Liquidators typically charge $200+ per hour, but they also charge for the time of their support staff.  There is oversight by the Registrar of the Insolvency and Trustee Service and creditors can request review by the Official Assignee if they're really unhappy with the liquidator, but liquidators have considerable liability in respect of the estates they administer so it's not in their professional best interest to pad the charges. 

In this particular instance, there aren't a ton of different assets to be sold, so that part of it should be relatively straightforward.  Verifying the claims might be time-consuming given that the records have had to be reconstructed.  The more co-operative the principals are, the less it's going to cost.

LMAO.  I do it too.  I was all ready to put together a serious proposal for logansryche's theatre last year.  Once you start thinking about how to make something work, it becomes addictive.

I figured you'd probably have some idea about the acoustic stuff, which is why I asked you instead of wasting time researching it myself.  That's something you need to do, dank, develop a network of people who can give you information quickly on things which are outside  your own area of knowledge.

I forgot it's night-time there.  Still, there's a lot of other stuff you can research while you're waiting for business hours.

Check whether there's a standard which furniture used in cafes/bars/restaurants in your jurisdiction must meet - there often is.  Ditto the stage.

When you talk to the real estate agent, find out about the property's electricity supply.  Don't forget to ask about ventilation/air-conditioning - the property may be totally unsuitable for a hookah lounge if it doesn't meet the local requirements for an indoor smoking venue and you don't have the budget to have that kind of stuff installed (you don't want to over-capitalise anyway).


It's a huge market, but it's one in which it's difficult to make yourself unique.

Ant, what would be the rough cost of making the acoustics acceptable for dank's purpose in a 6000 square foot space, taking into account that he's planning on having live music there but you wouldn't want it to sound like a frat-house party all the time?

Ring the real estate agent now and find out what the upfront expenses are - the security deposit, rent in advance, and anything else you'd need to pay the moment you signed the lease.  I'm serious.  Ring your local government people and find out what permits and licences you'll need and how much they cost and what insurances you'll be required to carry.  Ring some business insurers and find out the cost of those policies.  That should keep you busy for today.

Remember that you'll need commercial grade furniture and that it's preferable to have it treated for stain-resistance (trust me on this).  Don't even think about domestic grade floor coverings.  Decor, you can probably do on the smell of an oily rag if you're at all creative.

I'd be surprised if it took you more than an hour or two.  You're used to doing it, just as I am.  You know how and where to find information - which is half the battle.

dank, you've talked about your strengths.  What are your weaknesses?  You really need to know that in order to be successful because you need other people with different strengths to bridge the gap.

I am utterly unartistic, but my field requires me to put together a lot of visually appealing stuff (I loathe PowerPoint with a passion, but PowerPoint presentations are absolutely essential in my field).  I always make sure there's someone on my team who actually likes doing visual design stuff and who will happily spend hours getting everything visually perfect.  It doesn't matter if they can't write the content - that's my job - but I need their visual design skills to put together an acceptably professional presentation.

I'm also not a team player, despite being an excellent project administrator - so I always ensure that there's someone on my team who's good at the touchy-feely stuff and who cultivates the kind of social dynamic within the group which makes other team members happy.  I recognise the importance of team cohesion even though I prefer doing the majority of my work in the middle of the night in my pyjamas and it's nigh impossible to drag me to a meeting unless there's food involved.

You need to know your weaknesses.  If you really loathe keeping on top of the financials, you're better off paying a book-keeper $50 per week to spend a couple of hours keeping track of them than you are taking on the role yourself but then not actually doing it.  You need to think about when it's wiser to pay someone else to do something because they can do it more efficiently and more effectively.  You also need to think about the necessary but unpleasant tasks you're going to have to do yourself in order to keep costs down.  Cleaning up after close and setting up for the next day before you go home is likely to be one of those things.  Necessary even though you're not going to want to do it at the end of the night - so you need to become very efficient at it.

Are you going to accept credit and debit cards?  Have you looked into what your bank will charge you for processing electronic payments (here, your bank usually provides the POS equipment)?

Sorry Ant.  I want photos of those items, at least three alternative suppliers, background information on the suppliers, terms of trade, delivery costs, lead times and a written report on why you're recommending those particular steel rings and those suppliers.  I want information on durability, warranties, return policies.  What are the specifications for the "steel"?

And fuck the hookahs.  They'll be a small part of the start-up cost.  I need numbers on everything related to the premises, business licensing, permits, insurance, etc.  I need time-lines for obtaining those things.  And I still need information about what documentation the leasing agent requires in order for you to lodge an application to rent the premises.  Have you got hold of the plans for the premises yet.  Checked whether there are restrictions on its use?  

Fuck, I just realised that if this is a shell space, you'll probably have to put in a false ceiling and reline the walls unless you want sound bouncing around driving your customers nuts.

But telling someone "you need to do x, y and z" in order to get his off the ground" is support, even if it doesn't come with the warm, fuzzy ego validation you seem to expect from total strangers.

The world is not standing still.  While you're not actively putting the majority of your time into doing the actual work it would take to launch this venture, someone else is going to rent the premises you have your eye on or someone else - who already has funds - is going to decide that opening a hookah lounge is a good idea.  Hell, there might even be an application for that awaiting approval right now at your local government office but you wouldn't know because you haven't done that basic kind of research.

If this was my dream and I hadn't yet secured anything necessary to make it happen, I'd be spending 80+ hours a week on getting those things together.

Also, do you have a credit score.  It will affect your ability to get trade credit.

You should probably fly to London and place it in their hands in front of an audience.

Monster-Ant, I want your babies.

