A founder describes their company's IPO day: the New York Stock Exchange draped in orange, ringing the opening bell, tears and celebration at Boston's Museum of Science. Jason M. Lemkin shares how the magic evaporated the next day when the stock price moved and everyone went back to work, distracted and deflated.
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but they wrapped the New York Stock Exchange in like orange and our colors and our logo. And I just remember I stopped and I turned around because I didn't want Dharmesh to see me crying. And it just grabbed me. And then we got whisked into the giant like conference room down in the basement of the New York Stock Exchange. And the head of the stock exchange is there. It's just very formal and nice. And people are saying nice words again, like fighting back the tears. Were on the platform or ringing the bell. And just to see the joy in the faces of our teammates as we went through all that. And then the next day we had a terrific party at the Museum of Science in Boston and just the joy and so many tears from so many people who worked so hard. Yeah, it's hard to find that someplace else.
I've only been through it once. It is a magical day, right? The weird thing, and I'm dating myself, the weird thing when I went through it once and it wasn't as a founder, it was an executive. The weird thing was the next day everyone was back to work and it was a weird day. The, the party was so fun. I remember standing up on the desks in the office and cheering and explaining to people how it would work. And it is so special, right? But next day was weird. Everyone's looking at each other at their desks. That's it. Like, whoa. The stock price went down like a dollar, like from $80 to $79, and people were just, were despondent. You know, they were so distracted for a week because I think the stock went from like $20 to $80 and then down to $60. And then people in a day felt like they were
