Pandora News - Business Plan finished, ready to gather investors!

News via http://boards.openpandora.org/index....rs-2011-09-09/

Phew, those were some busy days (and mostly nights) I had, but it all seems to work out quite well, so it's time to infom you about stuff that's happening http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png

1. The Business Plan and Investors

The most important thing to get investors is to provide them with a well-thought plan.
They don't want to lose money, they want to make money in the end. So the plan needs to be realistic, you need to know how much you need to create and sell your product and how much sales you will get, etc.
It took me quite a while to calculate all the costs, take into account that some parts are paid in USD and the USD / EUR conversion rate can change, etc.
I also included additional costs for marketing and development, maybe hire someone for actively work on the OS or port software, etc. and make the Pandora more known and popular.
The more users and developers we can get, the better for all of us!

That was quite a bit of work, but I finished the plan two days ago and gave it to my really helpful tax consultant, who is quite experienced with such things as well (she helped some companies already to find investors).
She thinks the business plan is very well thought of. I've been very careful with costs to make sure I have MORE money than needed.
Actually, she told me she'll also invest, so that's a good sign, isn't it? http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png

With the plan, she calculated the value of my company and the possible realistic profit for investors.
My lawyers have already started to work on the contracts for possible investors (together with my tax consultant) and I will create an english version of the business plan within the next few days (the current one is German).

So basically, we're almost ready for some investments!
If you're interested in investing some money into the Pandora, send me an eMail to [email protected] (unless you haven't done that yet).
I'll contact you as soon as the english version of the business plan and the contracts are ready.

What's needed if you want to invest?
Well, the absolute minimum would be 2000 EUR.
However, that value would probably only make sense if you live within the EU. Yes, you would get part of the profit made, however, depending on where you live, bank transfer costs, conversion costs or taxes you might have to pay on such profit would take most of that profit away.
That's something you'd need to check out first. Bank transfer costs could be skipped by using PayPal, but the conversion costs from EUR to other currencies could eat a lot of the profit.



2. From Texas to Germany - to a company which is being praised by its customers

As you might know, we already own a lot of parts for the next few thousand Pandoras (the ones from Texas Instruments, to be exact).
One of the biggest distributor for TI parts is EBV, and that's where Craig bought the parts from.
However, EBV is also the distributor where Global Components (the new PCB company) buys the TI parts from.
I was having a chat today with my contact from EBV (also a bavarian company, BTW)
I was talking with him about the parts and they offered to move them from Texas to Germany. This saves us costs and trouble and is a really nice and helpful move from them http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png

Another encouraging thing:
We were also talking about Global Components, and EBV has been working with them for years.
It seems customers are praising Global Components. They have a VERY good reputation and are very reliable.
That's something great http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png
I'm really happy to have found a reliable company now http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png


3. Preorders coming soon!

As mentioned in my last post, more preorders for Pandoras will be taken soon!
No payment in advance needed, but please only order if you're really interested in getting one.
If you always wanted to get a second unit or never ordered because you didn't want to spend money upfront - here's your chance. No risk involved.

Once the Pandora is ready, you will be informed and after you did your payment, the unit will be shipped to you.

In case you are still waiting for your preordered paid unit, there's no need to reorder here.
Your order is valid and will be shipped to you from either the shipments that are being sent from CircuitCo every once in a while or from the Germany company - whatever is faster.


4. Pandora repairs and OS upgrades

You probably know that I'm doing most of the Pandora repairs (bad nubs, bad LCD cables).
I was pretty busy with the business plan (top priority right now is to get everything going properly!), so I didn't have much time to repair units.
I fixed 8 Pandoras this week, about 15 are left to be fixed.

When the whole investor / business plan thing is done and I've finally signed the contract for the Pandora production, I've got a lot more time and repairs will happen way faster.
I also want to continue on the OS and finalize HF6!

I'm sorry it takes so long, but I'm just one person and can't split up yet (maybe someone should invent that http://boards.openpandora.org/public...lt/biggrin.png)



5. Conclusion

So all in all, I'm content right now.
Of course, it would've been great if we never had these issues with CircuitCo, but it seems at least here in Germany things are working out.

The business plan is looking promising, Global Components has a very good reputation and is being praised by its customers so the only thing left now are investors.
Something that is certainly possible.

Once that has been done, nothing should prevent the Pandora production from happening! http://boards.openpandora.org/public...ault/smile.png

After all the bollocks so far I don't think investing in this is at all a good idea.Personally I think they should have started design of an updated system already (long ago), as the insane delays made this less appealing on release. Also their constant "honesty" has shown us that you are very likely to be sending it back for repairs at some point or other, they never tell you that a brand new console is going to be solid. Who want to buy into that? And more importantly, who wants to invest into that?Next a business plan telling you if you invest you probably wont make any profit, is not a business plan, but another money-sucking scheme, like them taking pre-orders WAY to early.Plain robbery I say.

i think it just goes to show you that making consoles is a lot harder than it looks, also the Pandora isnt now the advancement it once was, the PSvita will be as powerful if not moreso, all the problems with the console put a lot of people off, for me the Pandora has lost all its momentum

Business plan? hmmm...
Now i love Homebrew software but this is Homebrew hardware and you can't just uninstall or recover a brick when this 100% fails very often, and honestly iPhone & Android has all but finished all the Homebrew scenes because people can actually make money from apps now, so no offence to anyone but really who is silly enough to buy this? Maybe if you have money to burn and have some insane obligation since you been following this from the beginning, so being honest even the Xperia Play is a better choice than this simply because it almost fully emulates everything up to N64 and will always have tens of thousands more software.

yeah i saw it coming that homebrew coders would head to the iphone/android and why not, making cash for releasing stuff than doing it for free, its a no brainer, personally i think theres been a mass exodus over the last 2 years 2005 -2007 was when the homebrew scene was massive, now its a shadow of its former self sadly

Hmmmm...
Long ago, I was really interested in this product but now its way too late with such outdated specs.
its very disappointing a this time, i may use it as a Linux micro netbook.
lets just hope they update all the internals for a better spec

Yeah be nice if they updated the spec but they bought most of the components in bulk, and it's doubtful they even gonna sell the stock they have now, and this thing is gonna fail a LOT and in the coming months when they sadly go bust they won't be able to fulfil warranty claims and are gonna run out of components to sell for repair, and i doubt it's even worth the while of some Chinese company to make spares because they not gonna sell, but seriously i am thinking the lack of sales and homemade nature of the hardware could make this a future collectors item.