Topic: GNE needs help.

[Morgul]

I really don't want to write this thread. I've been putting it off for two weeks. I really don't want to, but I have to.  :-[ Basically, here's the situation in a nutshell. We need to start making some money off GNE. I am unemployed, and although I have a small amount of cash coming in, it's not much. Whitelynx has a job, and it pays well, but he's really the only one out of the GNE crew who's been putting his money into this. Unfortunately, GNE will have costs, and frankly, those costs should be a good deal more then they've been lately; we've been lucky.

However, the kicker of all of this is the simple fact that GNE needs to become a company. More to the point, an S corporation. The cost for that is about $600. We don't have that. If the magical corporation fairy were to wave her wand and grant us corp status, we could start talking to businesses tomorrow about selling their wares on our website. However, there's another sticking point. Handleing credit cards costs money, and I'm not sure how much, right now. We should be able to get a buisness bank account.. assuming that we are a buisness, of course.

Now, if we were able to sell things, we'd be able to make money. Making money would mean that Dave wouldn't have to work so hard at his job, we could afford upgrades to the server, we could help DawNet out, and get them their first game server (for testing) and in general, Precursors would get done MUCH faster. (More time spent working on it, less time spent working for money.) Also, if we do this now, by summer, I might just be able to afford rent without having to work, which would mean that I could spend ALL DAY working on the app. I think that alone would cut an entire YEAR off Precursors's total development time.

So, here's what wanted to ask. Are there people out there willing to donate $$ towards GNE? I can promise that anyone who donates will recieve free copies of Precursors and a 20% markdown on their first store purchase. (This is up to negotiation, depending on the size of the donations.) Also, should anyone want to invest in the company, I can come up with a price per percentage of the company. I will limit it to 10% for each investor. I am going to maintain 60%, and Dave will have at least 20%, so that's only 20% up for grabs, and contingencyplan gets first dibs. However, you'd own some of it, and make money as the company makes money. (You get whatever percentage of the profit the company makes that is equal to your ownership.)

So, what do people say? If there are people willing to donate, I'll start up a PayPal account for GNE. Keep in mind, this money is SOLEY towards making GNE a real company and any expenses it has setting up a store.

Damn, I feel bad doing this, but it's where we're at, folks.

--Chris

[Infernal]

Well, I'm about to set up a small ebay computer store by making computers off of newegg stuff and selling it on ebay.  That should bring in some money so if that works out I'll buy some stock ; ).

[ryguy_1617]

Dunno...once you get the price per percent figured, I'll check around to see if anyone I know would be interested...I would invest some, but I am broke .

[Morgul]

Keep in mind, donations of $1 or even $.25 is getting us towards our goals. It doesn't hve to be much. save up $20, and then donate it... something.

[contingencyplan]

I believe in this, so I'm willing to throw some money at it. At this point, I am interested in owning at least 5%, maybe as much as 10%, though I don't know yet. Lemme know how much you're charging per share.

However, the kicker of all of this is the simple fact that GNE needs to become a company. More to the point, an S corporation.

Now remind me - what is so special about an S corp?

Also, where are we going to be incorporated at? I know you said NY in the past, but also that y'all aren't going to be staying in NY indefinitely. Shouldn't GNE be incorporated in the state that we'll all eventually be working in (or at least the headquarters will be based in)?

If the magical corporation fairy were to wave her wand and grant us corp status, we could start talking to businesses tomorrow about selling their wares on our website.

So what will we be selling? What businesses are you planning to talk to, and why?

Also, if we do this now, by summer, I might just be able to afford rent without having to work, which would mean that I could spend ALL DAY working on the app. I think that alone would cut an entire YEAR off Precursors's total development time.

Okay, something I'm going to say here. I honestly believe Precursors, in its current form, is WAY too big for us to get done before any of us graduate. Not even close. So as I'm pretty sure I've said before, I think our goal should be to get Precursors to the stage we can start talking to publishers about getting some SERIOUS (as in thousands of dollars a month) support and investment from them. Make enough progress to where they look at the game, think "holy shit, this is going somewhere,", and give us money (knowing that they'll get a huge return on that investment when they start selling the finished game). This means that we should start talking to a few now, to see what they are looking for in a demo of a potential game, and concentrate on finishing that and nailing that to the wall. Because there's no way of knowing how long it will take us to complete the entire game, and because it's almost certain that we won't before finishing school, it's too early to start talking about chopping time off the development of the game. Let's just work on the game for now with the mindset / goal of getting it to this level, then worry about finishing it after we've got some big $-muscle behind us.

