Build your company faster, better and bigger than you ever could the way it is today.

Every company grows by pulling the same four levers: capital, talent, opportunities and acquisitions. We help growth-minded founders and owners pull all four harder, and make them feed each other, using a playbook most never consider. You stay in control.

Led by Joel Arberman: more than 30 years across Wall Street, Bay Street and his own companies, and 17 companies taken public, several of them his own.

Start with one question

Name three things you would do in the next 36 months that you can't do today, and say why you can't.

If every answer is “more money,” you need a financing, not this playbook. If your answers are about who you could hire, who you could partner with, who you could buy and who would finally take you seriously, keep reading. Those are exactly the constraints this playbook removes.

The four levers that drive growth

Every growing company, in every industry, grows by pulling some combination of four levers:

• Capital. Money to invest ahead of revenue: new locations, products, people and markets.
• Talent. Leaders, operators, advisers and directors whose experience and relationships change what the company can do.
• Opportunities. Customers, partners, distributors and lenders willing to bet on you.
• Acquisitions. Businesses that add customers, capabilities and earnings faster than you could build them.

When the levers feed each other, growth compounds

Pulled one at a time, each lever helps. Pulled together, they feed each other:

1. Capital funds a hire, a partnership or an acquisition.
2. Scale and a track record follow, and you can show you did what you said you'd do.
3. Better people join, because there's more to be part of.
4. Better opportunities arrive through the relationships and credibility those people bring.
5. Better terms come on your next round of capital, and the loop starts again from a stronger position.

Each lap makes the next one easier. That's the difference between a company that grows and a company that compounds.

Why the flywheel stalls in a private company

A private company can only buy things with cash, and strangers can't check it. That caps every lever:

• Capital comes slowly and costs a lot. Growth waits for profits, for a bank loan with your personal guarantee on it, or for investors who price in the fact that they can't sell for years.
• Talent can't value what you offer. Private equity has no price and no market, so the people who could change your company mostly discount it to nothing.
• Opportunities stall. Larger customers, partners and lenders can't verify a private company, so conversations that should move forward quietly stop.
• Acquisitions go to someone else. The owner who's ready to sell won't take paper they can't value, and buyers with deeper pockets outbid you on cash.

None of that is a talent problem. It's a toolkit problem.

How a public company gets more out of every lever

Becoming a public company gives your equity a price and a market, and makes your company something a stranger can verify. Those two changes strengthen every lever, and every opportunity you're already chasing becomes easier to win.

Capital. Investors can see a price, read audited numbers and eventually sell, so capital gets easier and cheaper to raise over time. Lenders can finally underwrite you. You stop asking “can we afford this?” and start asking “is this the best use of our capital?”

Talent. Offer stock with a market value, not a promise. Leaders who'd never join a private company take the call. So do the people who never appear on an org chart: industry veterans for your advisory board, independent directors, consultants, referral sources and partners, all with a real reason to care about your success. In most industries your competitors are private, so you're the only one who can make that offer.

Opportunities. Audited financials and public reporting let a stranger verify you without asking your permission. Procurement departments, strategic partners and larger customers say yes to companies they can check.

Acquisitions. Owners ready to sell will often take shares they can price and sell over time, alongside cash. Private businesses usually sell for a modest multiple of earnings, while public companies are often valued higher, so a careful deal can add more value than it costs. And once you're public, the brokers and advisers who represent sellers start calling you.

Because each lever is stronger, the flywheel turns faster. Every hire, deal and partnership is on the public record, which makes the next one easier and the next round of capital cheaper.

Two honest caveats. The first lap is the slowest and most expensive, and most companies spend their first year as a public company behind where they'd have been privately. And the flywheel runs in both directions: careless acquisitions and broken promises compound too. What decides the direction isn't the market. It's disciplined decisions, made repeatedly, for years. That's where we come in.

Same company, two paths

Picture two identical copies of a business with $1.5 million in revenue and $225,000 in operating profit, growing 12% a year. One stays private. The other goes public within a year and uses the playbook. After five years:

• Stays private: $2.6 million in revenue, no acquisitions, the founder owns 78%, a stake worth about $1.25 million, and none of it can be sold without selling the company.
• Goes public and uses the playbook: $10 million in revenue, 3 acquisitions, the founder owns 45%, a stake worth about $10 million, and part of it can be sold.

A smaller share of a much larger company, worth roughly eight times as much.

Hypothetical illustration only, not a projection or promise. It assumes acquisitions at about 4 times operating profit and a public valuation of 15 times operating profit. A company that lists and then doesn't use the structure ends up worse off than the private one. Your result depends on your business and your decisions, and could be lower.

