Behind the curtain: Airtasker founder Tim Fung on what it’s really like to take your company public

Last month, entrepreneur Tim Fung rang the bell at the Australian Stock Exchange and stepped into a new era as head of a multi-million dollar public company that he built from scratch.

Fung launched Airtasker back in 2012, building out the business from his living room floor alongside co-founder Jonathan Lui, and getting a head start on the gig-economy frenzy that was about to engulf Australia.

Nine years later, he was watching Airtasker’s share price climb on IPO day.

The share price spiked about 76% on debut, and at the time of writing Fung is chief executive of a business worth just over $554 million.

The entrepreneurship journey is seldom a straight line, and Fung certainly feels his role has been shifting and evolving constantly, ever since day one.

Each year he discovers something completely new about leadership, he says. As the company has been growing, so has he.

But, as a rule, you only IPO once. And when you do, there’s a whole new, equally steep learning curve to navigate.

Part of being a good founder is having “a bit of a short-term memory and a bit of naivety”, Fung tells me.

Every time he’s embarked on any massive project, he’s later forgotten just how much effort went into pulling it off. That is, until he’s half way through the next one.

Still, there are a few nuggets of wisdom he’s picked up along the way:

Fung’s five key lessons from the IPO

1. The compliance and risk management for a listed company is a whole different ball game, and new hires to get on top of it could be crucial.

2. You’ll have to learn a whole new way of pitching to whole new groups of prospective investors.

3. Everything hinges on the strength of the prospectus — it’s a vehicle to tell your story, and it’s up to the founder to get it right.

4. There’s nothing more important than understanding the stage your business is at, and prioritising accordingly.

5. Advice will come from every direction. You’ll learn more from your own experiences than from anyone else’s.

Step up governance

One of the big learnings for Fung was around stepping up governance. This was also something it was incredibly important for him to get right.

That meant bringing a new non-executive director on board, Ellie Comerford, who brought 30 years of experience in financial services and who also already chairs various risk and audit committees.

Hiring a new non-executive director, and familiarising himself with all the compliance and risk management controls required in a listed environment was “an entirely new process”, Fung says.

Perfect your pitch

Even some of the familiar parts of entrepreneurship were given a shake-up.

Having raised some $65 million in venture capital to build Airtasker, Fung is no stranger to a pitch. But he’s had to learn how to connect with an entirely different, and even more demanding, breed of investor.

In the run-up to the IPO, the founder went on a roadshow to meet prospective investors, working to educate the market about the business, what it does and — crucially — its future prospects.

“The amount of scrutiny and rigour that goes around that is massive,” he explains.

There was a fair bit of interest from sophisticated institutional investors, Fung notes, who go to extreme lengths to research the fundamentals of how the business works and the whole thesis behind the business. That meant the financials had to be stepped up a notch or two.

At the same time, Fung had to appeal to individual and retail investors, who may not necessarily have the resources to do their own intensive research.

“Being able to describe the narrative and describe the mission to those different groups is definitely a new set of skills that need to be built.”

There’s power in the prospectus

Of course, a big part of the pitch comes in one all-important document, which Fung says accounted for a big chunk of the work involved. He’s talking, of course, about the prospectus itself.

At more than 170 pages, (not including appendices), the document for prospective investors doesn’t only lay out the financials and future plans of the business, but the why, the who and the how as well. It had to reflect the very heart and soul of what Airtasker was.

And, while Fung had a team of people around him to help with that process, ultimately, it was on him to get it right.

“As a founder or a CEO a lot of that comes down to being able to articulate or crystallise your vision and how you intend to deliver on that,” he explains.

“The level of storytelling, and the ability to be able to describe the narrative of the company to a wider audience is really important.”

Know where you are

I asked Fung if there’s anything he knows now, as head of a listed business, that he wishes he’d known as a fresh-faced entrepreneur back in 2012.

Again, he stresses that he had never imagined quite how much work was going to be involved to get the business to where it is now.

Second, he says he’s learnt the value of having the right people around you at the different stages of the journey. In the early days, you need people who are willing to help out anywhere and everywhere. Later, you need people who are experts in the things you’re not.

However, the most important thing the founder has learnt is the importance of what he calls “staging” — something that is often overlooked.

Staging is the art of aligning the things that need to be done with the stage the business is at, and prioritising accordingly, Fung explains.

It can be tempting to look at a company that’s very large and very successful, and try to copy the way they do things, even if your own business is in the very earliest stages.

“Every company has to go through phases of growth and development,” he says.

“Knowing the right things to do at the right time is a really important skill.”

Jump first, look later

Still, thinking back to 2012, Fung isn’t sure he ever would have listened to anyone telling him this. In fact, he says one of the hardest things to deal with as a startup founder is the barrage of advice from every direction.

“Most of it you do need to learn along the way by doing, rather than reading it from a textbook or from a blog article,” he explains.

And again, that connects back to the naivety that’s required for the whole endeavour. You need to jump first, and look later.

“The only way you’re going to figure out how to solve the problems that are going to come your way is to actually identify those problems first.”

Enjoy the ride

Finally, Fung says if he could have his time again, he would try to lean in, embrace the experience and be a little more present for the journey.

It’s easier said than done, he admits.

Running a startup is intense, and you have good days and bad. But, at the end of the day, he muses wistfully, it was all part of the experience.

“With the benefit of hindsight now, I look back on all of the days with fond memories.”