IPO Strategy: How Entrepreneurs are Making Billions

Hey Welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host Ryan Miller and today  I have my dear friend Peter Goldstein.

Peter is the Founder and CEO at Exchange Listing and Emmis Capital where he leads entrepreneurs and their investors to exit profitably through IPO.  He’s a regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Nasdaq, and the author of the Amazon best seller “The Entrepreneur’s IPO”

What this means is that Peter understands the complicated world of going public and he’s about to give us a masterclass on how to IPO in our pursuit of Making Billions.

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[THE GUEST]:  Peter is the Founder and CEO at Exchange Listing and Emmis Capital where he leads entrepreneurs and their investors to exit profitably through IPO.  He’s a regular contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Nasdaq, and the author of the Amazon best seller “The Entrepreneur’s IPO”

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved market-beating placement growth in his first 5 years in the industry.

Transcript

<<Ryan Miller
My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds, and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, and the show will give you the answers, so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Let's get into it.

Ryan Miller
If you want to make a billion dollar exit, you need to understand what an IPO is. Quite simply, an IPO is just your initial public offering on the stock market. So for many founders, this is the moment where their life changes for ever. And my next guest is an expert on getting entrepreneurs are billion dollar exit, and he's about to teach you his secret sauce on making it happen so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Here we go.

Ryan Miller
Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. And today I have my dear friend Peter Goldstein. Peter is the founder and CEO at Exchange Listing and MS Capital where he leads entrepreneurs and their investors to exit profitably through IPO. He's a regular contributor to Forbes, entrepreneur, NASDAQ, and the author of the Amazon bestseller, The Entrepreneurs IPO. So what this means is that Peter understands the complicated world of going public and he's about to give us a masterclass on how to IPO in our pursuit of making billions. So Peter, welcome to the show, man.

Peter Goldstein
Ryan, thanks so much for having me. You know, I love the show, and really your community, right, your community is my community, as we've talked and get to know each other more, you know, it's really about being with like minded people, which to me, are global entrepreneurs, investors who have that same pursuit of building and growing and participating in the entrepreneurial communities around the world.

Ryan Miller
Yeah, thank you, you're very kind. We've been very fortunate to be in over 100 countries around the world in the top 2% in the world, the show has grown. And we were certainly honored to have guests like you and that is precisely why. So it has been an absolute privilege to have you on the show. And I was very excited to start talking about IPOs. And you're the man to do it. So before we get into all that big sexy stuff, and all the things and IPOs and high finance and all those things that happen. Let's address the beginners in the beginning, when you're either running a company or you're looking to list a company either way, right, two sides of the same coin. How do beginners in this game, how do they win and how do they not lose in the early days?

Peter Goldstein
No, I love this, right? I'm 60. Now I started my first company when I was 24. And I had my first exit at 30. And when I think what I learned early on how to win is make sure there is a market, right. So you need to find your market early in whatever it is you're doing product service technology, you know, you can build the greatest widget, so to speak in the world. But if there's no market for it, you're never going to be able to have a profitable business. So for me, I start with, find your market, find it early, and then set yourself up to understand that there is a demand, because with no demand, there is no real ability to grow and scale your business. And then for me, that's stage one, step one, right and from there on, then you can look to grow and bring a compelling or as we like to say, an irresistible offer to market where you can then test look at the market, look at demand, get the feedback, you know, measure how you're rolling out your business, and then ultimately adapt, you know, to me as an entrepreneur now 35 years in, it's constant adapt, you know, pivot if needed, and the ongoing of persevering, right no matter what you need to apply that kind of entrepreneurial mentality to the marketplace that you've established for your product and or your service.

Ryan Miller
Man, I love that. So as we're starting out how to get some few, some early points on the board, what Peter and I are talking about, and Peter, is he saying, hey, like, look, you're gonna have to do a lot of stuff, totally putting words in your mouth, forgive me for that. But you're gonna have to do a lot of stuff here. But one of the most important things after 35 years, folks, this guy's telling you the most important thing in the early days is nail your market. Sometimes we call it venture capital product market fit, he just walked you through. So you set up what I what I like to call, maybe you call it some different or the same I call them feedback loops. And so you have build, measure, learn right measures from a test. And so whatever you learn, that'll lead to you either pivot, as you mentioned, Peter, or you persevere, keep going, right?

