comments”. I almost died laughing. Of course it’s going to have comments with the SEC, that’s why it’s called the ‘comments’ stage.

We talked her into taking 2 payments for the $10k, half upfront and half on completion but we really should have dumped her right there. She didn’t want to keep her word on that either so I paid her the last payment before the fee was due and just got rid of her.

Turns out she never filed an s1 before and her whole act was a sham. She was desperate for cash and nickled and dimed us the whole time. I laugh about it now but it wasn’t funny when it happened. We lost over a month of transaction time because she couldn’t tell the truth.

The client was going public on the OTCBB with a valuation of around $5m, her suggestion was to raise capital pre public for $1 per share because the company would have a hard time qualifying for the NASDAQ if it started at anything less than $1. This company was years away from even considering the NASDAQ as an option but her in experience and need to prolong the deal to rape us for fees was so blatant and careless that she did everything she could to add as much confusion to the deal as possible so that no one knew what was going on, therefore she got away with a lot and was able to pick our pockets for weeks before we got rid of her.

The moral of the story is this: not all attorneys are rich. The truth is, most are very modest as far as their earnings. There is too much competition these days so there are predatory lawyers out there that will lie, double talk, triple talk and run you around in circles. All the while the clock is ticking and they are billing you like it’s going out of style. Watch your back with the dead broke S1 lawyer.

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For companies wanting to go public the basic understanding is to find an S1 attorney that will look out for your best interest and make the process easy. But what you’re not thinking about is the sub-sector of predatory attorneys that just look at you as easy prey. They’ll jump into your company, distract you by confusing you with technical jargon, fast talking and stressful scenarios that could never happen and when you’re not looking they’ll carve out a nice fat piece of equity on top of their excessive fees that pile up as they rob you blind with their insularely fees.

Qualify your S1 lawyer the way you would a blind, deaf, mute, quadriplegic proctologist before you go in for surgery. The fact that they can do what you’ve read in their promotional material is possible but most likely won’t happen, not that it can’t happen it’s just they can’t make it happen. Got it?

Be wary of S1 attorneys that will try to confuse you and distract you from your original goal. Let’s say it was your goal to go public on the OTCBB, the attorney who wants to take you for a ride will distract you with statements geared towards far fetched issues to scare you into submitting to their, not so far off, actions of adding fees, slicing off equity and other things of this nature. A perfect example is an attorney who gets involved with the client’s PPM share price with oppressive authority. If you’re company has a valuation of $3m they are trying to tell you to sell shares pre public for $1.00 or so which is absolutely, completely unrealistic, especially when you look at existing in the post public arena. They will tell you that at .20 cents per share pre public your pre revenue company will never have a chance to get on the NASDAQ (NASDAQ should be the furthest thing from your mind at this stage as you should be focusing on your pre public share price and post public IR). If the predator S1 lawyer sees you’re organized and have a solid comprehension of the process they will take away your confidence in those around you to gain more dependence by you. They will tell you that you can’t pay your IR firm the way you’ve already pre negotiated or that they are dirty or whatever.

When it comes to the PCAOB audit they will absolutely insist on you using their guy even though he charges twice the amount of other firms that gave you a quote and you can rest assured that the markup is their commission for scaring you into using this firm.

At the end of the day the predatory S1 attorney will confuse you, up-sell, over charge, scare, belittle and whatever else they have to do to make sure that at the end of the day they can get away with charging and taking everything without having to deliver anything and it will be structured so that the blame falls on you for not fulfilling the obligations set on you by the attorney. Good luck out there!

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Minimal input, maximum output is the motto of most politicians that are driven by backdoor profiteering from this economic collapse. If you think that your local politician’s main interest is his/her constituents and the issues facing your town such as job loss, debt and foreclosure, you need to wake up, turn off the TV and start looking at your senator and congressman’s voting record and better yet, corporate election sponsorships. Financial greed and the cult of power is what motivate these people. Your vote is merely a vehicle to their ability to obtain both simultaneously.

There are two spheres that fuel the political machine: big oil and lobbyist financial facilitation, your vote is secondary and can typically be bought. Bought? Of course, don’t be so naive as to think that you vote with your gut and unique conviction. What news channels do you watch? After the televised staging of a debate what commentators do you turn to for the breakdown of what the candidates were ‘really saying’?

