[BTC-TC] BitVPS

[arctos]

April Statement? When will dividends begin?

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[Namworld]

Statement should be ready by the end of the week. Not sure about dividends.

[julz]

How do you view the other 'sheets' on this spreadsheet?  
When I view the reports linked at https://www.bitvps.com/investors   - I see the same thing for each link - Jan 2013 figures.
I don't see anything to click on to see other months.

edit: ok - looks like it's just the title is stuck at January 2013 - figures are actually different for each one.

[Peter Lambert]

Maybe you should mention that the April Statement is up?

I am looking at the April statement, and I am not sure if I understand everything correctly. Down at the bottom, there are some "Reserve" lines, which are currently negative. Will dividend payments start once these are brought up above zero?

I see a bunch of lines for sever renting, you mentioned that you are switching to owning servers since that would be more economical, when does the switch take place?

Under expenses, there is a line with a bitpay fees of -0.2596, but in the dollar column all the expenses are shown as positive values. Is this a mistake, and it should be a positive expense, or did bitpay actually charge you a negative fee?

[Namworld]

Maybe you should mention that the April Statement is up?

I am looking at the April statement, and I am not sure if I understand everything correctly. Down at the bottom, there are some "Reserve" lines, which are currently negative. Will dividend payments start once these are brought up above zero?

I see a bunch of lines for sever renting, you mentioned that you are switching to owning servers since that would be more economical, when does the switch take place?

Under expenses, there is a line with a bitpay fees of -0.2596, but in the dollar column all the expenses are shown as positive values. Is this a mistake, and it should be a positive expense, or did bitpay actually charge you a negative fee?

Sorry, my bad for the bitpay fees. I didn't copy/paste the amount correctly it seems. I corrected that.

You'll notice if you look at previous months that rented nodes have been going away.

As for dividends, they will indeed resume when reserves are back above 0. We've spent more than BitVPS had, at our own personal expense. I had to sell 80 Bitcoins around 25 USD to get 2000 USD for a server. Prices kept increasing so I didn't have them when we reached the peak of 266 USD/BTC. I sold all the BTC I had available at 250. So I lost 225 x 80 = 18,000 USD compared to if I didn't have to buy a server for BitVPS. Both me and arij had to lend our personal funds to BitVPS at zero interest to get it back on track. But we lost a lot compared to if we could have kept our Bitcoins. It hurts to even think about it >.<

[madmax_ger]

That have been bad circumstances.
But I wish you the best for BitVPS as I am convinced of your business model.

While bitcoin is becoming more popular I bet there will be enought market to grow
into a profitable size.

I'm gonna set up an account in the next future, too. But first I'll buy shares 

[EskimoBob]

Not sure, did I miss something, but your report shows no income from VPS business in April. Is that correct?
Can you please publish BitVPS balance sheet for us too.

Thank you.

[Namworld]

No profits?

Sales are at the top.
Net profit/change is at bottom in blue.
Previous reserve/new reserve in red shows the balances at end of last month and end of current month.

[Peter Lambert]

No profits?

Sales are at the top.
Net profit/change is at bottom in blue.
Previous reserve/new reserve in red shows the balances at end of last month and end of current month.

It is a bit confusing having the separate columns for USD and BTC, but once I understood what you are doing that makes sense. When I first opened the spreadsheet the USD column was off the right side of the screen, so at first glance it looks like there is no profit, but after you see that extra column you see the company actually made some profit.

[EskimoBob]

No profits?

Sales are at the top.
Net profit/change is at bottom in blue.
Previous reserve/new reserve in red shows the balances at end of last month and end of current month.

It is a bit confusing having the separate columns for USD and BTC, but once I understood what you are doing that makes sense. When I first opened the spreadsheet the USD column was off the right side of the screen, so at first glance it looks like there is no profit, but after you see that extra column you see the company actually made some profit.

same here. I did not even notice that USD column. I did not notice the horizontal scroll.
Why did you name that BTC column in "CONVERSIONS" as "income"

Income is a financial gain (earned or unearned) accruing over a given period of time.
Selling 2 BTC is not "income" of "-2 BTC"

BTW, I was searching for help on multy-currency accounting and ended up on this page: http://gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_currency.html
This is typical accounting and not really gnucash specific. Best thing you can do is to consider BTC as a investment to "something" and not as a currency used for accounting.

BTW, can you show us that balance sheet of yours too. 

Cheers.

[Namworld]

I'm simply assuming we might need to convert USD to BTC, although I suspect more often than not BTC will be converted to USD to pay expenses. That section works both way.

[Peter Lambert]

I'm simply assuming we might need to convert USD to BTC, although I suspect more often than not BTC will be converted to USD to pay expenses. That section works both way.

Someday you will be able to pay the power bill in bitcoins?

[EskimoBob]

I'm simply assuming we might need to convert USD to BTC, although I suspect more often than not BTC will be converted to USD to pay expenses. That section works both way.

I assume you live in US so USD is your base currency for all the accounting no matter if you like it or not
Everything you sell or buy is in USD or is calculated from USD.
So, take the BTC you have and handle it as it was a stock or foreign currency but not your base currency for accounting.
Your basic account structure will look something like this:

Code:

-Assets                      (USD)
   -Current Assets           (USD)
      -US Bank               (USD)
   -Fixed Assets             (USD)
      -"Server Z"             
         -Cost               (USD)
         -Depreciation       (USD) 
      -Some other stuff      (USD)
         -Cost               (USD)
         -Depreciation       (USD) 

   -Investments
       -Bitcoins             (USD)  <- Yes, USD! (or EUR etc) 
-Equity                      (USD)
   -Opening Balances
      -USD                   (USD)
   - ...
   -Shareholders Equity      (USD)

and so on and on 

If this makes no sense, read up on basic accounting or get someone to help you. You can actually figure this all out buy reading gnucash help and examples starting from the beginning . Search, if something makes no sense. Get the terminology correct or you will get confused and screw up.
BTW, this is not as hard as CPA's like you to think. Old ladies can pick this up in matter of days/weeks and become an accountant.
Your business is not that complicated. All you really need is a good accounts structure and you ready to go.