Peter Goldstein
We're on to something or be like, Yeah, we built this new feature rollout. Everyone hates it. Alright, time to pivot. Let's not keep throwing money at this thing. But either way, getting your market, right, and then I know maybe won't go in this direction. But then if you can go and stand from investors, if you're an entrepreneur, heck, even if you're a fund manager, if you can actually show that what you're offering, a lot of people want. And here's the proof. It's not just my gut feeling. You know, that might work for some investors, but maybe not too many of them. But you can actually say, look, we've conducted so many micro tests, collected feedback and aligned it until we got our market right, man. Now we're in a position where we have a very compelling market with that offer. I absolutely love that.

Ryan Miller
Now, then we also mentioned there's a follow up question of this is not only how do you win and get some early points on the board, but how do you avoid getting knocked out and wiped out in the early days? What would you say to people who are just starting out, how do they not lose?

Peter Goldstein
You know, the old adage, Ryan, cash is king, right? So, you know, for me, I start with being able to optimize your cash flow. And as you're starting out, very difficult to do. So where I like to look is begin with those assumptions that you're making about your business, whatever they are, you know, it's your best guess or guesstimate on how you're going to measure and make those assumptions from a financial forecasting and a cash flow perspective, right. So if you've tested as we talked earlier, and then measured, you know, I love that old adage, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. So I start with cash flow. And then really, it's about building that commercial viability to scale. So those assumptions have to apply to your ability to scale your business, right. So I look at them, you know, cash, as we're talking about cash flow. And then the other side of that is the human resource.

Peter Goldstein
So in order to really build your business and optimize your cash flow, for the most part, you're going to need people to be able to roll out and build as you want to scale. So I like to kind of, you know, start there and function with the understanding that those assumptions are constantly going to be tweaked, and adjusted and adapted to your cash flow, and plan for the uncertainty. I mean, no matter what we've all learned, there are things that you can plan for and your business. And then there's the unplanned, right. So I'm a big advocate, and how not to lose about realizing that you have to embrace uncertainty.

Peter Goldstein
But one thing I know for sure, as a serial entrepreneur, is uncertainty is inevitable. It comes with being an entrepreneur. And I think it's a very great thing, like a lot of amazing innovations have come from uncertainty. So I look at it as a necessity to embrace that, where it's not a role, even an option to not embrace uncertainty. So as an example, you know, if we're going to market on a product, we've planned a product launch. And inside of that you have your assumptions, you've planned out your cash flow, you've planned out your growth plan, you've tested your market, and then things that come along, that are completely unplanned changes in the market, right changes in consumer preferences, you know, competitive entries into the market, you know, as we're all still kind of, you know, readjusting even to COVID. As an example, that is one of the most unplanned events we've all faced in our lifetime, right.

Peter Goldstein
And inside of that uncertainty, amazing innovations came, you know, here, we are talking to each other, you know, where we've all learned that we can do business remotely all over the world, through zoom, and through other video channels that we never really utilized, at least I didn't extensively post COVID, I was in more of a traditional business model. So I just look at that right as saying, embrace the uncertainty distinguished between those events that are planned and unplanned. And out of that embracing the uncertainty all kinds of benefits come, I think you're a better leader, if you understand that you need to apply to your business, the events that are going to come. And along with that comes personal growth. And what we would probably look at is grit, right like that strength as an entrepreneur to know that you can endure through uncertain events that are going to come your way, and it is almost guarantee that those are going to come. So if you plan for your cash flow, and you build in for the fact that events are going to come both planned and unplanned, you have a much better opportunity to not lose as you've optimized for those events in your cash flow going forward.

Ryan Miller
Yeah, I love that. So you know, as you were talking, we're seeing all these shifts that these these seismic shifts that happened during COVID. Right. And you mentioned zoom, my thought, was this a block, blockbuster moment? I don't know. But what happened to Skype, I mean, Skype was around way longer than zoom. And then maybe this isn't, I wasn't, obviously I was working with the company. But maybe the two different leaders, one was ready for the unexpected. One was not, let's just assume, I don't know, haven't read a case study. But I'm sure there will be to be like, how did zoom who was such a way younger company compared to Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, like talking about David and Goliath moment, so to speak, and literally zoom completely ate Skypes lunch, right, during an unplanned event, everything flipped, right? I remember before COVID, we would even I would work with large consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte and they would all use Skype. And now it's like, it's like when you see someone with a Hotmail address, you're like, really, still, you're still rocking that good for you? One of the few.

