Last week, our client ServiceTitan successfully debuted on the NASDAQ exchange, marking one of the largest IPOs of the year, ending its first day of trading with an $8.9B valuation. We’re all hoping this means the market will open back up, but will it?
Maybe.
If you’re a comms leader at a growth-stage tech company (or an agency leader that works with them), a potential IPO — and its accompanying comms implications — are likely on your mind. So, where should you start?
At Inkhouse, in addition to ServiceTitan, we’ve led several tech companies — Amplitude, CarbonBlack (later acquired by VMWare), Okta and Remitly, as well as the fast-growing, fast-casual restaurant chain CAVA — through the IPO process. Each company had a different journey because no two IPOs, companies, or legal, finance, and executive teams are the same.
So, like the warnings in your company’s S-1, here is a caveat: no matter how standard the process is, everything should be reasoned through and discussed thoroughly. There are specific legal consequences based on your decisions; mistakes could compromise or delay a public offering.
This is a massive shift for most comms pros in the start-up world. There’s no moving fast and breaking things here. Messaging, timing, media outreach, and other activities must be orchestrated with a high touch. Each process must be over-communicated across marketing, finance, and legal stakeholders to ensure buy-in and consistency.
With all that said, here are six broadly-applicable suggestions:
Be ready.
If your CEO mentions an IPO is on the horizon, keep a close eye on the timeline: it will likely shift. The first step is consulting your IR or legal teams for a full briefing. You’ll need to understand the key milestones like initial private filings, S-1 filings, and roadshow dates. Even tentative timelines are valuable, as the filing of the S-1 initiates a strict quiet period, during which public communication is heavily restricted. Clarity on these dates allows you to schedule and execute important initiatives beforehand, ensuring no campaigns are delayed or derailed by regulatory constraints.
Be prepared to hear “no” (and pick your times to push back).
Unless you work at a particularly litigious company, you’ll interact more with your legal team than ever before. You need their sign-off on everything since they know best what can get the company into hot water with the SEC. Yet their goals are not aligned with yours: you want to maximize your company’s IPO story, and they want to mitigate risk. Pick your battles and push back on things that seem overly restrictive; over time, you’ll develop a rhythm (you may even become friends!) and have a sense of what’s flexible and what’s non-negotiable before asking.
Build a great story now.
An IPO is likely to boost your company into a different stratosphere of reporters — moving from the trades focused on products and services to finance and business reporters wanting to know why your company matters to the entire tech ecosystem. Get aligned on messaging that talks less about what you do and how you do it and more about why it matters. Go through your numbers in great detail to paint a better story that shows the company’s competitive moats, the value of its executive team, and where you are headed in the next ten years. And make sure the story you tell on IPO day is one you’ll stick to for three, six and 12 months out.
Educate reporters and media-train executives now.
Reporters will cover your company’s IPO whether you pitch them or not. If all they have to go on is your S-1 and old press releases, your IPO coverage will be transactional with dated messaging — a huge missed opportunity. Net/net, the first time your executives talk to key reporters should not be on the day of your IPO. Be fully aware of impending dates and deadlines. If an IPO is coming and the quiet period hasn’t started, get your CEO and other spokespeople in front of as many reporters as possible today! Use any rumors of a future IPO to secure reporter interest. Some of these pre- and IPO-day briefings will turn into long-term relationships and a chance to tell bigger, better stories. It’s also a critical time to media train your executives on your updated story and ensure they know what they can and cannot say.
Conduct off-the-record media briefings during your quiet period.
It’s too late once the quiet period starts — your story is out of your hands. Reporters have access to your numbers, free of spin or context. However, if your legal team is amenable to it, arrange for your executives to do a handful of “off-the-record” briefings with the three or four most critical reporters during the quiet period — or even use an investor as a proxy. Ideally, these are done with reporters you’ve already briefed, but this can be done judiciously with new reporters. Be sure to get reporters to agree to rules of engagement in writing. These briefings are essential to provide color and context without direct quotes. Your legal and IR teams may push back on this one — so make a strong argument and be prepared to get shot down.
Ensure everyone is adequately paranoid about social.
Did you know that an employee, contractor, or vendor posting an article about your company’s rumored IPO — even liking it on Facebook or LinkedIn — can invite SEC scrutiny? Ensure your employees, contractors, and vendors know what they can say about your IPO on social media — which is nothing at all.
Remember, an IPO is a moment in time — it is not the finish line.
The IPO will be complete, and the excitement will wear off (it will, and it will be a little sad, but you will get to enjoy your family and hobbies again). But it’s not the end — it’s the biggest, most complicated, special, and awesome moment-in-time milestone … that is also just another announcement. Building for the long haul and treating this as the end of a chapter, not the end of a race, will put your comms program in a great position to benefit from all the goodness and excitement from your entrance onto public markets.