I am not a accountant but I can help you setting up the account structure because I have done it multiple times and made my share of mistakes on the way

[IIzzII]

Greetings, I have a couple questions as a potential investor.

1. How open are you to investor ideas and help? For example, I am a web developer by trade and my biggest client is a company that specializes in servers and disaster recovery services. Would you be open to publicly or privately releasing the specs on your current servers in the interest of shopping around and trying to find cheaper hosting? I understand you recently moved your servers and I know that can be a pain, but there is a good chance there could be some significant savings.

2. Is there any focus on the company's online image? The current site design is passable, but it's somewhat lackluster. The "About Us" page is totally blank. Both your Twitter and Facebook pages are totally blank. While these things are superficial, unfortunately they actually matter. I do this for a living and there are some basic things you could do to improve the site. Believe me, I know this superficial "online presence" stuff sucks, but it works.

3. Are there any plans to invest in marketing? I think marketing on sites like Reddit that let you advertise directly to a subreddit offer an opportunity to market cheaply to a very targeted audience. On top of this, are there any pushes to land more "big name" sites by giving discounted hosting in exchange for some space on the homepage? Basically, is the current focus to grow solely on word of mouth?

I think you guys are sitting on top of something very big and with a little more attention to marketing and image, things could really take off. People who use BTC have a sense of pride in what they are doing. They believe in BTC for more than monetary reasons, for many there are deep ideological reasons. When I look at your site I see a VPS company that happens to take BTC, I think you guys should be the BTC VPS company. You could use your Twitter feed to post BTC related stories. You could engage on Facebook with BTC related businesses and bloggers. As someone who has researched you, I know that you host Clark Moody's ticker, why not start a small section on the home page of BTC related businesses you currently host? Maybe have an FAQ section where there is an easy explanation on how to buy BTC and give a first free month to people who pay in BTC. There are dozens of little things like this that will help solidify you as the number one BTC VPS service on the net.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on all this.

[Namworld]

We took over in December and have been pretty hard pressed expenses wise in the beginning.

1. Not much. We used to rent them. We now have owned servers co-located in New York. We don't have the means to move around. As for server prices, they are published along specs in monthly statements.
2. If you haven't seen our previous website, it was a plain black header/footer with black on white text and a little bit of color. We had no budget for a new design and had to produce one. There is still improvements to come to the current website.
3. Some of our clients are already receiving discounts in exchange of a prominent banner/ad. We're also the most widely advertised servers for Bitcoin service around the community. We don't usually have to pay for this. We're the most known around.

I think you guys are sitting on top of something very big and with a little more attention to marketing and image, things could really take off. People who use BTC have a sense of pride in what they are doing. They believe in BTC for more than monetary reasons, for many there are deep ideological reasons. When I look at your site I see a VPS company that happens to take BTC, I think you guys should be the BTC VPS company.

We pretty much already are, I believe.

As someone who has researched you, I know that you host Clark Moody's ticker, why not start a small section on the home page of BTC related businesses you currently host? Maybe have an FAQ section where there is an easy explanation on how to buy BTC and give a first free month to people who pay in BTC. There are dozens of little things like this that will help solidify you as the number one BTC VPS service on the net.

Yes, we will have a reviews/clients section eventually.

[IIzzII]

Thank you for the swift and detailed responses. It is most appreciated and inspires a lot of confidence.

Not much. We used to rent them. We now have owned servers co-located in New York. We don't have the means to move around. As for server prices, they are published along specs in monthly statements.

In terms of the server specs, I was asking about the actual hardware specs. I can see the prices on the balance sheets, but I can't see what you're getting for those prices. Regardless, I understand that switching server companies is a giant pain and it is off the table as an option right now. If this is something that you guys want to explore in the future, please feel free to contact me.

If you haven't seen our previous website, it was a plain black header/footer with black on white text and a little bit of color. We had no budget for a new design and had to produce one. There is still improvements to come to the current website.

Good to know. I'm glad you guys see having a solid website as a priority and have taken steps to make it better.

I am very happy to hear your responses. Again, thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions. I will be looking to purchase shares ASAP.

[nar9000]

Hello,

Quick question:  I see 359,306 shares on float out of 1,000,000 issued.  The ~650,000 left they are there any rules on how they can be issued for example: would it be possible to trade X share for a marketing deal?

-nar

[Namworld]

Hello,

Quick question:  I see 359,306 shares on float out of 1,000,000 issued.  The ~650,000 left they are there any rules on how they can be issued for example: would it be possible to trade X share for a marketing deal?

-nar

Each share represents 1/1'000'000th of profits. They are effectively all currently issued. That 1 or 500'000 are outstanding bears no impact for holders. Non outstanding shares are the owners' shares. They can be used as seen fit.

[nar9000]

I strongly advise trading some shares for some marketing to kick up new sales.  I like the openness of the business.  However not sure how much longer you can go without some profit.

[Peter Lambert]

I strongly advise trading some shares for some marketing to kick up new sales.  I like the openness of the business.  However not sure how much longer you can go without some profit.

Did you look at the monthly statement? There was "some profit" last month.