Ryan Miller
So this is one of those things of how not to lose what what Peter's talking about is saying like when those unplanned things happen, Big changes are coming. And depending on how you deal with those and keep me honest here, Peter, but depending on how you deal with those in your company, or your investment firm or whatever it is being ready and just acknowledging that there's known unknowns and unknown unknowns. And when you're ready for those as best as you can, and you've prepared for that, then that change can actually favor you and you can leapfrog someone as big as Microsoft one of the biggest companies in the world you can come out of nowhere and eat their lunch on one of their products. It's absolutely phenomenal.

Ryan Miller
And I literally just got off the phone for this interview, Peter was one of my friends, he has $500 million under management in real estate. He was telling me about all the woes in the market. And you know what he said, he's like, this is great. I have been preparing, and I have shifted my company to be ready for this moment. He's like, the only stressful part is, it's like when I was a kid before Christmas, right? Christmas Eve, you just, it can't sleep because you know, the good stuff has come in and you're ready for it. That's literally how he feels. So he knows his business could absolutely double, if not more, in one big swoop when the market and all of his competitors were not ready, and he is that's going to change and that can absolutely change your life. When you're building a company, would you, would you agree?

Peter Goldstein
100%. And I would actually apply that, you know, in my sector in the IPO, you know, advisory business and we invest, you know, both pre IPO, IPO and post IPO. And you know, where I see things we're planning for the market upswing, and I believe to sign in, if you're like you were referring to you know that that Christmas Eve where you know, you're going to eventually Christmas is going to come and you're going to open those presents. Well, I've been building for 2021, we saw one of the best IPO markets in 20 years. Here we are 2022-2023 beginning of 2024, one of the worst markets we've seen in decades. So I went the other way I've built up I built my infrastructure, we've added on, you know aspects of both, you know, our headcount, preparing for the upswing and preparing companies for that time when we know the market is going to pick up.

Peter Goldstein
I'm also raising capital now, inside of our investment fund our pre IPO fund, we perform beautifully as a contrarian we've been investing because valuations are lower, even in the worst market in you know, in almost three decades, we've shown 50% returns on our pre IPO investments.

Peter Goldstein
So I think the smart money and smart management are looking at when the market will uptick and when the market will open up. So I 100% agree, you know that we're at that tipping point. And it's really not a matter of if it's a matter of when, you know, I've seen enough cycles now to know. And I think it really is important for listeners to understand that there is going to be a shift, things have already shifted post COVID The money is on the sidelines, right? We can talk about, you know, all the money that's sitting on the sidelines, and that money is going to be deployed, there is no doubt it's coming. So are you preparing your business? Are you preparing for the shift in the market for us, clearly, as you know, will focus on the IPO sector. I don't know that it's going to happen in Q1 or Q2, but I'm very bullish on the fact that it will come during 2024 and will really hit its stride as we look towards 2025.

Ryan Miller
Man, that's That's brilliant. So we keep hearing about and I love this, I love talking about the markets. In fact, this is something I wanted to talk to you about. What are you seeing out there because you keep hearing about dry powder, dry powder, for those of you who don't know, dry powder just means a lot of cash waiting to get invested in something. So a lot of investors are waiting for the right time or the right deal or you know, they're a little more picky. And so we say there's all this dry powder on the sidelines, and it's gonna flood into the market once the conditions are right, any idea how much dry powder is waiting for VCPE right now?

Peter Goldstein
The estimates Ryan are close to three t is in trillion largest surplus that I know I've seen in my career and in my lifetime. And what's interesting is that that's across the board. And what I mean by that is that's the venture capital community. That's the private equity. And it's the interest institutions that are investing into into equities in the open market. So we're looking at all that knowing that that money will be deployed and can be deployed as things open up. And it's not just one sector, it really is truly across the board. And so what we're experiencing our money is coming in, it's trickling now. And when it's coming in, it's coming in smaller amounts and at lower valuations, which is why I'm so bullish on investing now, because the same company in 2021. Okay, maybe it had lofty valuations, maybe it was overvalued. But now we're seeing 30-40% decrease in the same company with a valuation that's much more palatable. And we're actually investing at a discount to where their expected market valuation is.

Peter Goldstein
So I think across the board companies now, hopefully you don't have to do a down round and you've been able to sustain. And I think that staying power is critical. It also ties into that cash flow planning, right, knowing that it's difficult and can be challenging at times to be able to access capital, either at or above, you know, your last round. So we're seeing that that's going to be picking up and so we're positioning ourselves and our clients and our investment portfolio, to look at opportunities now. And I think investors are looking more and more for just fundamentals, they're looking for cash flow, they're looking for traction within the market. They're looking to know that that company really has the ability to scale and to provide, you know, a return on the investment and a return on assets.

