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Looking for some feedback as well as some advice
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Garen Sobek
Doomheim
#1 - 2017-02-09 13:52:14 UTC
Hello,

I'm currently thinking about taking my corporation public and would like to gage the interest people might have in investing. I would also like to get some input on the best way to be as transparent as possible in regards to corporation assets and transactions.

To start things off I'll go ahead and attempt to answers some questions about myself and my corp that you might have for me. NOTE: At this point in time I won't be providing any actual financial figures. That being said all financial information will be disclosed when it comes time to actually offer shares for purchase. I understand that trying to judge your interest in investing is very difficult without this information but I'm only looking for a very rough idea.


Who am I?
To give you a little information about myself. I am an avid sandbox enthusiast who has spent the past several years jumping back and forth between EvE and a game called Face of Mankind. Unfortunately and fortunately a little over a year ago FoM shut down their servers which has allowed me to focus all my efforts on EvE. I love the fun and challenge that a player run economy provides and my current goal is to operate an in game corporation that functions as close as possible to how a real company would.

Why do I want to start a publicly traded company?
The shortest and simplest answer to this question would be the word fun. I believe that sandboxes are all about setting goals for yourself and then going out and accomplishing those goals. If I just wanted to raise capital to scale my operation I could simply seek a loan using some of my BPO's as collateral and that would be that. However for some odd reason being held responsible to share holders, publishing financial reports and just over all running a publicly traded company very much appeals to me. With that being said though, money is always part of the equation and a little more capital would allow me to further increase current profits as well as continue to make some long term investments.

How does my company currently make isk?
Through the use of alts I currently operate in a wide range of fields but my current core money makers are manufacturing and trading. As more and more of my BPO's become fully researched and my manufacturing slots fill up I will begin to convert my research slots into copying slots and hopefully add another major source of revenue to the company. In down time I often mine in ops with my alts or salvage L4's and after a detailed analysis either sell those items on the market or feed them into my manufacturing operation.

What's in it for you as an investor?
If your a person who enjoys raking in passive isk while at the same time connecting and having fun with like minded individuals than this is the place for you. If you don't enjoy those things you should probably look elsewhere for an investment opportunity. I really want to encourage my investors to be active and communicate with one another as well as suggest ideas.

When will shares be available for purchase?
Based on my current time, probably sometime between 2 and 4 weeks.

Now that that's out of the way I would like to go over some options of sharing information with investors and get your guys take on them.

Spread Sheets
The first idea that popped into my head when I was asking myself how I should share company information was to publish spread sheets. The pro's of going this way is that the information is easily accessible by investors and easy to setup since I already use spread sheets as a way of managing my operation. The big con however is that I could easily manipulate these documents and by choosing to use this method there is a chance that a lot of potential investors might be hesitant to invest because of this.

Screen Shots
Another Idea I had would be to simply take screen shots of my operation and to regularly provide these to investors. The Pro is this option is a little more secure for the investor.(It's a lot harder to pull off a good photo shop job then change some numbers on a spread sheet). The negatives are this would require a little more work on my part and that I could still technically manipulate the information.

Use of an API Key
In order to provide the investor the most comfort and reassurance in their investment. The best way to go would be to provide a full corp API. The con for this is that it would require our investors to do a little more work themselves. I believe that the free version of eve mogul would allow investors to see all of our trading but it doesn't allow them to see assets in our corp hangers or how much liquid isk we have and I don't know of any other programs that would be good for this. With the use of an API key it also raises the question of how often investors should have access to this information. Giving investors 24/7 access would increase the chance of corporate espionage and possibly put the corps trading activities at risk. On the other hand however it would be a great tool for cultivating investor trust by giving them constant access.


Any and all feedback both positive and negative are greatly appreciated. Also if you have any questions for me please don't hesitate to ask. Though as I said above I won't be disclosing any financial information until the time comes to begin offering shares to investors.

V/R

Garen Sobek
The Fukuzawa
New Eden Trade Group
#2 - 2017-02-10 01:47:48 UTC  |  Edited by: The Fukuzawa
My advice is to seek investors from outside the market discussion forum. I have borrowed hundreds of billions of isk from players over the past few years, and only a fraction of that isk came from these forums. However, if you seek entertainment from the clowns of the internet spaceship economic community, i can assure you that nearly 100% of that gold can be found here.

! ! ! New Eden Trade Group is paying monthly interest to investors, contact me if interested ! ! !

If you already assume we are scammers without looking at what we offer objectively, go ahead and F*** off.

Thank you, that is all.
Cista2
EVE Museum
#3 - 2017-02-10 07:17:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Cista2
Garen Sobek wrote:
Why do I want to start a publicly traded company?
The shortest and simplest answer to this question would be the word fun. ...for some odd reason being held responsible to share holders, publishing financial reports and just over all running a publicly traded company very much appeals to me.

Here is a small problem. "Fun" is a short-lived concept. What you are signaling is that the most fun will be actually succeeding in getting the money out of other players, because you think that shares are such a grand and bordering roleplaying fun project. So it might just happen that once you have the money, managing the company and schedules some time after that is not equally fun. Trust me, I have been there already in 2010.

Therefore, instead of having fun, it *has* to be about the money. You state yourself you don't need to sell shares, you can just make a collateralised loan. I suggest you do that, if you need more ISK at all :)

My channel: "Signatures" -
Timothy Sobek
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2017-02-10 15:13:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Timothy Sobek
Cista2 wrote:
Garen Sobek wrote:
Why do I want to start a publicly traded company?
The shortest and simplest answer to this question would be the word fun. ...for some odd reason being held responsible to share holders, publishing financial reports and just over all running a publicly traded company very much appeals to me.

Here is a small problem. "Fun" is a short-lived concept. What you are signaling is that the most fun will be actually succeeding in getting the money out of other players, because you think that shares are such a grand and bordering roleplaying fun project. So it might just happen that once you have the money, managing the company and schedules some time after that is not equally fun. Trust me, I have been there already in 2010.

Therefore, instead of having fun, it *has* to be about the money. You state yourself you don't need to sell shares, you can just make a collateralised loan. I suggest you do that, if you need more ISK at all :)

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. That being said there are a couple things that you said that I would like to address.

1. "What you are signaling is that the most fun will be actually succeeding in getting the money out of other players,"

If this is what I'm signaling I apologize because that was not my intent. To be honest I don't think there is any fun to be hand in getting money from players. Regardless of the amount of money I raise I will continue to do the same inflame activities which will only provide the same amount of fun that I'm currently having(I hope that makes sense).

2. "So it might just happen that once you have the money, managing the company and schedules some time after that is not equally fun."

This is the part of the operation that I feel will provide me the most fun.

3. "Therefore, instead of having fun, it *has* to be about the money."

It can't be about the money because if I'm not having fun I don't care about the money. If this situation were to occur I would put up a vote to either sell the corp and all its assets to another player(In which case it continues on under someone else) or liquidate all assets and use that money to buy back the shares from the current share holders. As a disclaimer to all potential investors I have no intent to spend my time playing a video game that I don't enjoy. That being said as a grown adult I feel I have a pretty good handle on the things that I would have fun doing. So I don't see this situation being a very likely one.
Luthor Ikkala
Snow Moon City
Fraternity.
#5 - 2017-02-10 15:58:22 UTC
In eve fun isnt as shortlived as you state. I believe fun just evolves with you. I like industry and exploration and lately ive been training my alt for some pvp fun! But still everytime i log my alt i always come back to my industry toon. There is just so much to do in every aspect of this game. Someone likes to make isk, and therefore im hoping the best of luck op! Perhaps oneday i will be using your services aswell!