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Congratulations, In addition to claudiulodro's question about whether the employees, especially the early ones, made a good chunk. - Could you explain the rea

Congratulations, In addition to claudiulodro's question about whether the employees, especially the early ones, made a good chunk. - Could you explain the reasons you took it public? What were the parameters and different tradeoffs? Did you want to take it public? Was there a consensus? What were the conversations about that? - How long have you been preparing for and do you have a playbook for this? - Who did you hire to take it public, and how have you selected them? - What was your relation with the underwriters? How did you choose? What did you optimize for? - How has your cap table evolved from formation to now? How did you ensure fairness? - Hindsight is 20/20, but what would you differently?

sskates 5y ago
Thank you! There are 3 main reasons we decided to go public: 1) The market opportunity is massive and we believe we are entering the "inside the tornado" phase where there are increasing returns to leadership. We're seeing more mainstream adoption of Amplitude as well as more companies giving a similar sounding pitch to us and we want every advantage we can have. Being public helps contribute towards that. As an example, we've gotten more press in the last 24 hours then we have in all of Amplitude's existence. 2) Having a liquid currency for our stock allows us to be much more aggressive about acquisitions and other similar moves. 3) You really should take your company public once you reach 100M in ARR. The expectation for performance across the board goes up and good companies rise to meet the moment. You're expected to do a better job of forecasting and planning your business, telling your story, sharing your long term vision, ensuring proper financial and legal oversight, and a lot else. Companies staying private so much longer has been bad for the them and for the ecosystem IMO. We hired Morgan Stanley as our lead investment banker. As we were meeting with different banks, they were the only ones who really understood my frustration with the traditional IPO process. They also have the most expertise by far with direct listings. I was expecting a lot of resistance to my views from everyone involved in the process but talking to them was like finding a partner who I wouldn't have to constantly fight to run the public listing process "my way". Colin Stewart at MS is also probably the single most knowledgable individual on IPO/DL capital markets in the entire world. I'll reply to some of the other questions in another comment.
- Jugurtha 5y ago
  Thank you for your answers... >As an example, we've gotten more press in the last 24 hours then we have in all of Amplitude's existence. The spike is certainly welcome. Would you attribute this to the product being invisible to consumers (not something to talk about), or that the company has focused more on the product and revenue until going public, and now it will "do press" (if this is too "forward-looking", a general view on a hypothetical company). How do you measure the impact of public relations in general on the company's objectives? Has the link between a flamboyant/controversial CEO and press been discussed? >We hired Morgan Stanley as our lead investment banker. As we were meeting with different banks, they were the only ones who really understood my frustration with the traditional IPO process. They also have the most expertise by far with direct listings. I was expecting a lot of resistance to my views from everyone involved in the process but talking to them was like finding a partner who I wouldn't have to constantly fight to run the public listing process "my way". Colin Stewart at MS is also probably the single most knowledgable individual on IPO/DL capital markets in the entire world. Was going with Morgan Stanley influenced by the fact Asana did the same. From what I've read, you were both with Benchmark and you're the second to do a direct listing there. Is it a "why change something that works"? If so, was there a "here's what worked, here's what didn't with Asana or Here's how to do it better next time"? Thanks again,
  - sskates 5y ago
    It's very difficult to impossible to measure the impact of PR on the company. I can say that broadly we've not been well known since we started Amplitude and it's driven me crazy as CEO. There are a lot of conversations about product data we just never end up in as a result. We didn't have someone managing it internally until recently. We just hired some phenomenal communications people and they've done an outstanding job with PR for our public listing (incredible work Darah, Jenna, and JJ!). I'll update you on the results but hopefully we're in many more conversations! Having a strong point of view helps a lot. You have to find your voice on it. My views on direct listing which is a new hot topic certainly helped a bunch. We heard the pitch from a number of bankers and it was clear Morgan Stanley's expertise on the process was the best. The fact that they did Asana as well as most other direct listings helped too. I came to wanting to do a direct listing for Amplitude through my own study of the options. The path of least resistance would have been a traditional IPO. Your goal during the process is to minimize volatility of your stock. Jumps in the price from imbalances in supply and demand make people unhappy because it means someone is getting a raw deal and there is imperfect information (which is the biggest part of why I don't like traditional IPOs). There was definitely a bunch to learn from previous direct listings where there was higher volatility.
sskates 5y ago
Alright, I'm back 24 hours later to finish out my responses! RE going public- yes, there was a lot of alignment between everyone internally about the advantages of being a public company. The main downsides are 1) cost 2) distraction to the rest of the company. Huge credit to our CFO Hoang and the internal team for getting it done in record time which minimized the distraction. The main debate was whether to do a direct listing vs traditional IPO which I've covered elsewhere. We sold about 25% in the seed, another 25% in the Series A (cumulatively 45%), 18% in the Series B, and then 10% in the Series C, D, and E, and 5% in the Series F. We also did a lot of employee grants along the way and were more generous than the median company. It adds up! It's not so much about fairness, it's about what sets up Amplitude to win. You can see the full cap table in our S-1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001866692/000119312521284799/d143868d424b4.htm#toc143868_16 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001866692/000119312... I wouldn't have done much differently- you can see my reply in some of the other threads for mistakes in not talking to customers enough or with people.
- Jugurtha 5y ago
  Thanks again.