Ryan Miller
Man, I love that so base Typically what I'm hearing folks and Peter, you keep me honest, is valuations are lower. There's a ton of money that's out there. This by the way, if for those of you who are investors like Peter and I, it really is Christmas Eve, this is phenomenal. So it's just like getting ready for this huge gold rush. And so valuations are lower. In other words, everything's on sale. Great. I like to go shopping in a good sale, who doesn't? So all right, everything's on sale, great. Valuations are down. Wonderful. Now we're able to take a breath, and it was a pretty hot market. So we're about back to sanity, sane, sane valuations, not insane valuations. Like before, we had some sticker shock the last couple years, but now valuations are better, we got 3 trillion in cash, some of those are likely most of the people listening to this show, right? And so what we want is we want to get in front of that. So I know your 506 C, and you can talk about your fund. So you guys are investing  and it sounds like I'm not I'm not any paid promotion are anything but anyone who has an IPO fund like yourself, and we'll get into the details of your fund in a minute. But anyone with an IPO fund, and anyone going public, this is a great time to start getting yield is getting in, right? When everything's on sale, all the cash is there, you get in your position, and then let the market literally carry you to the Promised Land. Would you would you agree on that sentiment?

Peter Goldstein
I completely agree. And I think we also right, it's important to look at the flip side of that, which is how does that impact the founders? Right? How does that impact, you know, the management team with their current investors and the current shareholders as well as the VCs? You know, I think they because they need capital to grow their business, you know, both, there's both sides of that coin. So I think as yield starts to increase, and investors start to see the growth and return on their investment, that's also a very strong thing for the founders and for the VCs, right. So the founders will be able to have more capital come into the companies, they can begin to scale and grow and fulfill upon their visions, you know, it's why I love working with entrepreneurs, because they're forward looking in their visions. And, you know, in order to be able to fulfill upon that they need to have that kind of perfect storm of working capital, aligning with their market, aligning with, you know, the growth in the scaling of their business.

Peter Goldstein
So I think as we see performance increasing and more money coming in, specifically in my sector, where as IPOs are coming out, and they're starting to show good returns, that will increase capital coming, it'll also increase the number of issuers that are coming to market. So that's why I think where this is going is a very much of a really mutual benefit. So it's not just a one sided, where one party or the other has kind of this, you know, upper hand, I think we're striking a nice balance that will come up here, you know, ongoing through 2024, and 2025, where we've had an adjustment into that valuation. So all sides have the ability to really get a reasonable return on both their capital and the access to capital to give them the ability to grow their business.

Ryan Miller
Brilliant, I love that. So now let's let's round third base, let's let's give our listeners the doctrine of Peter Goldstein. So what we'll do, I'd love if you have just two or three different areas that you can help our listeners to gain competitive advantage, because I hear it all the time from fans is they're a little jealous that I get all this FaceTime with brilliant people like you. And they're like, Man, this is the closest I can get as listen to your show. And so listening to the show, if these people were here in the audience, what are maybe two or three things that you would say like it all, what I'm saying all boils down to these three things, what would you say?

Peter Goldstein
Well, my filter Ryan is because I work inside of the capital markets, I look at things through that through that set of filters. And through that mindset, I've had the benefit of taking my own companies public, I've been a licensed investment banker, I've been an entrepreneur, you know, now for 30 plus years. And I think because I'm organized around the capital markets, the first thing I would say that I've learned, whether you're looking to sell your business, to do a merger, whether to do acquisitions and roll up in order to look at some form of a trade sale, or, or financing, or even ultimately to do an IPO, it's preparing your company for that liquidity event would be the first place that I would start. So what do I mean by that?

Peter Goldstein
I would advise entrepreneurs to look at running their company as if it was already public, the discipline that comes with running your company through a set of standard operating procedures, under financial reporting structures of governance, and really of transparency, kind of forces you as an entrepreneur, especially for founders that are used to doing business their own way and in their own style, to start conforming to a better set of practices, maybe best practices, if you will, in having the entire organization operate in such a way that it's focused on shareholder returns on profitability, on efficiency, and on really maximizing the benefits to all stakeholders. So first and foremost, run your company as if it were public.