So, what do people say? If there are people willing to donate, I'll start up a PayPal account for GNE. Keep in mind, this money is SOLEY towards making GNE a real company and any expenses it has setting up a store.

Any guestimates as to what those are and how much they will cost (aside from the $600 mentioned earlier)?

Damn, I feel bad doing this, but it's where we're at, folks.

Don't. You're not asking for a handout, you're asking for investors. There's a difference, and the latter is perfectly acceptable and expected for this stage in the game. We're going to be asking for investments for a long time to come, even after the store takes off and we become much more self-sufficient.

[Infernal]

yeah don't feel bad morgul, you are asking for investors not charity. You could issue a few thousand stocks and charge a buck for each.

[Morgul]

I believe in this, so I'm willing to throw some money at it. At this point, I am interested in owning at least 5%, maybe as much as 10%, though I don't know yet. Lemme know how much you're charging per share.

I'm going to charge $35 per percent, I'm thinking. However, since you've been with us the longest, and hve put some of your own blood and sweat into it, I'll nock that down to $15 or $20 (negotiable).

Now remind me - what is so special about an S corp?

Also, where are we going to be incorporated at? I know you said NY in the past, but also that y'all aren't going to be staying in NY indefinitely. Shouldn't GNE be incorporated in the state that we'll all eventually be working in (or at least the headquarters will be based in)?

Well, an S corp doesn't get taxed twice. basically, the owners only pay income tax on it. No messy tax forms for us!

As far as where we'll be incorperated in, we're looking at doing ti in delaware. See, you don't want to be encorporated in the state you're in, under most circumstances. See, each state handles corporations differently, and delaware gives a bunch of breaks. There's also no need to be encorporated in more than one state with an S corp. C corps (like Xerox) need to pay state taxes where their headquarters are, and therefor might pay less if they're encorporated in their local state.. but there's no requirement.

So what will we be selling? What businesses are you planning to talk to, and why?

Well, we're going to be selling computer parts, and even possibly completel systems (like laptops). I'm thinking of talking to Asus, Soyo, Sager, and a few others who let you retail their things. What we're looking at doing is called 'drop shipping'. Here's a good article on it: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,306132,00.html There's a website called Global Sources (here: http://www.globalsources.com/) That would allow me to get into contact with these companies, request products for reveiw, and possibly even set up drop shipping contracts with them. Also, TigerDirect has an affiliate program (details here: http://www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/Affiliate/index.asp)

Okay, something I'm going to say here. I honestly believe Precursors, in its current form, is WAY too big for us to get done before any of us graduate. Not even close. So as I'm pretty sure I've said before, I think our goal should be to get Precursors to the stage we can start talking to publishers about getting some SERIOUS (as in thousands of dollars a month) support and investment from them. Make enough progress to where they look at the game, think "holy shit, this is going somewhere,", and give us money (knowing that they'll get a huge return on that investment when they start selling the finished game). This means that we should start talking to a few now, to see what they are looking for in a demo of a potential game, and concentrate on finishing that and nailing that to the wall. Because there's no way of knowing how long it will take us to complete the entire game, and because it's almost certain that we won't before finishing school, it's too early to start talking about chopping time off the development of the game. Let's just work on the game for now with the mindset / goal of getting it to this level, then worry about finishing it after we've got some big $-muscle behind us.

You do have a point. I've got some thoughts on this, but I'm not in a place to put any of those thoughts into coherent sentences. I'll start a new topic on this later.

Any guestimates as to what those are and how much they will cost (aside from the $600 mentioned earlier)?

Nope. Other than the $600, no clue.

Don't. You're not asking for a handout, you're asking for investors. There's a difference, and the latter is perfectly acceptable and expected for this stage in the game. We're going to be asking for investments for a long time to come, even after the store takes off and we become much more self-sufficient.