You, whether you want to admit it or not, are a product of the political persuasion of the news you watch or talk radio you listen to. We have unqualified talking heads in office that spew regurgitations proctologically embedded in them by the special interest groups that sponsor their election. Banking institutions are one of the industries that perpetuate and stimulate the actions of these politicians. Global banks who sponsor the cycle of ‘control by debt’ are the first to jump on the bandwagon and contribute capital to a system that perpetuates this process. When small and medium size businesses need capital the first people they turn to are institutional bankers. Herein lies the problem. When a bank funds your project they hand over a minuscule fraction of actual capital and the pie in the sky fractional reserve numbers take care of the rest. Typically an FDIC backed bank who lends $100k only needs to have $10k in reserve, the rest is added by the Fed in the form of digital read outs on a screen and the illusion of empirical collateral. Being that there is no gold standard and nothing but consumer confidence that backs up our dollar the privately held Federal Reserve can print money at a whim and better yet, add a few zeros to the calculations on a computer monitor and you can make or break a bank which in turn can make or break a regional or national economy.

Entrepreneurs should first consider taking their project to the public via Regulation D (504, 505 or 506) or Private Placement Memorandum and then seek out qualified consultants who can help facilitate a public offering where the company deals directly with the public and 10k’s and 10q’s in combination with the company’s profitability and expansion will dictates it’s success. Companies function best when governed less. Sure white collar crimes have been in the news and the executives go to jail, and rightfully so but consider the reality that politicians and top tier banks have been publicly crucifying business owners for years. Which is worse?

As an investor you should evaluate your investments and get diversification advice from qualified financial advisers as entrepreneurs your first call should be to a consultant that can write a PPM and a solid business plan and take it to investors. Banks should be the absolute last resort for a small and medium size business. The days of entrepreneurs voluntarily placing their heads on the chopping block in the name of institutional control and political capitalization should come to an end

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I wish I could say that I wasn’t writing this article from experience but that would be a lie. I wish I could say that chemistry is never an issue between the consultant, S1 attorney and newly elected board members but that would be nave.

The truth is some attorneys who perform great on some public offerings are an absolute nightmare on other transactions. Some board members with a gargantuan size portfolio of contacts are worth the aggravation on some deals but on others fall flat on their face as they try to take the whole company to the ground with them.
The reality is qualifying an attorney for the process of an S1 filing goes far beyond whether they’ve got time and experience under their belt. You need to ask the more difficult questions that are almost impossible to test for such as, how do they react in stressful situations? Are they open to stepping outside of their comfort zone to engage in cutting edge filing strategies to speed up the offering process? Do they help with the fundraising? Are they able to refer a PCAOB auditor and a market maker to file the 15c211?
These are things that need to be addressed with your S1 attorney but are difficult to actually test beforehand.

Each lawyer is different and all I can say is sit down with them and drill them with a million different questions from a multitude of angles to test their knowledge and their patience. Watch their facial expressions, hand gestures, eye and forehead shift. Look for a bouncing leg or foot and other nervous habits and what questions did you ask to trigger this nervous twitch?

The same techniques can be used for qualifying a board member. The only way to get the best idea of whether there is a fit is to push them to the brink during the interview?

Be careful with this as many qualified professionals could easily take this challenge as disrespect and they’ll walk so don’t be rude or arrogant but with a placid look on your face and a calm voice, drill them and drill them hard.

Many consultants in this industry, myself included had to learn this lesson the hard way and took a lot of time and effort to correct the mistake of bringing on the wrong individual for the solution we were seeking.
This is an extremely high stress industry and the environment is constantly at 100 degrees.

Concentrate on being calm, forward thinking, compromising on some issues and uncompromising on others, write down 10 pages of questions and when you sit down with the candidate ask all those questions and other questions that come to mind during the meeting. Test them, push them and get the right person for the job.

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What Is the Process Of Taking A Company Public? Here Are The Answers!

Going public can make or break a company. As long as you are prepared it can be the biggest blessing ever bestowed on your company. Understanding the process can help you decide if this is a direction you’d like to take. Here is the process:

First you’ll need corporate structuring to create a business model that is conducive to raising capital and increasing investor confidence so you’ll need to take a long hard look at your ‘C’ level executives and their educational and professional pedigree and track record, your board of directors capabilities and abilities to contribute with capital connections and strategic alliances.

Second you’ll need to write a business plan that take into consideration a strong business model, financial projections that will stand up to the scrutiny of your SEC auditor and investors who have their investments audited by legal counsel and accountants while simultaneously painting a picture of a solid and viable, and yes, recession proof business model.

Third you will need a PPM to break your company up into shares to distribute to seed capital investors and stay within the SEC Regulation D requirements.

Fourth you’re ready to file your S1 and get into the comments stage. Be prepared to answer questions and be patient. The SE needs to understand your business enough to approve it. Some of their comments are pretty strange but it is what it is. Your best bet is to have a good securities attorney file for you.

Fifth you need your third party audit. This can be a large financial undertaking if your books are a mess and a good auditor can be in and out in around a month.

Sixth after the SEC approval you’ll have your market maker file your 15c211 with FINRA to get your approval and stock symbol.

Lastly, you’ll need a strong post public investor relations strategy to induce investment and calm down those who want to sell their stock. A good IR strategy will also bring into account massive amounts of traditional and viral publicity.

For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Relations and Publicity, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

The ‘Spoke Wheel’ Approach To Taking Your Company Public.

A public corporation, just as a private company is composed of several contributing factors that dictate the outcome of its success. If you visualize your corporate entity as the ‘hub’ of the wheel and each spoke as a ‘contributing asset’ to the company you’ll find that the more spokes in the wheel, the more weight the wheel can carry as its strength rests on scores of unified connections working together, each with one simultaneous point of interest, the hub.

These hub connections can be anything that contributes to the overall success and perpetual, yet controlled, growth strategy of the company such as: a dozen strategic partnerships that act as growing distribution channels for your product or service, finance alliances that take care of your growth capital needs, multiple legal professionals that you can tap into for advise and corporate strategies, dozens of companies within your industry that focus on a different element of the industry but cooperate as a referral source for new business and on and on.

Your goal, in creating a solid, strategically aligned pre public and post public corporation is to keep building spokes and bringing on partners and executives that can instantly contribute to adding more strategic alliances and growth enhancers to your ever evolving and emerging corporate wheel.

If you are a public company, partnerships that you should have heavily represented in your model should be securities attorneys, market makers and broker dealers, several publicists with different areas of media focus, viral publicists, investor relations facilitators and service providers etc. Don’t forget the political contacts and padding contacts. By ‘padding’ I mean contacts that may serve no active role other than having some big names affiliated with your company that can gain attention within and outside your specific industry genre.

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Our firm takes small companies and industry genre leaders public in the United States. We specialize in the OTCBB, A to Z facilitation as well as NASDAQ IR and strategies consulting. We work with global corporate entities from Greece to China, from South America to Europe. I say this not to boast or market myself but to give you some comfort that what you are about to read is based purely on experience and absolutely objective and if you are about to take your company public or trying to turn-around or restructure your public entity, this information will be of tremendous help to you.

I see companies rise and fall before and after the ‘going public’ process. Some companies have great ideas and constantly struggle, some are hardly worth their weight in pocket fuzz but thrive and to understand why we must step back and look at a public and pre public concept as you would a globe that you can set on a desk and spin slowly over and over again. Stand on the desk and kneel on the ground, stand on your hands if you have to and the point of this exercise is to look at your public entity from every imaginable angle searching for any and all chinks in the armor.

Think past the basics of going public. Any informed CEO, COO or CFO of a pre or post public entity will comprehend the basics: you’ll have a first round seed capital raise, you’ll need a solid board of directors and solid executives with an appealing pedigree, your company needs a viable and yes, ‘recession proof’ product or service. You need a solid pre public corporate publicity strategy to make your company stand out like a blinding beacon with strategies that wrap around the corporation as well as each executive to increase the market awareness of their existence in the industry power structure and of course you’ll need solid and massive post public investor relations to stabilize and grow that stock price.

Now here is something that you may not have taken into consideration but is a necessity to filling in the gaps of your corporate profile as well as strengthening those invisible inferiorities in the corporate armor. Political power structure contacts are a must. Yes, political in every sense of the word. I mean you need strong contacts in your operating country’s political electoral system of influence to gain access to those ‘no bid’ contracts. It’s a mandatory evil that separates the men from the boys. Get to know lobbyists, congressmen, political attorneys, senators and most importantly get on a first name basis with the direct executive assistants for each of these players as they are the ones that will make the introductions.

