This might be a stupid question, but how long does it take to write an S-1 prospectus, and how many people are generally involved? They are always so long and with tiny font!
I'd guess that a lot of the delay comes from auditing and then getting someone at the SEC to actually read your filing before publishing it. In terms of how many people are involved, this might help give you an idea: "We have engaged Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (“Morgan Stanley”), Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Allen & Company LLC, RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Jefferies LLC, HSBC Securities (USA), Inc., SG Americas Securities, LLC, CIBC World Markets Corp., Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., and MUFG Securities Americas Inc. as our financial advisors."
Not a stupid question, it's basically the job of the Investment Bank to help company management, the auditors and company lawyers to pull it all together. It's one of the main things they hang their traditional 7% fee on. I'd say in a good process the company would take a year or two of clean up and positioning of the financials and the corporation and then solid 6 months with the bankers (and accountants and lawyers) of drafting "the story" and getting all the boilerplate together.