@joygirl I just want to start of by saying thank you for your bluntness, I always feel that people are being honest when they are being blunt, so I appreciate your bluntness. I also am always interested in the perspective that other people have on what I am offering because it helps me improve on aspects I need to better recruit others. My response to your post is purely from an analytic standpoint to clarify what we are offering and to confirm or correct any statements you have made about the company and the offer.
You are correct about the company not existing. The company is not officially a company because it has not been registered and incorporated in any state or country. Officially at the moment it is just a group of people who want to start a company and until the forms and paper work have been cleared by the state there is no company it is just a group of people. We are not trying to make ourselves seem more legitimate by calling ourselves a company rather than the group. In our eyes it was more of semantics since we fully plan on registering and incorporating, in the future though I should refer to ourselves as the group until we officially have papers to prove we are registered and incorporated. The company does have capital just not so much that it can afford to spend it on everything. We need to focus on spending our money on what is absolutely necessary, which means we are only using our only using our cash on services that absolutely require it. For example, registering and incorporating a business has to be paid in cash because the state wont accept any other form of payment. We have no formal employees because we are not yet officially a company. There are some people that have accepted what we have to offer, but right now until the company is officially started as in registered and incorporated and they have signed their contracts they are only interested parties. We officially have no physical product, just an idea of the products to create. Making the product cannot be done alone, and that is why we are recruiting others to help us make the product.
To be clear, the project is actually to help us develop our own characters and superhero universe ideas. What we are asking is for talented writers and artist to help us fully realize these characters in comic book format. We are not one of those people that are extremely gifted at doing all the work themselves. We are not gifted at drawing and we are not exactly the best writers, but we do have what we think are great ideas and all we are trying to do is see them realized. If you do create supporting characters around our main characters those characters are 100% yours. The characters that we are offering 50% of are the characters that we have already created and have the idea for, but we don't have the best talent in writing their stories or drawing them. If you do decide that the choice you would like to pursue is a quid pro quo deal then you would get access to writers, artist, editors, marketing, publishing , but again this is a choice you have to make for yourself. If anyone can get a better deal anywhere else I fully advise on taking that deal. People should do what is best for themselves and take the best offer they can get. I am just another option of an offer you can take or leave. For example if you wanted to start a discussion group and you were looking for people to join you could go to chat rooms, forums and ask people in person, decide on where to meet and have your discussion or you could use craigslist or meetups.com or any of its competitors. They are all just options that are available to you to make and you should make the one that best fits your need and time.
Stock options are always an acceptable form of payment if a company doesn't exist as long as their is a contract involved. Stock options are a percentage representation of ownership in a company. Many start up companies use this form of ownership when starting their company even when there product is just an idea. I fully understand that stock options in a company that you can look up in a registry is more reputable than a business that doesn't yet exist formally.
I have to be clear that we are not asking anyone to volunteer any of their time. We are not asking anyone to work for free. We are asking people to work for an alternative form of payment. We do not have cash and any cash the group gets for the foreseeable future is going to be invested into growing the company. We are not asking anyone to volunteer their free time by investing it in a company they will not have a stake in. No one is working unless they sign a contract making it clear how they plan to be compensated for the time they have invested in the company. This contract is something that the company needs just as much as the employee. Everyone has a role in the company and mine is to make sure the the company not only gets started, but that it survives and thrives to keep doing business. Your value to the company is not in just what you do, but also how well you do it. And I have to be perfectly honest with you here and say that if anyone thinks that they are going to get a partnership or board member role in the company just based on the fact that you are writer, inker, colorist, flatter, artist, letterer, editor, then you are quite honestly being delusional. Partnership and board member roles are for people who bring more to the table than just what their primary role is in the company. Are they going to help the company recruit more writers, inkers, colorist, flatters, artists, letterers, editors etc. Are they going to help us find lawyers, accountants, brokers, financial advisers, advertisers, programmers and engineers? Are they going to help with finding investors and provide office space if needed. Being as important as a partner or board member comes with the responsibility that other people that see you in that role can not only rely on you when somethings needs to be done , but they expect that you not only care about the company as much as they do, but that you plan on spending just as much time as they do in making the company successful and not treat it as a side job. I would be remiss if I didn't say that most companies fail, most partnerships fail, most collaborations fail. That is just the nature of business, but we still keep starting companies, making partnerships and forming collaborations because we hope to be one of the very few that actually become successful.
I don't know what makes a 50/50 collaboration between a writer and artist more of a sure thing than what I am offering? You are both agreeing to split future profits correct? And ownership of the product correct? as of which does not technically exist. I digress, and though I could add that we do have a name for the publishing company, I would rather just leave it with I wish you the best of luck and success in all your future endeavors. Please send me a link to your comic book when it gets published, I would honestly love to read and support it. Thank you for your question, criticism and time. Have a nice day, peace.
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