IPO Advisory · 90-Day Engagement
Ninety days from where you are to filing-ready.
You have decided to list. What stands between you and a filing is rarely the decision — it is how your group is owned and what your financial records will survive. I spend ninety days fixing both.
Fixed fee US$15,000 · typically 90 days · contracted with the company
30 minutes, no charge
The Problem
Most founders who dismiss going public are making that decision on assumptions that aren't accurate
They assume their company is too small. They assume it costs more than it does. They assume the whole company has to be listed. Most of the time, they're wrong on all three counts.
And you don't have to list your entire company. A carve-out takes one business unit and structures it as a standalone listing vehicle. A roll-up consolidates multiple smaller businesses into one. Both strategies change who qualifies — and how.
The question isn't whether listing is good or bad. It's whether it's right for where your business is now and where you want it to go. That's what the first call is for.
US$750K
Approximate net income for Nasdaq's Capital Market tier — one profitable unit, not a billion-dollar group
3 ways in
Full listing, carve-out, or roll-up — the structure changes who qualifies
90 days
From first call to filing-ready, typically — at a fixed fee
What Goes Wrong
Three things that actually stop a first listing
The blocker is almost never the decision. It is the structure.
By the time we speak, you have usually settled on Nasdaq. What delays the listing sits underneath that decision: how the group is owned. Most first-time issuers need a holding company built above their operating entities before they can list at all — with tax, regulatory and shareholder consequences worked through in the right order, before anyone drafts a document.
Profitable is not the same as auditable.
Dealings with connected companies never at arm's length. Money moving between entities on handshake terms. Revenue recognised the way your market does it, not the way a US audit requires. Books that don't reach back far enough to cover the audit period. None of it looks like a problem until an auditor asks — and then it is on your timeline, not theirs.
Left late, this costs multiples.
Restructuring a group and repairing historical financials takes months, and it does not compress. Done early, it is planning. Done under a filing deadline, it is emergency work at emergency prices — with a delay attached.
The Process
How the ninety days run
Week one — I take everything in.
Financials, cap table, group structure, and the arrangements nobody wrote down. My job in week one is to understand your company more precisely than you have ever had to explain it.
Week two — you get the plan.
A written proposal: what has to change in your structure and your financials, in what order, who does each piece, and how long each takes. You will know the shape of the entire ninety days before we are two weeks in.
Weeks three to thirteen — we do it.
The restructuring itself, worked week by week. A standing call every week, email in between, and me directing the lawyers and accountants you appoint so the sequence holds. At the end, your company is in a shape that can carry a filing.
Advisory Services
End-to-end IPO advisory
From restructuring to listing day. One advisor, covering the ground a deal team would.
Listing strategy
Full listing, carve-out, or roll-up — identifying the right path based on your business structure, financials, and goals.
Corporate restructuring
Building the shareholding structure, deciding what stays in the parent vs. the listing vehicle, and ensuring regulatory compliance across jurisdictions.
Financial engineering
Ensuring the carved-out or consolidated entity meets target exchange financial thresholds — audit-ready, compliant, and positioned for approval.
Investable narrative
Making the business story compelling to public market investors. The factor that goes beyond meeting minimum requirements.
Investor sourcing
For founders who need it: sourcing pre-IPO and listing investors through relationships built over a decade of cross-border deal work.
Professional party coordination
Sourcing and managing the full team: lawyers, auditors, sponsors, underwriters. One point of coordination through to listing.
The Fit
Is this you?
This works if
- You have decided to list, most likely on Nasdaq
- The business is genuinely profitable — roughly US$750K+ net
- You can give me straight answers about how the group is owned
- Someone senior can act on the plan between calls
This does not work if
- You need capital in the next ninety days
- Nobody on your side can make structural decisions
- You want to be told listing is a good idea when it is not
- You are looking for a guarantee that you will list
The Advisor
About Mandy
Ten-plus years across Nasdaq, HKEX and global markets. Sixty-plus transactions in IPOs, M&A and cross-border deals. SFC Type 6 licensed — advising on corporate finance.
Most listings I work on are US ones, for founder-led companies going public for the first time. I have sat on the sell side — I can tell you what your auditor will and will not sign before you find out the expensive way.
The 90-Day Readiness Engagement
Fixed fee US$15,000 · typically 90 days · contracted with the company
What happens next
Book a confidential call. Thirty minutes, no charge, no deck. You describe the business; I tell you what I would want to look at first.
I tell you whether I can help — or that I cannot. That happens, and it is fine.
If we proceed: NDA, intake pack, and week one starts.
Accepting 4 new founders this quarter
Questions
Common questions
What does it cost?
The 90-Day Readiness Engagement is a fixed fee of US$15,000, agreed in writing before anything starts, staged so that payments fall due as work is delivered rather than in advance. If your structure turns out to need something different, I will tell you on the call — quoting blind would be guessing, and you would be right not to trust the number.
Isn't a US listing an enormous compliance burden?
Lighter than most boards assume. A foreign private issuer files an annual report and material-event updates — not the quarterly cycle US domestic companies run — and can keep many home-country governance practices. It is a real obligation, but it is rarely the reason not to list.
Are you an underwriter or a broker?
No. I do not underwrite, place shares or sell securities. I advise the company, which means I have no economic interest in whether you list — only in whether you are ready. When you need underwriters, I help you choose them and manage them.
Who am I actually working with?
Me. Every call, every email. No associate, no handoff. It is also why I take a small number of these at once.
Does the fee include lawyers and auditors?
No. It covers my work only. You appoint and pay those firms directly, and their fees together are substantially larger than mine — which is exactly why the sequence matters, and why I do not receive referral fees from, or mark up the fees of, anyone I introduce you to.
What if the answer is that we should not list?
Then you have saved a great deal of money and a year of your life. It happens, I will say so plainly, and I would rather say it in week two than have you find out in month nine with a professional fee bill already run up.
Do you sign an NDA?
Yes, mutual, before you send me anything. Nothing about your business, your numbers or your intentions appears anywhere.