Well yeah - but then a company led by financial incompetents wouldn't meet my criteria of how it helps "a good company".

Early-bird shares aren't, of themselves, a bad thing.  The way they're being done on recent Bitfunder IPOs IS a shockingly bad thing.

There's two things wrong with it (and they're linked):

1.  The depth of the discounts,
2.  The lack of advance notice.

Point 2 directly contributes to point 1.  IF the company gave advance notice of the launch then when they placed the shares there'd be bids already there raising the price at which they actuallly sold.  That would raise more funds for the company and provide additional information on which to base further pricing.  Dumping them without warning 100% leaves money on the table.

I can think of three reasons for doing it the way it's been done:

1.  An immediate need for cash right now - not in a few days.
2.  To allow insiders to profit (at the expense of the actual company and genuine investors)
3.  Because the details of the IPO wouldn't fare well with public examination before shares were sold.

ALL of those are terrible from an investor's perspective.  Numbers 1/3 are good for the company if (and only if) it's in a desperate situation and/or not viable.

I'm open to other explanations of how leaving cash on the table helps a good company - especially when by selling at the early-bird price (rather than the higher price that would have been obtained with prior notice) they tend to reduce/suppress further demand by setting an apparent low valuation on the shares.

Whilst I'm on the subject of design flaws in the way IPOS are being done, can we please stop with all this crap about selling shares of profits not of the company?  It doesn't protect against any issues related to unlicensed securities trading (a share of profit makes it a security without an associated equity entitlement needed).  It appears to just be a way in which 'companies' think they can get away with dividending out random amounts without producing any books - and without identifying what the company actually owns prior to IPO.

Either sell shares or issue bonds - not this abortion that lies somewhere in-between that is becoming fashionable.

S.DICE did it - but their operations are transparent and their cost of doing business negligible.  For most other businesses it's totally unsuitable - as assessing/confirming profits NEEDS proper accounts and also details of assets.

If you won't disclose assets, won't sell equity, won't give voting rights then take out a loan (bond) as you clearly have no interest in actually having shareholders.

Assume you mean Bakewell.  Loans in danger there are personal ones he took out, not ones from the company.  His company's actually fine - or would be, were he not stealing from it by dumping shares that weren't his to sell.

He has a past record of hiding from problems rather than facing them, so I wouldn't expect him to show his face too soon.  But I'd be less concerned about that one than this one (though still, obviously, pretty concerned).

It's pretty clear the massive sell right down to 20 satoshis/share was by the issuer - there are 2 big blocks of shares which can ONLY be asset issuer's plus unissued and those have fallen whilst officially no shares were being sold.

Well done on getting out in time - I'm one of those who got low-ball bids filled by the dump.  The bids were there to pick up panic sells of course - just wasn't expecting it to be the issuer who panicked and sold (yet).  I'd (mis)calculated that the shit wouldn't hit the fan until next month for this security - so hadn't cleared my position yet.

The problem is that visionaries are rarely good at actually running businesses - they need a detail person doing the actual management.  And that's where a LOT of Bitcoin (and traditional) businesses have failed : they may have a good idea, but they lack the management skills to turn it into profit.

Well there won't be a dividend as:

a) The website hasn't been much up for the last week to do any actual trade.
b) It's rather obvious the cash has been used for living expenses/paying down debt - leaving little/nothing to actually operate with.

You only have to look at what little figures have been produced to work out why b) pretty much HAS to be the case.  But here's the logic behind that conclusion for those unable to work it out themselves:

The company/owners were clearly short of cash (not necessarily assets - but liquid cash) when the IPO was launched.  This is a certainty as, were they not cash-strapped, they wouldn't have taken out the BTCjam loan at a high rate of interest in the first place.  This is further confirmed by the indecent haste of the IPO, the early-bird pricing (which is great for raising SOME cash fast - but absolutely horrible for actually selling out) and the total lack of disclosure of what assets the company had.

The business is one which needs significant funds to operate - moving funds around isn't instant, so ability to trade volume is constrained by capital.

Company founders were short of cash but had taken on the commitment to repay the BTCjam loan AND still had to make enough profit to pay their living expenses.

