How one revenue organization is prepping for an IPO

Hot IPO summer is now in full effect, and for companies not named SpaceX, the nuts and bolts financials contained within a filing prospectus can be the difference between making a splash or flopping hard.

It’s times like these where all eyes turn to the revenue organization and its leaders to run a tight ship charted for profitability and growth. ClickUp, an AI-focused productivity tool, is hoping to sail the IPO seas and spoke to Revenue Brew about how it is preparing to do so.

From finding a reliable growth equation to building better habits, here’s how one revenue organization is prepping for life in the public markets.

Getting in IPO shape: For COO Gaurav Agarwal, dreams of an IPO started with taking stock of every part of his revenue organization. He said a great place to start is understanding what is and isn’t working, and aligning the right operating structures and, importantly, the right culture where the company can begin to have public ambitions.

According to Agarwal, it is important to have a strong operations and data foundation to determine who is actually driving value. He also said that a rev org prepping to become public must transition from looking for new business to consistently predicting when new business might come in.

“You need to see the stagnation coming. At $1 billion, it’s very hard to find an incremental distribution avenue that’s going to add an extra $100 million per year. If you add an extra $2 million a year, it’s worth less than a point,” Agarwal said. “At scale, you need meaningful volume as well, so you need to start making investments earlier in the process.”

Lastly, he said it’s not just about finding new business; instead, to IPO an effective rev org must start to own customer acquisition costs as a key performance metric.

The CFO on the IPO: When an IPO nears, a CFO might start looking more closely at revenue—or at least that’s what ClickUp is doing.

CFO Dan Zhang said that her team is designed to find a balance for potential investors: Revenue and finance teams are centralized to make disciplined growth a standard, but not at the sacrifice of speed.

“You must introduce some processes that the public market is expecting you to have, but also I think the focus should be to not slow down the revenue engine,” Zhang told Revenue Brew. “That’s why we built the centralized team to make sure that we can get to the next phase with fast decision-making.”

This structure can support a broader trend on alignment across organizations that promotes technology adoption, healthier growth, and product improvements.