sskates 5y ago

Thank you! There are 3 main reasons we decided to go public: 1) The market opportunity is massive and we believe we are entering the "inside the tornado" phase where there are increasing returns to leadership. We're seeing more mainstream adoption of Amplitude as well as more companies giving a similar sounding pitch to us and we want every advantage we can have. Being public helps contribute towards that. As an example, we've gotten more press in the last 24 hours then we have in all of Amplitude's existence. 2) Having a liquid currency for our stock allows us to be much more aggressive about acquisitions and other similar moves. 3) You really should take your company public once you reach 100M in ARR. The expectation for performance across the board goes up and good companies rise to meet the moment. You're expected to do a better job of forecasting and planning your business, telling your story, sharing your long term vision, ensuring proper financial and legal oversight, and a lot else. Companies staying private so much longer has been bad for the them and for the ecosystem IMO. We hired Morgan Stanley as our lead investment banker. As we were meeting with different banks, they were the only ones who really understood my frustration with the traditional IPO process. They also have the most expertise by far with direct listings. I was expecting a lot of resistance to my views from everyone involved in the process but talking to them was like finding a partner who I wouldn't have to constantly fight to run the public listing process "my way". Colin Stewart at MS is also probably the single most knowledgable individual on IPO/DL capital markets in the entire world. I'll reply to some of the other questions in another comment.

Jugurtha 5y ago
Thank you for your answers... >As an example, we've gotten more press in the last 24 hours then we have in all of Amplitude's existence. The spike is certainly welcome. Would you attribute this to the product being invisible to consumers (not something to talk about), or that the company has focused more on the product and revenue until going public, and now it will "do press" (if this is too "forward-looking", a general view on a hypothetical company). How do you measure the impact of public relations in general on the company's objectives? Has the link between a flamboyant/controversial CEO and press been discussed? >We hired Morgan Stanley as our lead investment banker. As we were meeting with different banks, they were the only ones who really understood my frustration with the traditional IPO process. They also have the most expertise by far with direct listings. I was expecting a lot of resistance to my views from everyone involved in the process but talking to them was like finding a partner who I wouldn't have to constantly fight to run the public listing process "my way". Colin Stewart at MS is also probably the single most knowledgable individual on IPO/DL capital markets in the entire world. Was going with Morgan Stanley influenced by the fact Asana did the same. From what I've read, you were both with Benchmark and you're the second to do a direct listing there. Is it a "why change something that works"? If so, was there a "here's what worked, here's what didn't with Asana or Here's how to do it better next time"? Thanks again,
- sskates 5y ago
  It's very difficult to impossible to measure the impact of PR on the company. I can say that broadly we've not been well known since we started Amplitude and it's driven me crazy as CEO. There are a lot of conversations about product data we just never end up in as a result. We didn't have someone managing it internally until recently. We just hired some phenomenal communications people and they've done an outstanding job with PR for our public listing (incredible work Darah, Jenna, and JJ!). I'll update you on the results but hopefully we're in many more conversations! Having a strong point of view helps a lot. You have to find your voice on it. My views on direct listing which is a new hot topic certainly helped a bunch. We heard the pitch from a number of bankers and it was clear Morgan Stanley's expertise on the process was the best. The fact that they did Asana as well as most other direct listings helped too. I came to wanting to do a direct listing for Amplitude through my own study of the options. The path of least resistance would have been a traditional IPO. Your goal during the process is to minimize volatility of your stock. Jumps in the price from imbalances in supply and demand make people unhappy because it means someone is getting a raw deal and there is imperfect information (which is the biggest part of why I don't like traditional IPOs). There was definitely a bunch to learn from previous direct listings where there was higher volatility.

sskates 5y ago

Alright, I'm back 24 hours later to finish out my responses! RE going public- yes, there was a lot of alignment between everyone internally about the advantages of being a public company. The main downsides are 1) cost 2) distraction to the rest of the company. Huge credit to our CFO Hoang and the internal team for getting it done in record time which minimized the distraction. The main debate was whether to do a direct listing vs traditional IPO which I've covered elsewhere. We sold about 25% in the seed, another 25% in the Series A (cumulatively 45%), 18% in the Series B, and then 10% in the Series C, D, and E, and 5% in the Series F. We also did a lot of employee grants along the way and were more generous than the median company. It adds up! It's not so much about fairness, it's about what sets up Amplitude to win. You can see the full cap table in our S-1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001866692/000119312521284799/d143868d424b4.htm#toc143868_16 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001866692/000119312... I wouldn't have done much differently- you can see my reply in some of the other threads for mistakes in not talking to customers enough or with people.

Jugurtha 5y ago
Thanks again.