What it takes to IPO in 2025
Eliran Glazer, CFO at monday.com, discusses his journey and learnings of taking a company public
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Eliran Glazer is the CFO of monday.com, which he joined just before its IPO in 2021. He spent most of his career located in Israel as the CFO of fast growing Israeli-based private companies. monday.com is one of the largest cloud companies to be founded in Israel. They hired Eliran to be their CFO to navigate its IPO and life as a public company.
Fun fact: monday.com is one of only 9 cloud companies that have IPO’d in the past 5 years that is above its closing stock price the day it IPO’d (or in Palantir’s case a DPO). monday.com must be doing something right…
I asked Eliran to share his thoughts on what it takes to go public in 2025 and how companies (and their CFOs and leaders) can prepare.
What it takes to IPO
This June marks four years since monday.com rang the bell at NASDAQ. Since going public, we’ve significantly expanded our work management platform — transforming from a single-product company into a multi-product suite, advancing our upmarket strategy, deepening our global footprint, and growing our market value to around $15 billion. June 10th, 2021 was a defining moment for the company — and, in many ways, for me personally.
My own journey to the IPO was anything but typical. I joined monday.com just four months before the public listing, with zero IPO experience. Within weeks of meeting our co-CEOs, I found myself in Manhattan boardrooms on Wall Street, pitching the future of a company I had only recently joined to investors I’d never met before. One banker told me: "In more than 15 years of working on IPOs, I've never seen anything like this before."
What made me succeed in that pressure-cooker moment wasn’t a last-minute crash course in IPOs. It was the sum of everything that came before — my years as a young CFO in New York during the 2008 financial crisis, the hundreds of earnings calls I studied, the mentors who challenged me to lead outside my comfort zone, and a relentless desire to learn. It all came into play at once.
Today, with IPO markets slowly reopening, and estimates suggesting that businesses need at least $500M+ in ARR to justify a $5B valuation, the bar has never been higher. The expectations are evolving. Unlike the Covid-era boom, public investors now demand operational efficiency, not just rapid growth –– which can be especially tough with the macroeconomic climate and volatile market still jittery with tariffs. For any CFO preparing to take their company public in this new environment, here are a few lessons that shaped our journey — and that I believe are critical for success.
Earn Trust Through Storytelling
In 2021, the IPO market was red-hot and crowded. Standing out wasn’t just about numbers; it was about narrative. As a CFO, you have to know how to tell the business story. If you don’t know how to tell the story, you will not gain credibility.
Having just joined monday.com, no investor knew who I was. I had to earn their trust in every meeting and every call, starting from zero. In those moments, storytelling wasn’t a soft skill — it was a survival skill. It was about translating our competitive advantages into a language that resonated with each person across the table. Some were tech experts; others came from growth equity. Every conversation required a different lens.
I learned early on that credibility isn’t just built with metrics — it’s built through conviction. I had to articulate why monday.com was different, in ways that were technical but also human, numbers-driven, and anchored in real use cases.
One lesson I learned quickly: don’t dilute your message to please the room. Stick with what you know and believe in. Bankers, advisors, and even internal voices will have suggestions — but as CFO, you often know the story better than anyone else. Have the courage to tell it with clarity and confidence.
Storytelling, I’ve come to believe, isn’t just a presentation skill — it’s a leadership core competence. It’s how you build trust at scale, both internally and externally.
Show You Are a Strategic Partner, Not Just a Budget Gatekeeper
Investors want to see a CFO who understands the business end-to-end, who collaborates cross-functionally, and who can clearly explain how each dollar drives value. The ability to connect dots across product, marketing, sales, and operations makes you not just a financial leader, but a business leader.
Many CFOs focus exclusively on cost-cutting and budget control. But when a CFO understands the business and knows how to unlock growth opportunities, they gain trust in the eyes of investors, which builds additional credibility and trust leading up to the IPO.
Early on in my career, a mentor of mine drilled in the importance of connecting with stakeholders across the full company –– not only to foster relationships but also to understand the “why” behind their asks. You gain trust by finding ways to say yes backed by logic, creativity, and rigor. This shows your colleagues that you're not just protecting the budget — you’re unlocking growth responsibly.
I never want to be the person who always says no. CFOs often get a bad rap of being party poopers but I firmly believe that effective CFOs should act as internal venture capitalists. For any budget proposal, consider not only the cost but also the return on investment and how it will contribute to the growth of the business. For example, when our team floated the idea of a Super Bowl ad, my first instinct wasn’t to shut it down. It was to ask: “Why?” Once I understood the intent, I could build a model to make it work.
Today’s CFO is not just a financial steward—they are a strategic operator who evaluates opportunities through a long-term lens. Especially during inflection points like an IPO, your influence can (and should) extend far beyond spreadsheets.
The stakes are high. More than 70% of tech companies underperform post-IPO. To cultivate long-term trust with institutional investors, CFOs need to demonstrate their strategic partnerships with the executive team.
Build a Muscle for Data-Driven Performance & Scenario Planning
Going public is not the finish line — it’s the start of a new, more demanding chapter. While quarterly pressure is real, long-term thinking must be stronger.
At monday.com, one of our hidden advantages going into the IPO was our operating structure and efficiency. Our team was already running on live dashboards, which gave us shared visibility into key business metrics. We also built an internal platform called BigBrain, which measures everything from ARR and customer growth to CAC, NDR, sales efficiency, marketing campaign ROI, and more. Focusing relentlessly on unit economics made the transition to public reporting less of a shock and more of a natural evolution.
monday.com has consistently operated with a Rule of 40 mindset, balancing high growth with profitability. In Q1'25, we achieved 30% revenue growth and 39% free cash flow margins — putting us at 69% on the Rule of 40 and placing us among the highest-performing SaaS companies worldwide. Our approach to balancing growth and profitability wasn’t accidental or overnight — far from it. This kind of discipline isn’t just for Wall Street — it’s how you build a company that lasts, rooted in good data.
Public markets are unforgiving if you're unprepared. The way to stay ahead is through data discipline and scenario planning. Forget static forecasting — real-time data visibility is now table stakes. CFOs need to build dynamic models that look out 24, 36, even 48 months. This allows you not only to prepare for uncertainty, but also to lead through it.
Personally, I use base, low, and best-case planning — not just for investor presentations, but to drive alignment across the business. I stress-test our assumptions with the executive team so that everyone is rowing in the same direction. Resilience, to me, is not just reacting to data — it’s preparing for what’s coming next.
That said, being data-obsessed and scenario planning don’t work alone. Change is the only constant, and resilience is essential. Market swings, geopolitical conditions, competitive dynamics — they’re always shifting. When things change, absorb the shocks and keep going.
Final Thoughts: The New Rules of Going Public
The days of “growth at all costs” are behind us. In 2025 and beyond, public investors will demand operational excellence, efficient capital allocation, and sustainable margins. CFOs need to be storytellers, strategists, and stewards of long-term value creation — all at once.
Going public is one of the most intense and exhilarating experiences a CFO can go through. It tests everything you know — and forces you to learn even more. But if you prepare with intent, lead with integrity, and operate with discipline, it can also be the most rewarding.
The window is reopening. Be ready when you jump through.
Footnotes:
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Good insight from Eliran on the roles of CFOs as storytellers and strategic operators. These roles are often lacking in CFOs. Also, the finance resource center looks like a nice addition.