10 Steps On Twitter's Road To An IPO

Twitter keeps saying it will go public when it is ready. But acquisitions, strategic hires, product changes, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering over the past year make clear that the company will be ready sooner rather than later.

Twitter's IPO, slowly but surely, is coming.

It's still not clear when — a recent report by Bloomberg says it could come as soon as the end of the year — but the time for Twitter to make its public market debut is imminent.

How do we know? Just look at these 10 recent moves, which basically double as a preparing-to-go-public cheat sheet.

1. Hiring Nathan Hubbard

2. Hiring Vijaya Gadde

Honored to work with the @twitter legal and @safety teams as we continue to defend our users around the world.

Vijaya Gadde

@vijaya

Honored to work with the @twitter legal and @safety teams as we continue to defend our users around the world.

/ Via

Gadde joined Twitter as legal director last year, but was thrust into a greater role when general counsel Alexander Macgillivray left the company at the end of August. Gadde is an alumnus of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and has plenty of experience to handle the upcoming IPO even without Macgillivray.

3. Emphasizing conversations

4. Buying Bluefin Labs

5. Hiring Mike Gupta

Congratulations to @rowghani on his new role as COO and to @mgupta on his new role as CFO.

dick costolo

@dickc

Congratulations to @rowghani on his new role as COO and to @mgupta on his new role as CFO.

/ Via

Amid a small executive shuffle late last year, Gupta took over the CFO role while Ali Rowghani took on the job of chief operating officer. Gupta, an alumnus of Yahoo, joined Twitter last year after helping take Zynga public and hammering out Yahoo's investment in Alibaba — which has proved extremely successful — according to a profile of him by Bloomberg.

6. Scoping out a financial reporting position

7. Meeting with bankers

8. Buying Trendrr

welcoming new twitter team members (@ Wiredset / Trendrr) http://t.co/e4LeDtDLIL

Isaac Hepworth

@isaach

welcoming new twitter team members (@ Wiredset / Trendrr) http://t.co/e4LeDtDLIL

/ Via

Twitter has a major presence when it comes to live televised events — like the premiere of a new show or during events like the Oscars. So, in addition to Bluefin Labs, it also purchased Trendrr, pushing its TV chatter-tracking efforts even further. If Twitter can prove to advertisers that its users are engaging with content with respect to a live event (especially television), it can make an even easier case to sell premium ads.

9. Patience is a virtue

10. Let the memory of Facebook's IPO fade

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