RightNow founder talks about IPO

After 25 days of keeping quiet, Greg Gianforte said Tuesday that the Aug. 5 initial public offering of RightNow Technologies’ http://rightnowtech.com/ stock was an important business step, even if it came at a time when the market was soft.

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL, Chronicle Staff Writer

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"When you start the process of going public, it takes nine months or so, you can’t predict the public market environment the day you get to the end of that nine-month cycle," Gianforte, RightNow’s founder and CEO, said. "In the last days leading up to the offering, the markets were not a pretty place."

Even though RightNow — which makes customer service software for companies that do business on the Web — had a strong second quarter, almost every other software vendor turned in lousy results for the same period, he said. And those results colored investors’ opinions of all software companies.

"For us, the public offering is really just the starting point," he said. "Having invested in nine months of effort, we decided to pull the trigger. I think it was a good decision for the company."

On Aug. 5, the company priced 6.3 million shares at $7 each for the initial sale of company stock. That was lower than the $9 to $11 per share range it had hoped for in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

But in the first 25 days, RightNow’s stock has gone up significantly, closing Tuesday at $9.10 a share.

"I just think it’s a big, big deal," said John O’Donnell, executive director of Tech Ranch. "Someday when we’re looking back on all this economic growth, this will be a significant thing — the first tech IPO in Montana."

Plus, RightNow has been waiting a long time, because of the market situation, to launch its IPO, said Rich Semenik, dean of the Montana State University College of Business. The company almost went public four years ago and ended up pulling out when the tech market crashed.

"The market for initial public offerings has been so poor, it’s unfortunate that RightNow has had to wait so long to do this," Semenik said. "It’s absolutely fantastic for Montana companies, for the world to see that a company located in Montana can go public. That sends the signal to venture capitalists that you can indeed invest in companies in Montana."

RightNow is expected to net $38 million from the offering, according to the Associated Press.

Gianforte said that money will be used to cushion the company’s operations budget as it continues to expand.

Construction crews poured the foundation for a new building at RightNow’s Bozeman campus this week. And Gianforte said the company has hired more than 110 people this year across all its offices — 234 of the total 375 employees are based in Bozeman.

Employees celebrated the initial public offering, Gianforte said, but going public hasn’t really changed much at RightNow.

"Our job and our mission is to help our customers," Gianforte said. "This will allow us to attract additional customers, but has had very little impact on the day-to-day operations of the business."

Kayley Mendenhall is at [email protected]