Ok. You've got a point. But still I'm asking for donations too, which is almost a hand out... I dunno.

--Chris

[ryguy_1617]

Okay, something I'm going to say here. I honestly believe Precursors, in its current form, is WAY too big for us to get done before any of us graduate. Not even close. So as I'm pretty sure I've said before, I think our goal should be to get Precursors to the stage we can start talking to publishers about getting some SERIOUS (as in thousands of dollars a month) support and investment from them. Make enough progress to where they look at the game, think "holy shit, this is going somewhere,", and give us money (knowing that they'll get a huge return on that investment when they start selling the finished game). This means that we should start talking to a few now, to see what they are looking for in a demo of a potential game, and concentrate on finishing that and nailing that to the wall. Because there's no way of knowing how long it will take us to complete the entire game, and because it's almost certain that we won't before finishing school, it's too early to start talking about chopping time off the development of the game. Let's just work on the game for now with the mindset / goal of getting it to this level, then worry about finishing it after we've got some big $-muscle behind us.

I definitely think this would be a good idea...with how big this thing is probably going to be....and since all of us are in school still--then probably once we would get to that point, we could all maybe get to a single location to work on it.  Once that happened [if this happened of course], it would be much easier to make large amounts of progress on the game. Dunno...just going to see how things unfold from here I guess.

[Neo]

I would invest in stock (becuase that's what you are selling) If it weren't for the fact that I have no money.

~Reynard

[ryguy_1617]

I would invest in stock (becuase that's what you are selling) If it weren't for the fact that I have no money.

~Reynard

I'm in the same boat .

btw...:

So what will we be selling? What businesses are you planning to talk to, and why?

Well, we're going to be selling computer parts, and even possibly completel systems (like laptops). I'm thinking of talking to Asus, Soyo, Sager, and a few others who let you retail their things. What we're looking at doing is called 'drop shipping'. Here's a good article on it: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,306132,00.html There's a website called Global Sources (here: http://www.globalsources.com/) That would allow me to get into contact with these companies, request products for reveiw, and possibly even set up drop shipping contracts with them. Also, TigerDirect has an affiliate program (details here: http://www.tigerdirect.com/sectors/Affiliate/index.asp)

...the GNE online store would bring in some revenue as well, correct?

[contingencyplan]

...the GNE online store would bring in some revenue as well, correct?

That's the idea

[Morgul]

...the GNE online store would bring in some revenue as well, correct?

That's something we could get rolling, and working for us in months, not years. That could be done as soon as we become a corporation.

--Chris

[contingencyplan]

Also, if you're selling shares of the company, I'd look at selling like 100 shares at $3 apiece, rather than 10 shares (or parts thereof) at $30 apiece. You might even break it up more than that - 1000 shares at $1 apiece. Makes it easier for people to buy shares, as the price doesn't look so large. Also allows more people to buy shares, and keeps the number of shares in circulation as a whole number (rather than as a decimal or a percentage).

[Caenus]

I'll look at investing in return for negotiating shares into my contract as a concept artist as well (bear in mind that we still need to draft that out, morgul). 

As co-owner of another company, I understand what you're going through.  I don't know how much I'll be able to throw at this monetarily (I work fulltime, but I spend almost everything on rent/bills), but I can definitely look at getting you guys some UBER cheap web stuff through purplehoodie.  Handling credit cards is NOT hard to do, and is NOT super expensive - I'm a member of a news chain comprised of webmasters and our last newsletter went into how you can set that up.  Coding a store will not be difficult - the hard part will be setting up the AVS system, but whitelynx can do that in his sleep, I guarantee it. 

[Neo]

1000 shares at $1 apiece.

I'd buy a few of thouse on the way.

~Reynard

[Morgul]

Ok, here's the thing. After doing some more research, and confirming something I thought, I need to point something out. We can't sell 'shares', not the way most people think of things. S corporations don't have stock. Instead, the owners own a percentage of the company, and that's it.

--Chris

[Caenus]

I'd be willing to invest some, if you'd be willing to make a percentage of the company a part of my contract.  We'll figure it out.  I've got a bunch of stuff to be saving up for, so it'll take several months anyway.