Of course.  Support and encouragement is something you seek from family, friends, peers and mentors.  Investors and lenders are only interested in whether or not they will make money by giving you funds and the onus is on you to persuade them that they will.  There are plenty of music boards if you're looking for encouragement, support and mentors, but expecting it from your lenders is like expecting it from your bank manager or credit card company.

What makes you think that the plaintiffs want the matter to go to trial?  The vast majority of lawsuits are either abandoned or settled before trial.  There are no deep pockets defendants in this matter so it's not in the interests of the plaintiffs that large amounts of money are spent on legal fees which cannot be recovered.  They're almost certainly looking for some kind of settlement offer and I suspect that they'd be happy to drop the matter in return for being given control of Intersango.

The photo of the Vegas meet up at which Goat was present shows the same guy who is Trendon Shavers in social media.  His family has that person friended on their social media accounts, so it's not just someone using the name.  Trendon is definitely associated with GPUMax and his brother also has connections to Zack going back years.  Another person on the forum also met pirate face to face for a hardware transaction and confirmed that he's the guy in the Trendon Shavers photos.

It would be more appropriate to contact Trendon's known business associates at GPUMax than to harass extended family members - after all, GPUMax shared a wallet with BS&T and it's reasonable to expect that they either know something about where the funds have gone or that they're also pursuing Trendon for missing funds.

People verified his father's address and Trendon's identity before he even defaulted.  The Shavers family is well established in the area and it's really not hard to track the relationships and find old photos and writings.

Are you serious?  Try going to your bank and asking for a personal loan of $20,000-40,000 with no assets and little income and see whether or not they ask you why you want the loan.  The business dank plans to set up with the money is integral to his capacity to repay the loan.  No-one's going to lend him the kind of money he's asking for unless he can demonstrate a capacity to repay it.

If he doesn't want to explain the purpose for which he wants the loans, then he needs to look at trying to fund it with things like credit cards - and he's not likely to get multiple lines of credit without a stable income and some kind of financial history.

I wouldn't lend my best friends or my family $20,000 without knowing what it was for - I certainly wouldn't do it for a total stranger.  If he doesn't want to have to convince people that he'll be able to repay the money then he needs to ask for donations instead of loans.

I'll guarantee that at least one person reading this thread has either decided that their great idea isn't viable at all or has learned about some of the things people wanting to launch their own business need to consider.  The advice given doesn't have to be taken by dank in order to benefit someone.

I must admit, I really want to see what his business plan looks like after the weekend.  He could have written a comprehensive business plan in the time he's wasted responding to Rarity's posts alone over the last week.

dank, do you have a credit score?  There are some financing options which might be available to you at roughly the same rate of interest you're looking at paying lenders here but which options are open to you will depend on your financials.

Lawyers aren't there to give you their "support".  They're there to advise you on any legal issues associated with your proposed venture.  If you're paying your lawyer to handle all of the licensing, permits, etc, then he'll need to gather more information before it's certain your proposal will be able to proceed and he'll charge you by the hour for doing that.

When you talk to the real estate agent, make sure that you ask about any limitations on the purposes for which the premises can be used.  You especially need to know whether it can be used for food and beverage service, indoor smoking and live entertainment.  Even if the real estate agent says it can, you need to double check that information with whoever approves business zoning in your city and make sure that you fully understand any conditions which might be attached to such uses - not just licences and permits, but also physical modifications you might have to make to the premises such as installing toilets, creating exits, installing independent air-conditioning, special waste management, noise-proofing, etc in order to get approval for operating your business from those premises.

Do you know what the premises were previously used for?

You're planning on having this up and running by the end of the year, right?  If someone gave you $20,000 tomorrow to kick-start this, what are you actually ready to go ahead with?  Have you even rung the real estate agent and found out what documentation you'd need to supply in order to put in an application to lease the premises?

When's your meeting with your lawyer, by the way?  And when are you meeting with an accountant?

I think his point was that in the last twelve months you've regarded half a dozen different enterprises as the "foundation for your life" and you've abandoned all of them quickly.  Where are you going to draw the sustained commitment it would take to see this project through from when you haven't seen through any of your other ideas about which you were passionate?  What happens when you've "had enough of" this project?  

It's one thing to abandon a project when it no longer excites you if you're risking your own money.  It's another thing entirely to have to make yourself continue putting 80 hours a week plus into a project you've had enough of because you need to pay back the people who funded your dream.


I only agree with this up to a point.  Many people are good at things they absolutely loathe (myself included), but few people are good at only one thing.  The trick is to find something you're good at and find aspects of it you don't loathe or to think laterally about how your skill-sets can be expanded and applied to something you don't loathe.  At 18, you haven't even begun to develop your skill-sets.  You don't have any idea of all the things you'll be good at or all the things you might love/hate doing because you haven't yet had the opportunity to get out there and try them.

I've taken "for now" jobs which have taken me in totally new directions which I wouldn't have previously considered.  I've taken "dream jobs" which I've absolutely loathed.  Opportunity doesn't knock once, it will fucking bowl you over once you get out of the mentality that the only thing standing between you and staggering success is lack of capital.

Because it's an overcast Thursday afternoon and I'm bored, and there's a certain appeal in trying to turn a flawed concept into a workable project (I wish to hell logansryche's theatre dream could have been brought to reality because I would have loved to be part of renovating an old theatre but you would have needed to make it a bigger project and develop an entertainment precinct around the theatre to make it viable and that's not the kind of thing you can do from another continent when none of the groundwork has been done).

If nothing else, dank might learn how to properly cost an idea and how to do a feasibility study - which are skills he'll need to acquire if he has larger dreams for the future.