拖延一年終上市 BOX公司CEO及CFO談IPO之路

Cloud storage company Box Inc. BOX 65.93% went public earlier today, raising $175 million. It was the culmination of a very long process for the decade-old company, which originally filed for the IPO last March but delayed pricing due to concerns that investors would be turned off by its massive losses. Box would calm those concerns a bit by more than doubling revenue for the year ending January 31, and already has seen its stock pop nearly 70% higher than the $14 per share IPO price.

雲存儲公司Box於1月23日正式上市，成功融資1.75億美金。這家擁有十年曆史的公司所經歷的IPO之路可謂非常漫長，它於去年三月就申請了IPO，但由於擔心投資者會因公司的鉅額虧損而對其股票敬而遠之，最終還是推遲了上市日期。目前Box的表現可能會讓投資者們多少產生了一些心理安慰，截至今年1月31日，Box公司的全年營收翻了一番還多，而且它的股票價格已經比14美元每股的IPO價格高出了近70%。

Fortune spoke to Box CEO Aaron Levie and CFO Dylan Smith today from The New York Stock Exchange. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation:

上市當日，《財富》在紐交所採訪了Box公司的CEO阿隆o列維和CFO狄倫o史密斯。以下是本次採訪節選：

FORTUNE: It has been a long time since you first filed to go public. Why January 23?

《財富》：從你們首次申請上市至今，已經過去了很長一段時間，爲什麼選在1月23日上市？

Levie:It was either this or January 22.

列維：我們選定的日期不是1月22日就是23日。

Smith:We’ve always taken a very long-term view of the business, and had planned to go public both when we were ready and when the market was ready for us. It wasn’t always the most straight-forward path, but we’re thrilled to be where we are today… Our goal was to continue to execute and educate the market on our model and show leverage around our model. There were no specific milestones we were looking for.

史密斯：我們一直用長遠的眼光看待這件事，打算等到自己和市場都準備好了的時候再上市。這個過程並不總是一帆風順，但能夠到今天這個程度，我們還是很高興……我們的目標是繼續執行我們的商業模式，並讓市場瞭解，展示這個模式的槓桿作用。我們並沒有特地尋找什麼明確的“時間表”。

You once tweeted that “if your stock shoots up, you left money on the table.” Do you regret leaving so much money on the table?

你曾在Twitter上稱，如果公司股價漲得很高，你會‘把錢留在臺面上’。現在這麼多錢都留在了檯面上，你是否感到後悔？

Levie:I can’t comment on the dynamics of the pricing process, but there are certain tweets that that won’t make as much sense anymore… We have a business model that requires you to understand the disruption going on in enterprise IT, and are very happy to have brought on strong investors who are committed to the re-platforming of the enterprise.

列維：我沒法評價定價過程的變化，不過我們以前在Twitter上發的有些內容肯定沒有意義了……我們的業務模式需要你理解企業IT領域的變革，非常高興吸引來了願意致力於重塑企業平臺的強勢投資者。

Was there an unexpected question you heard repeatedly from prospective investors during the road show?

在路演過程中，你有沒有聽到預期投資者反覆提到某個預料之外的問題？

Levie:Some of the misunderstanding of our business, and part of this is due to us being in a quiet period for eight or nine months, was that we are a storage company. We’re not. We are a software company with 80% gross margins that sells per seat. I think there was some initial confusion over that, and not understanding that storage is part of our infrastructure as opposed to something we sell. Users get unlimited storage, and pay us for our apps. That was already understood by people who have followed our company the closest, but not by people who were new to it.

列維：有些人對我們的企業有誤解，部分原因是由於我們在首次申請上市後沉寂了八九個月的時間，有人認爲我們的公司是一家做存儲的公司，但我們不是。我們是一家軟件公司，80%的毛利來自軟件銷售。我認爲這就是別人一開始誤解我們的地方，他們不瞭解存儲只是我們基礎架構中的一部分，而不是主打賣點。用戶可以獲得無限的存儲空間，然後付費買我們的應用。那些一直緊密關注我們公司的人已經理解了這一點，但有些新接觸到我們的人並不理解。

During your interview at Fortune Brainstorm Tech last July, you mentioned that one mistake Box made with the original filing timing was that, in the prior year, you had made a lot of costly investments that had not yet borne revenue fruit. Can you better explain that, and should investors expect similar expenditures in a year from now, or two?

你在去年七月《財富》舉辦的科技頭腦風暴大會上曾提到，Box在選擇IPO的時機上犯了一個錯誤，前一年你們做了大量燒錢的投資，還沒有在營收上體現出成果。現在你能否更好地解釋這一點，另外今後一兩年你們是否還會做出類似的投資支出？

Levie:Around calendar 2012-2013 we did make a number of new investments. Things like international expansion and building up a field sales force. It takes time for those sales and marketing investments to kind of mature, and we’re now seeing those efficiencies play out in the business in our current fiscal year. We’ll continue to grow sales and marketing expenses over time, but they will decline as a percentage of revenue over time.

列維：在2012年到2013年，我們的確做出了一批新的投資，用於國際擴張和組建現場銷售團隊等等。這些在銷售和營銷上的投資需要時間才能發展成熟。而現在這些投資帶來的效益已經開始在本財務年度逐步顯現。隨着時間的推移，我們的銷售和市場開支還會繼續提高，但它們佔公司營收的比例會隨着時間逐步下降。

Do you have any concerns that some employees will leave now that their vested stock options have become liquid securities?

現在有些員工的優先認股權已經成了流動證券，你是否擔心有些員工會因此離開公司？

Levie:We have an entreprenurial culture, and I’m sure some employees are are very good in early-stage endeavors are likely to go do that. But we’ve been growing the team with very committed Boxers, which is what we call ourselves, and this is a very typical phase for a growing company. We’ll continue to build out the company and bring new people in.

列維：Box有一種創業文化，當然有些員工在創業早期階段的確很出色，也可能這樣做。但我們的團隊也一直在增長，他們都是對Box的事業非常投入的人，我們把他們稱爲“自己人”。對於一家增長中的公司來說，這也是一個非常典型的階段。我們會繼續構建公司，不斷引入新人。（財富中文網）