Peter Goldstein
You know, I recently wrote a book right I was at my debut book a bit for entrepreneurs, about the pathway to going public and people talk to me about well, what if I don't want to go public, what other advice do you have? And it's really, ultimately is the same. Because the discipline necessary to go through a pathway of going public is the same discipline that you really could apply to any stage of your business. You don't need to be doing an IPO to be able to set up those kinds of procedures and structures and oversight. And people don't think about this typically, until they get to the tail end, right? Well, they want to now get to the point where they want to do a trade sale, or they want to look at bringing in financing or they may dream of doing an IPO. So all of those roads lead towards increased valuation and increased return for all parties.

Ryan Miller
Man, I love that. So run your company as if it was public that that is phenomenal. And that he gave Peter gave us a few insights of what exactly he means. So performance metrics, reporting structures, SOPs, oversights transparency. I mean, what investor wouldn't love that, of course, they're gonna love that. And that, by the way, friends, so too often entrepreneurs get focused, right for right or wrong, they get focused on great product, okay? I mean, you're not wrong or service, if that's who you are in your startup, but also how the company is run can also add value. And adding value increases valuation. And valuation kind of is an important thing, when you when you listed as an IPO, that's your exit price.

Ryan Miller
And so what Peter's saying is, like, look, you can just run it better from the beginning right now. So often, I like to call it window dressing. So I was brought in when I was to be a CFO of one company, when and when I was brought in it was they were preparing for sale. And so we would do things like window dressing. So get the processes down standard operating procedures, reporting structure, we literally did all of that just to prepare for a better valuation, which does get a lot of money in the firm. And it dilutes the founder a lot less. So what Peter's telling you, you are going to win on so many levels if you just do this first thing, but we're not done. So what are maybe another one or two things that you would recommend to people that you could leave behind from all of your 35 years of experience?

Peter Goldstein
Yeah, I think to be able to have a competitive advantage. First, you have to understand where you fit in the competitive landscape. And by looking at valuations of comparable companies, you can then begin to apply, you know, a capital table and a cap stack and valuation that you can measure against your competitive landscape. So I think a lot of entrepreneurs, I know I've done this in the past, look at very lofty valuations. And like you said, we tend to fall in love with our babies and to our product and or service. And then we want to have, you know, the top of the scale of evaluation. So I think it's really important to develop both a capital stack and a cap table that are positioning you properly within the realm of competitive marketplace, so you can build a valuation that's comparable now to attract capital. And I typically look at that as a discount to wherever you think you may be headed, every investor wants to know that there is a return on their investment, and ultimately that there's liquidity plan, right. So the cap stack and the cap table, preparing for your next round, make sure you have a defensible valuation is really where I'm going. Right? You can look at comps, you can look at your product fit, you know, you can look at other funding milestones, there's plenty of data available to be able to measure yourself against. And then of course, anything that you can do to stack up whether you can enter into new agreements, you know, letters of intent, you know, new products, new technology, new offerings.

Peter Goldstein
And then I like to really look when we're talking with companies about what kind of capital have you raised in the past? How much have you raised? What valuation of course, but more importantly, what did you do with the money? How did you apply it to your business? What were the outcomes? What were the lessons learned? What were those measurables that we can look at? And then I like to look forward and say this ask the same set of questions, How much money do you need? Now? What's the use of proceeds? How is that going to move the needle on your business, and then we have a basis of comparison and contrast where so many entrepreneurs and I would say even investors want to look at current and future, I like to take a look at the past before I want to look into the future. And I think the competitive advantage to entrepreneurs who can organize their mindset, that way, when they're sitting in front of investors or preparing their company for the next step will get great value out of the ability to look at that valuation and those funding milestones Use of Proceeds past and present.

Ryan Miller
Man, I love that so what what you're talking about as I'm sitting here listening, what you're talking about, I was like, Man, if I was an entrepreneur, this is gold, because Peter's telling me from the perspective of an investor, because that's you got to close the deal to get the valuation you got to lock that in. And so you have to have an investor agree that you are worth whatever it is that you're worth. So he's saying like, look, run it this way. Make sure your cap stack is set up this way. He's literally giving you all of these little cheat codes for getting that that top valuation so I see you man, you're doing some good stuff here. So what About a third thing thirdly, behind that you could leave for our, our budding entrepreneurs and venture capital investors, what would you say is a third important point in your world?

