Microcaps, however, are faced with a common trap on their path to meaningful revenue, which I experienced firsthand as the co-president & chief marketing officer of a smaller Nasdaq-listed company. In their quest to attract investors, microcaps over-prioritize touting a large total addressable market (TAM) and under-prioritize executing a sound go-to-market strategy (GTM).

Micro-caps must therefore rely on more qualitative updates for their shareholders. They must tell their story, but it’s an ever-evolving narrative. Candidly and consistently, micro-cap leaders should duly inform shareholders, telling them what’s going well and what isn’t, even owning up to any mistakes that are common in early-stage companies.

But just because social media has provided smaller shareholders with unprecedented access to companies and their management teams, it doesn’t mean their every desire should be satiated or their every question answered, especially when it’s not in the best interest of the company and therefore its shareholders. Management teams truly focused on the long term must ignore short-term traders and allow their businesses to be weighed over a number of years.

You must determine your pitch. Mine is to invest in small public companies that have undergone a management change and are demonstrating sound capital allocation, with the results starting to appear in their financial performance.