Now look at what profit was actually being made - and consider what portion of that would ctually go the founders (via their shares).  Is that enough to pay living expenses AND repay the BTCjam loan?  Nope it isn't.

So they either need another source of cash or have to raid working capital.  But if they had another available source of cash they wouldn't have needed the BTCjam in the first place - any other source of capital would have been much cheaper.  So it seems likely (not QUITE certain) that they had to steal from company capital (it IS stealing) - which then made the company unable to increase volume/profit leading into a death-spiral.

BTC rising when the debt has been converted to USD just makes a bad situation totally untenable.

The sale of extra shares at below the price they were supposed to sell at is just a desperate last-ditch measure to try to prop up something that's collapsed beyond repair (haven't checked but was a payment imminently due on the BTCjam loan?).  The structure of the IPO pricing meant that once prices stagnated they would always struggle to rise to a level where new shares could sell - as there's a bunch of people who bought at early-bird prices who can sell at a profit and would do so at the first sign of trouble to lock in profits.

And silly thing is the business likely had potential - it just needed an IPO structured so as to have a reasonable chance of actually selling out.

But no need to worry everyone - there's a fresh IPO up for you to invest in which also:

a) Had a big BTCjam debt
b) Won't disclose assets/wallet balances
c) Has shovelled out shares at "early-bird" prices so as to raise some capital fast without having to answer questions first.

And this time it'll all work out great - honestly!

I've just logged in.  I can confirm that I've received a PM from Mac65 containing the information he states above.  Obviously I haven't yet had a chance to check it out at all (and won't for a fair while).

So, although I can't vouch in any way for Mac65's identity I CAN say he's sent sufficent information that, with a bit of effort, I could easily determine that he was either a successful business-man or a total liar.  It seems unlikely he would have sent it were it NOT him - as it would be very easy to disprove with a few international phone-calls.

My personal view on this IPO had already moved from "It's a scam" to "It's starting too big and the numbers need a lot of work".  Trying to raise funds to do too many things is a recipe for disaster - as you can easily end up unable to do any of them without selling out (you can't half-develop ASICs if only half the shares sell).

Now you're being unreasonable.  Next you'll expect companies to list their assets and/or produce accounts before they place themselves for sale.  How would people who have run our of cash to run their business/service their debts be able to sell shares in it if they had to do that?

I don't disagree with the decision NOT to buy ASICs (I don't disagree with ANY decision NOT to run a mining company - and wish more people decided that way).  But that's a decision you should have made BEFORE raising funds TO buy ASICs.

Correct order to do things:

1.  Work out if it's viable.
2.  Raise funds.

Your way:

1.  Raise funds.
2.  Decide it's not viable.

Do you see the difference - or why the order I propose is better?

I DO agree this has little directly to do with this business - but it IS of relevance as, even if we accept your explanation of what happened, it's clear you raised funds for something without having established whether it was viable.  That doesn't, of course, mean THIS isn't viable - but should raise the level of proof of viability needed.

There seem to be plenty of companies around that think if they make a few BTC (or in some cases have never made any BTC at all) then raise a load of capital they'll automagically make a LOT of BTC (see most recent IPOs on Bitfunder/BTC.CO/LTC-GLobal).  Raising capital is NOT some magnet that attracts profit towards it - as, no doubt, a lot of these IPOs (and their investors) will find out.  Maybe yours is one of the few that will actually well - I don't know, and nothing you've posted so far is particularly compelling evidence of future success.

People were upset because he started a mining company, mined for a few weeks, then stopped mining without bothering to announce it and only a few months later started communicating about it all.  WHilst GLBSE going down temporarily removed access to the list of investors it in no way stopped posting updates.  And suddenly deciding mining wasn't profitable a few weeks after raising funds via IPO to mine is an interesting approach to business.  It's not as though block-reward halving should have been a big shock.

Their website's down, they haven't been selling bitcoins for most of the week and people (or is it Ziggap themselves?) are dumping their shares at near zero.

Other than that, it's all going great.

But I wouldn't expect a big dividend this week.

There's nothing in the contract about what happens if the company (is it a company anyway?) closes or is sold.  That's a pretty key item to have misssed out - especially given ambiguity over ownership of the already ordered Avalons.