Peter Goldstein
You know, Ryan is tied very closely to the second one, which is really about have leaving flexibility in your valuation, you know, what I've learned, you know, also the hard way, is, especially in the IPO world, you know, investors don't set the valuation, excuse me, the companies don't set the valuation, the bankers don't set the valuation, it's the investors that ultimately in the market drives that valuation. So what I like to do is make sure to give the listeners, especially the entrepreneurs out there, and understanding that, when raising capital, be very cautious about setting a valuation, you know, as an example, you know, when we're doing pre IPO work, we're very cautious with our companies, our investments to not set a valuation that's going to hurt them when they go to the next round. And we do that backlog by utilizing convertible notes at a discount. So we'll provide the company with capital, that's not enough promise area convertible promissory note, that would be at a discount to the next round. And that's the kind of thinking that I would want entrepreneurs to have and understand that gives them flexibility. Because as we talked about the market shift constantly. And And there really is this dance that ends up happening when you go to market. It's one of things I love about the dynamic nature of an IPO.

Peter Goldstein
You know, the joy I get of working with CEOs and working with companies and working with bankers investors is it's constantly changing. There is nothing static about taking a company to market to raise capital, especially when you're talking about the fluidity of the capital markets. So the takeaway, and I think the mindset of when you're seeking capital, to not lock yourself in to give yourself flexibility, we're all for bringing in equity and common stock valuations that are reasonable, don't get me wrong. It's just there was a time and a place, especially through my filters, that it's really important to make sure that you leave flexibility inside of the valuations at the right time when you're going to market.

Ryan Miller
That's brilliant. So you heard it from the master himself, the IPO king here. So you know, before we wrap things up, is there anything else that you'd like to leave behind, and you know, anything, any mentioned on the font, anything at all?

Peter Goldstein
I appreciate, you know, the opportunity. First off, if anybody's interested in the book, you know, I'm very proud of it. It's not just my writing of the book, what I did, Ryan is I interviewed. So there's 12 chapters, and each chapter, there are two professionals, members of the New York Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ, even London Stock Exchange, who have given their tips in addition to mine, and summaries around the pathway to an IPO.

Peter Goldstein
So for your listeners, just as a way of saying thank you and giving back, I'm happy to offer the book, you guys just pay for shipping, the book is free. You can you know, find me on LinkedIn, the books for sale on Amazon, but I'd actually prefer you know, to offer it to the listeners, just DM me on LinkedIn. We'll communicate with each other, we'll make arrangements to get you the book. It's recently come on sale. I wrote it during COVID It was my COVID project. And and I was living in Europe, I lived my part time in Europe and part time here and found myself like many of us, you know, isolated during COVID. And so you know, what can I do to create some form of value that I can give back and some legacy and so during the course of COVID, I wrote it. I self published it worked with I have a great foreword written by David Meltzer. For those of you who don't know, it was a phenomenal entrepreneur, and a great friend and a mentor to mine. And then I interviewed all these different professionals who wanted to participate and contribute to the community at large. And I'm focused on the small cap and micro cap, which is that entrepreneurial community, we work with companies all over the world, our clients are both domestic US as well as foreign. So it's just a gift for me, to the listeners and most happy and to connect with anybody.

Peter Goldstein
You know, in addition to that, if you're an entrepreneur or you just want to have some dialogue around going public or the IPO or markets and or an investor who wants to look at you know, the investment community, I love this stuff and passionate about it, you know, when most most interested in being able to share and enter into dialogue with your community.

Peter Goldstein
The last thing I would say, Ryan is that we are opening up opportunities for investors under Regulation D Fiber succeed crowdfunding accredited investors only. It's a unique opportunity for ultra high net worth and high net worth investors to be able to participate in what normally is an institutional investment project. So meaning that typically Wall Street institutional investors are go getting access to IPOs and pre IPO capital infusion, we've already created the fund, we've got very nice returns. And now I want to be able to open that up and kind of democratize that opportunity for what was once limited to institutions that can now be made to high net worth accredited investors.

Ryan Miller
Man that's brilliant. So thank you for that. I'll take that bet. That's that's a good book, man. So you know, just to summarize everything that Peter and I talked about, run your company now as if you were public, right? Go through some of those key Guys reporting metrics SOPs, anything sometimes known as window dressing, that's an important thing to increase your valuation.

Ryan Miller
The second thing is develop a cap stack and a cap table so that you're ready for the next round, making sure that you don't do anything silly with your financing or the kind of investors or the investor investment type of vehicles that you have. Make sure that you build that understand what you're getting into. It's not just raising money, but raising money in in a structured way so that you allow yourself to continue to raise money from favorable investors.

Ryan Miller
And finally, when raising capital, sometimes just see convertible notes, do those things. And then ultimately, look for guys like Peter who can help you. You do these things, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of Making Billions.

Ryan Miller
Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, once you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guest even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people, the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions.