You’re 12–18 months from an IPO.
Your banker says: “We can take you public. The market’s ready. The window is open.”
But here’s the hard truth: you are underinvested in belief.
Not just your belief — but what your exec team believes, your employees believe, your customers believe, your partners believe, your investors believe, and analysts believe.
Belief is the single most important product you need before you go public. And most CEOs are underinvested in it because:
They underestimate the time horizon. Many think the story can be “turned on” in the roadshow or the S-1. By then, it’s too late to change minds. Analysts, investors, and media need to be conditioned months — even years — in advance. Belief-building is a system, not a sprint.
They confuse proof with belief. By IPO stage you’ve spent a decade proving: product-market fit, growth, unit economics, ARR scale. CEOs assume strong numbers = strong story. But numbers earn attention. Belief earns valuation and staying power.
They carry the venture-stage playbook. Seed and VCs care about traction, product-market fit, and burn. CEOs walk into IPO prep thinking “bigger numbers + bigger TAM = IPO deck.” It doesn’t work.
They silo story into marketing. Belief-building gets pushed to comms/IR. The CEO and exec team focus on filings and numbers. The result? A bolted-on story, not a baked-in conviction.
They don’t have a framework for belief. Most CEOs know belief matters but don’t know how to operationalize it. They lack the language (POV, villain, Blueprint), the artifacts (category name, manifesto, proof pack), and the process (exec drills, analyst conditioning, Lightning Strikes). Without a framework, belief feels “soft” next to financial prep.
Here’s the truth: IPO buyers are not betting on your last quarter. They’re betting on your category leadership for the next decade.
The most powerful product you can ship is belief. And you need to start investing in it now:
- You, the CEO: embody conviction. If you don’t believe, no one else will.
- Exec team: align on one villain, one category, one Blueprint.
- Company: condition employees and partners to speak your POV.
- Market: bring customers, analysts, and investors along before the S-1 ever drops.
We’ve worked alongside many category-defing companies like Qualtrics on their path to IPO, and we’ve developed a Belief Readiness Playbook for founders and CEOs preparing for this moment.
If you’re 12–18 months out, now is the time to get ready.
*photo credit Qualtrics