It's also not clear what the relevance of the growth/expansion shares are - given that shareholders returns are defined as a fixed percent of profit.  What happens with rest of shares is pretty meaningless - giving a vague definition for 20% and no definition for the other 40% is pointless.

It's also terrible value to use funds from IPO to buy shares in other companies.  100% of the purchase price of those shares comes from IPO funds and only up to 40% of profit from them gos to shareholders - a poor substitute for them just using those funds to invest directly themselves.  If you think you'll be more profitable than the other companies then use the funds for your own operation.  If you think you'll be less profitable then cancel the IPO and invest in the other companies yourself.

100 Avalon Batch 3   @  85 GH/s each for a total of:
         8.5 TH/s (to be shipped: End April 2013)    (Ordered 2 orders of 50 each)

Are you saying you've already ordered 100 Batch 3 Avalons?

I'm sure you mean well, but ask yourself this:

How much reliance are forum users likely to put on a vouch from a brand new account made specifically to give that vouch? 

For a vouch to have any value the person making it needs to have a reputation themselves to back that vouch with.  One account I've never seen before vouching for another account I've not encountered before has no more value than the single account already had.

I have no idea whether kslaughter has some other account on which he's been active here in the past.  If he HAS and he won't use it then the obvious question is why?  If he hasn't then he needs to realise that someone effectively new is going to have a much harder tiem selling anything than someone with an established reputation.

If he's run past very successful businesses (as you claim) then why hasn't he linked to them or identified them?  All he's claimed so far is he was going to make FPGAs and didn't and he was going to do some semiconductor business and didn't.  Being an expert at not actually doing things isn't the perfect qualification for much.

If there's a team with 30+ years of experience then identify them.  Otherwise we have to assume the team is one person aged 48 or more who's done a bit of all the listed things - and that the use of team rather than "I" was an intentional attempt to mislead.  If there IS a team then what is it?  A partnership?  a sole trader?  Now we know the company already listed doesn't actually exists any more, just what type of business structure IS it?

There's nothing wrong with having grand ideas - in fact it's great that people do.  But running a business is more about the small details than the big concepts - you only need one big concept to run a business, you need a LOT of small details.  And the plan is amazingly sparse on details.  Some businesses you can get away with that on - as they're pretty simple.  This one's a bit more complex - and for all the world looks like he's trying to run before having proven he can walk.

Got to laugh at the idea of Ukyo paying MPOE-PR to vet security listings (and the idea of MPOE-PR accepting).

You DO realise who MPOE-PR works for?

I'd suggest looking at the website for it before making a fool of yourself more.

Think you missed the point - or part of it.  Claiming a strong TEAM implies multiple people not just one.

Could just ONE company that claims to have a strong management team actually indicate who they are and what their expertise is?

Yeah - though if they didnt exist assume he would have just sold treasury ones instead.  Whatever's going on, he's obvious desperate for cash (when BTC rose sharply last few days thought he'd be in trouble as he'd been borrowing BTC to invest in something fiat).

Once you've linked Bitfunder to your Weex you have to actually do a withdrawal in Bitfunder - then the funds will move to Weex.  Your Bitfunder balance does NOT automatically become visible in Weex.

This has an embedded assumption that has concerned me a bit about ripple from the start.

Just because I "trust" gateway A and gateway B does NOT necessarily mean that I have no preference over which IOUs I hold.  I may well trust A a lot and only begrudgingly extend trust to B because I need to for some specific reason.  In that circumstance there's no way I'd want IOUs I hold from A exchanged into ones from B involuntarily just to let someone else avoid having to trust B.

Now I know in theory I can avoid this to an extent - by micro-managing trust.  But ideally I should be able to extend trust whilst locking it against being filled by any action other than my own (which would include filling of orders I had placed of course).  Or alternatively I should be able to lock specific IOUs in so that they can't be changed to different ones - regardless of what other trust I have extended.

Note that my preference for A over B may not be because of an actual lack of "trust" - it could be for reasons such as A being faster at redeeming IOUs on request or A offering other non-ripple functionality that I used or A offering cheaper cashout.  As it stands I can easily see a situation where I'd have to run multiple accounts with different trust profiles just to be able to swap my held IOUs BACK to my preferred debtors.