How to Read Your Competitor’s S1

When competitors go public, you get a rare peek into their world.

For those unfamiliar, before a company makes its public debut, it has to file its initial registration with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), a process known as submitting an S1. Unlike the guarded nature of private firms, S1s force businesses to spill the beans—revealing their history, customers, leadership, finances, risks, and beyond.

As you can imagine, reading an S1 can be overwhelming given the sheer volume of information they contain. You could easily sink days, or even weeks, into dissecting just one.

So to help you out, here are my top ten tips for getting the insights you need from a competitor's S1 (in a reasonable amount of time).

But a quick disclaimer first: successful competitive intelligence programs involve more than just understanding your competitor. It's about turning that understanding into smart actions.

OK, with that out of the way, let's dive in.

Tip 1: Get ahead of the excitement & set expectations

While you probably won’t know the exact date your competitor files their S1 in advance, you can let your core stakeholders know about it when it happens. This can be as simple as sending a message wherever you usually communicate competitive updates saying “Competitor B filed their S1 today. Here is the link if you want to read more. I’ll be reading everything and sharing the highlights with you in [X timeframe]”.

Tip 2: Start with an objective point of view

You’ll want to look at an S1 both objectively and from the point of view as a (direct or indirect) competitor. If you try to view the information solely from your perspective, it can be tricky to take your feelings out of the equation to draw conclusions about the IPO and their direction in the market.

Tip 3: Have your calculator handy

One of the best parts of an S1 filing is a lot of numbers, but they won’t always give you the full picture on their own. Start by taking a closer look at the following metrics:

• Customers (total number, specific segments, regions, etc)

• Cost of acquisition & payback windows

• Adoption of products & services

• Operating expenses

• Cash on hand

• Profitability

• Revenue

• Assets

• LTV

If something catches your attention, see if you can pull it apart a little.

Tip 4: Dig into their positioning

S1s will give you a transparent look at your competitor’s stance on who they are, the customers they serve, and ultimately, their pitch on why they are the best option in the space. While some of this probably isn’t new information, it’ll likely look different than what you’ve seen in the past, and will very likely share more directional information than what you’ve seen previously.

There’s a lot less “marketing fluff.” That’s because once a company is publicly traded, they have to back up the claims they make (if a legal marketing claims process didn’t already exist, it was probably started before the S1 was filed).

Tip 5: CTRL + F is your friend

Don’t be afraid to jump around in the document. You can learn a lot from how many times certain words were mentioned. Look for keywords that are specific to product offerings, partners, industry keywords, technologies, specific regions, etc.

Tip 6: Don’t go it alone

Share your thoughts with other stakeholders internally. Your senior leadership team (SLT) is probably going to read it themselves, but you can act as a central source for gathering all of the things you’ve learned.

Different teams are going to look at this information in ways you won’t. What stands out to your finance team and your sales team could be very different.

This is a great opportunity to benchmark yourself against your competitor, but you might not have all of the stats you want at your fingertips, so don't be afraid to ask questions and learn together.

Tip 7: Gauge social reactions

Read thoughts from people outside of your company. What are industry analysts saying? Are customers talking about it? Are any other competitors reacting? Keep in mind that not everyone will be experts on the larger market.

The industry analysts and influencers I follow tend to have strong opinions. To find some on your own, try searching your competitor’s name or “S1” on X—this can lead to profiles like @OnlyCFO that I’ve found helpful.

Tip 8: Look for recaps & opinion pieces from news outlets

You’ll likely find plenty of articles in the days after a company filed their S1. Look for differing opinions and details that you might’ve overlooked after your first read. Again, S1s are extremely long and in the absence of focus time to fully digest them in full, recaps can give you a great starting point.

A few outlets I follow include TechCrunch, Modern Retail, Nasdaq, and MarketWatch. But if you have Google alerts set up for your competitor, you’ll see a tidal wave of interesting pieces from different sources for at least a week after the S1.

Tip 9: Adjust your findings for different stakeholders

Like most pieces of competitive intel, you can increase your impact by adjusting what you share with your audience. The natural reaction of good news for a competitor (like going public) can come with the assumption that it’s actually bad news for you. If you aren’t sure how much information might be too much for some teams, take the time to run it by their leadership.

For example, your finance team will want to go deep into the core business metrics while your sales and marketing teams will likely be more interested in the competitor’s positioning.

But you’ll also find a lot of potential overlap as you look at how funds have been spent and their larger strategies (e.g. did your competitor focus on product-led growth? Do they have a sales team? If there are multiple product lines, how are they broken down? How much cash do they have on hand? How much do they hope to raise?)

Tip 10: Read the tea leaves

Now that you have such transparent information, you can make more educated conclusions about your competitor. You’ll know a LOT more about their finances, current customers, how they sell themselves today, and who they think they can sell to in the future (among plenty of other things).

If this is starting to sound like your favorite holiday, here's the exciting part: as a publicly traded company, your competitor will have to share quarterly and annual earnings. These hold similar insights to the S1, giving you a continued window into their performance. So, remember, the S1 is just the beginning—these tips will be your guide multiple times in the future!

P.S. If you liked this, consider listening to the Healthy Competition podcast or joining the community!