Market structure · 6 min read
The visibility-to-listing gap
Companies used to become visible when they listed. That sequence has reversed. A private company can now be discussed by millions of retail investors, covered by global media and traded in secondary markets years before it files a registration statement.
The numbers make the shift plain. Time to a $1B valuation has compressed from decades to months. Yet the median technology IPO in 2025 was twelve years old — above the eight-year average since 1980. Companies are seen early and priced late.
That gap is not neutral. It is filled by whatever narrative arrives first: a competitor’s framing, a short report, a customer’s review, or silence. Silence is the most expensive option, because it leaves the story to people who have no reason to get it right.
The work, then, is not “PR before the IPO.” It is building a legible, defensible story years before the listing — and making sure every public artifact, from the website to the CEO’s conference answer, points the same direction. When the listing finally comes, the market should be recognizing a company it already understands, not meeting one for the first time.
Process · 5 min read
How to interview an investment bank
Most bank selection processes compare the wrong things. Fee headline and league table position are easy to compare and rarely predictive. What matters is whether the team that pitches you will still be on the deal in six months, whether they understand your category deeply enough to sell it, and whether their process fits your timeline.
A better interview has four parts. First, ask each bank to explain your business back to you — in your language, not theirs. Second, ask who exactly will run the process day to day, and what else they are working on. Third, ask for the two deals they would rather not discuss, and what went wrong. Fourth, ask what they would do differently if the market closes for six months.
Then compare the answers against a written framework: sector experience, team continuity, process design, disclosure approach, fee structure and post-close support. The point is not to find the perfect bank. It is to make a decision the board can defend, with the trade-offs written down.
Liquidity · 5 min read
The 30% retail flow and micro-cap liquidity
Retail investors now account for roughly 30% of US equity trading volume, with about $12 trillion of self-directed capital and equity assets equal to roughly 10% of US market cap. For a micro-cap, that is not a footnote. It is the marginal buyer.
Most small-cap IR programs were built for an institutional roadshow that may never happen: a handful of funds, a few meetings, a long silence. Meanwhile the stock trades every day, largely on information that no one at the company has shaped.
Designing for the retail buyer does not mean promotion. It means making the company legible where retail actually looks: a website that explains the business in plain language, a disclosure cadence that is predictable, a social presence that answers questions instead of chasing trends, and materials that a non-specialist can follow without losing the technical truth.
Natural attention is slower to build and far more durable than manufactured attention. For companies that will spend years in the market, the difference compounds.