Your face needs to be seen in the papers and journals alongside of these power players. Your name needs to be mentioned in cigar filled rooms where these individuals congregate. Don’t think for a second that hard work, blood sweat and tears will get your company to the next level; it’s all about connections and the public conception of you and your company.

Simultaneously you need to take into consideration the social political conception of your company. Truth be told, celebrities and corporations get involved with charities and socially conscientious callings such as Poverty Awareness, Haiti Financial Assistance, African Relief and like strategies not necessarily because they have a spiritual awakening and want to make the world a better place.

These companies are piggybacking off of the free press and the social idea that free money to charity somehow justifies the means in which they earned it. Free handout charity affiliation has a way of wiping the slate clean and telling the public that if they buy your product or use your service they are, in some strange way, making the world a better place and instantly something that was once considered a guilty pleasure (such as a $5 coffee and $8 scone from Starbucks) is now a socially responsible action because .02 cents per $20 net profit intake goes to pay for coffee beans that grow in a third world country that is trying to ‘get by’ and grow organic, whatever.

Going public is one thing, staying public is something entirely different, staying public and profitable is almost unheard of. Increase your chances of success by looking at all the angles!

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Selling Shareholder Offering: The Key To Raising Fast Capital For Pre-Public Companies. As a consultant who has many companies public on the OTCBB (Over The Counter Bulletin Boards), consulted on even more and turned around and structured more companies I can even count, there are a few common threads inherent in all of them.

Most of the companies pursuing capital from angel investors, private investors, private equity firms or small groups of professionals looking for a quick in and out situation with rapid capitalization did three things that made all the difference in streamlining their raise.

First the executives structured their entity to attract investors which by default strengthened their corporate infrastructure. Now they are proposing investment opportunities from more of a position of strength.

Second they chose a team (in these cases they chose our consulting firm) with a proven track record of success with organizing companies for acquisition, merger and taking companies public.

The third element that is common in most successful enterprises which are seeking a first round of seed capital to fund their ‘going public’ ambitions is demonstrating confidence to the investor with a “selling shareholder offering”. Obviously this last element tests the skill of the consultants going back and forth with the SEC during the comments stage but this demonstrates confidence and organization by the company wishing to raise capital.

A ’selling shareholder offering’ tells the investor (if not purely in the initial documents then in the phone conferences leading up the a check being cut) that the company has an organized pre public and post public investor relations strategy, general corporate publicity strategy and a market maker that’s built to last (mostly the former than the later). By offering seed investors the ability for massive profitability by buying your seed shares for fifty cents with a public offering price anticipated at $2.00. What real investor would turn this down?

Offer your seed investors an ‘easy in, quick out’ funding option and watch them swarm to your offering in droves. Let these investors create your float and let your company’s performance and hardcore investor relations take care of the rest!

For Corporate Consulting or Invest Seed Capital In Pre-IPO Companies, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Why Are You Writing A Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) To Raise Capital? I feel like I have to put this out there as a corporate strategies consultant with a firm that is completely submerged in the industry of authoring business plans, private placement memorandums (regulation d rule 504, 505 and 506), facilitating direct public offerings to our database of investors and taking companies public on the OTCBB.

When I get calls about private placement memorandums it is typically one of two scenarios: 1. They want to raise capital and they are shopping around for the cheapest PPM author they can find. 2. They have made the mistake of using the cheapest PPM author they could find and now they can’t find an investor that will fund their 70 page stack of toilet paper.

It never ceases to amaze me when companies are trying to convince investors that they are ready for that next step in their corporate evolution, yet they are being penny wise and dollar foolish with the most technical document their company has ever had done. And why do people put the cart before the horse? I mean, why do people write the private placement memo before they know who their audience is? As a rule of thumb you should write for your audience.

A ppm that is being written for venture capital firms will demonstrate and cater to more of an equity control and technical audience whereas a ppm that is being written for angel investors, private investors and small private equity firms who want to be in and out of a transaction will typically want to buy low and sell high and will typically want to invest in companies that are going public in as short of a time as possible.

The investors in pre public companies and other ‘angel’ type investors have a minimal bankroll of $1m or less (usually) so they have to be in and out of a transaction fast, thus the need for a ’selling shareholder offering’. This is a mandatory prerequisite for a company that wants to raise capital from angels and go public. With a selling shareholder offering you are setting up a scenario that ever investor dreams of.

You are giving them the ability to buy deeply discounted stock and 3 or 4 months later, when the company goes public, they can sell their stock into the market at an offering price that is typically 4 or 5 times what they originally purchased the shares at and the company is happy because the investor created a bridge for the company to go public and then created a public float.

Now, after reading this, you will see why writing a PPM before you know who your audience is and before you’ve contracted with a consulting firm is a critical mistake. Find a consulting firm that is well rounded as a capital raising facilitator and have them help you set a goal as an end result and then build your strategy from there.

For Corporate Consulting or Invest Seed Capital In Pre-IPO Companies, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

As a global corporate strategies firm we are beginning to get many inquiries from foreign corporations that wish to take advantage of the rapid growth capabilities of trading stock in the US. Getting set up with a consulting firm that specializes in fund-raising mechanisms such as private placement memorandum, direct public offering and/or taking one’s company public on the OTCBB can help a foreign entity obtain virtually instant gratification of raising large amounts of capital in an expedient manner.

Chinese companies typically have similar questions and concerns when they contact us such as: How long does it take to go public? What are my options for raising capital with a US structure? Do I need to have an American corporation? How much equity should I give up to the public? Can I merge my Chinese company with my American company to strengthen the American corporation’s asset value? And How do we sell the stock to the public once we have a symbol and are ready to trade?

How long does it take to go public? To go public on the OTCBB you need to have a solid business plan and corporate structure, usually a pre-public round is done with a Private Placement Memorandum to offer discounted stock in return for equity seed capital that will fund the ‘go public process’. This process can take a few weeks to a few months, it all depends on the deal and what you’re offering the investors at this stage. Next you’ll want to do your third-party audit and your S1, after your audit is done and your S1 is filed you’ll enter into the ‘comments’ stage where the SEC is going back and forth with you or your lawyer or your consultant (whoever is helping you go public). The comments stage can be anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months, the more unorganized the company, the longer the audit and comments stage will take to complete. The average for an organized company with the audit and S1 prep done simultaneously is around 4 to 6+ months (the more unorganized the company the longer it takes).

What are my options for raising capital with a US structure? Raising capital in the US happens quicker than in other countries because of the vast wealth in North America and its position in the global market place. Invest-able deals are all in the eye of the investor. The challenge is getting in front of investors with a track record of investing in your particular industry genre.

Do I need to have an American corporation? Yes, to go public in the United States, you need to have an American corporation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to become your primary corporation. You can use one corporation as your operational entity and one as a subsidiary but to strengthen and stabilize your share price you’ll need to eventually show growth and assets in your US entity.

How much equity should I give up to the public? This is a decision that will be made with your attorney and Board of Directors and the decision is based off of your company’s industry position, the value of empirical assets like equipment, contracts, patents, current foreign based share holders etc.

Can I merge my Chinese company with my American company to strengthen the American corporation’s asset value? Yes absolutely. This is the most popular technique to show current and future shareholders that your company will be a long term public player. The more asset ’skin’ you are able to put in the game in the beginning the better for the longevity of your enterprise.

How do we sell the stock to the public once we have a symbol and are ready to trade? During your ‘going public’ process you’ll be attached to a market maker. The market maker, your consultant and your publicist (if you don’t have one your consultant will find one for you) will work together at all fronts to help you leverage your new public entity. Your publicist will have authors in newspapers and magazines do write-ups on your company as they help you label yourself globally as a new industry powerhouse, each of your executive team members will also have their own publicity strategies going as well so that your publicist can place them on expert TV and radio panels as industry experts which brings website visitation, new distribution opportunities, personal and corporate branding and investor confidence which is all conducive to an increase in your share price. All of this will bring call volume into your market maker while they are selling your stock to new contacts as well as calling on their established database of investors. The process is typically audited quarterly by your consultant to find dead weight or weaknesses and tighten everything up.

Using the public fundraising strategies based in the US is a wise decision to grow your business. Finding the right consultant is crucial. The right consultant can make or break your efforts to go public in the United States.

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