Every path to public, planned around you

There are three ways to become a public company. We've done all three: 11 direct listings, 4 reverse mergers and 2 IPOs.

• Direct listing. You register your shares and they begin trading, usually on the OTC market, with the option to move up to a larger exchange later. No investment bank is needed, and the outcome depends on meeting published requirements, not on someone choosing you. Typically 9 to 10 months once the capital is in place.
• Reverse merger. Your company merges into an existing public company. It's the fastest route, typically 4 to 6 months, but you inherit that company's history, so careful diligence is essential.
• IPO. An investment bank sells your shares to its clients, and you land on a senior exchange like Nasdaq or the NYSE. It raises money at listing, but a bank has to agree to take you on, and few will for smaller companies.

The right route depends on your stage, goals, timing, capital needs, the condition of your financial records, and what's available in the market. We plan the strategy and the path around you, not around a default.

Find your stage

The playbook is the same. Where you start changes what matters most.

Scaling Up. You've built an established, profitable business, and you're not done. Use public stock to recruit, acquire and raise capital on your terms, and become the consolidator in your industry instead of its target.

Building to Buy. Your growth plan runs through acquisitions. Use public stock as currency to buy the businesses you've been watching, on terms sellers can actually say yes to.

Building to Sell. You'd like to sell in the next several years, and you've got five more years of fight left in you. Build a much bigger company first, then sell it, or your shares, on your terms.

Starting Up. You're at the beginning: a new company, or one you haven't incorporated yet. Build with the capital access, talent and credibility of a public company from early on.

How it works

Your company is always in one of three modes. The work, and the monthly fee, follow the mode you're in.

1. Raising. Every engagement starts here, whatever your stage: every company going public needs more shareholders, and almost every one needs capital too. We organize the company and prepare it to raise: corporate structure, cap table, financial records, governance, the offering, investor materials, data room, compliance and an outreach plan. Then you run a private placement, raising from your own network and from investors you find beyond it. It might fund a specific use of proceeds, give you enough shareholders to meet listing requirements, or turn partners, advisers and customers into shareholders with a stake in your success. Often all three. You raise it; we prepare you and coach you through it.

2. Listing. With the capital in place, we manage the process of becoming a public company by whichever route fits: a direct listing, a reverse merger or an IPO. We bring in and coordinate the auditors, securities lawyers and other specialists, and keep the whole sequence moving.

3. Building. Strategic advice whenever we're not running a listing, before or after it: recruiting with stock, acquisitions, partnerships, capital strategy, and moving up to a larger exchange when it makes sense. This is where most of the value gets created.

What it costs to start. $10,000 a month while you're raising. That mode typically runs about two months, so about $20,000. After that, the monthly fee follows the mode you're in and your company's size and scope. We also hold equity, so we only do well if you do. Third-party costs such as audit and legal fees are paid directly to those providers, and we'll estimate them once we've seen your financials.

If your raise falls short, you can stop there, owe nothing further, and any equity we hold is cancelled.

What you should know before you contact us

• We're paid monthly plus equity. We only do well if your company does well over years.
• You raise the first capital yourself, from your own network or beyond it. We prepare you. We have no investor list, we're not a broker-dealer, and we never contact investors on your behalf.
• We'll tell you the truth on the first call. If going public isn't right for you, or for us, we'll say so then, not after a proposal.

Who you'd be working with

I'm Joel Arberman. I've spent more than 30 years in capital markets, across Wall Street, Bay Street and my own companies.

I started as an equity analyst at asset management firms in New York, covering small and mid-cap companies. At 22 I became a partner at a 700-person investment bank, working out of its Toronto office as one of the first analysts anywhere to cover the internet as a sector. Most of my time went to the banking side: valuing companies, finding deals, and helping early-stage companies raise capital and go public. That's where I learned to tell which companies would work and which wouldn't.

Then I did it myself. In 1999 I took my own company public, writing the registration statement myself because nobody would help a company that small. Once our shares traded, things changed fast. A development firm took half its fee in stock. A PR agency took its entire fee in stock. A well-known venture capitalist joined our board for options. And we bought another company entirely with stock. I'd gone public to raise money. What I got was a currency.

Since then I've taken 17 companies public through direct listings, reverse mergers and IPOs, several of them my own. I've sat in the founder's chair and stood beside it, and I've had hundreds of conversations with founders about whether they should do this. Often the honest answer is no. When it's yes, I stay with you through the building years, because that's where the value is created.

Ready to build something bigger? Let's see if this is your path.

Tell us where you are, and we'll set up a first conversation to pressure-test the idea for your company. No cost, no obligation. Not ready to talk yet? Ask for the free guide for your stage when you contact us.