Do I regret taking the company public? Yes and no. Yes, because it put us under enormous pressure for a young company to go public at that point in its history, something you never could have done in the old days.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In my experience, there are only two valid reasons to take a company public: access to growth capital and investor fatigue.
I don't want to take a company public and not have it do extremely well and fail the public shareholder.
I hated being a public company CEO.
I enjoy not being a public company.
The best thing is to go public only when you're absolutely sure that's the right move for the company. And in order to make sure that is the case, you need to have as much control over the company as possible, which means not giving up control early on.
I always wanted to start a public company and make a lot of money.
I don't think I'd enjoy running a public company. We haven't needed to go to the market to fund expansion.
I have never run a public company. I spent my entire life working for a private company.
There's not a whole lot of advantage for a company to be public.
Going public for the sake of going public is not really an optimal thing. You're going public because as a company you believe it is the right thing to do and it will benefit the ability of the company to achieve its long-term objectives.