Survey results discussed in detail 2.mp4

Commentary on results from the "Inside the IV Operating Budget" survey, 12/2009. Click http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2n1ileag2dxbk7g/results to view survey results without commentary.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• self-directed
• investors

[semikwaver]

Blue, when I send out money, I like to see the actual building I'm sending it to. When I contemplated mailing you a donation, I looked up your addy on Google Satellite and landed on a sewer grate in the middle of an intersection. Are things really that bad?? Short story shorter-- I got spooked and you got one less piece of mail. All the best to you.

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

Appreciate the honesty. Now, move the virtual camera up a couple of feet & you might spy a modest ranch-style home. Along with a lot of other cuts, we had to close our Atlanta office last year to save money. So the addy you're googling is what's known outside the industry as a "home office." If you'd rather donate to a building, may I humbly suggest the Lipstick Building in Midtown Manhattan, former home to Bernie Madoff and friends. ;-)

[ArthurDentZaphodBeeb]

Keep up the good work. Very nice to be given the opportunity to understand the economics behind the business. I continue to encourage everyone I know to join the site and become a Premium member.

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

Thanks! We'll continue to work hard to earn your loyalty & your business. We truly appreciate your support!

[StandUp555]

Great idea ... good work .

Makes people understand what effect they can have by paying membership.

BTW .. where are the Click-Adverts ? .. I barely notice them.

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

So have we made mistakes getting to this point? Absolutely. Will we make more? Without a doubt. Some of the best education in the world is learning from one's own mistakes. And as long as any future mistakes we make are new and different, we look forward to making them and learning from them.

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

P.S. There's one other contextual fact we forgot to mention that might shed a little more light on our operating history, including any financial miscues. 2007 was our first full year as a revenue-generating entity. So when we said we were "inexperienced", we weren't kidding. We launched IV in Jan of 06, made our first dollar in July & had enough to issue our first paychecks in Sept. Prior to that we were truly "pre-revenue," with no funding other than our own savings.

Continued...

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

The good news is we've been able to adapt quickly to changes in circumstances & we've learned through this downturn how to operate much more efficiently & the fact that we're still in business today is a testament to that.  So while you may have doubts about the ROI of your premium membership, we are confident that if you stick around it will pay dividends. We know what we need to do be successful in this new paradigm & we absolutely appreciate your support & constructive criticism! ;-)

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

As for your second question: a large chunk of the money went to pay salaries. After all, we had an 8 person team back in 07. We are down to 3 at present.

As for "fiscal mismanagement", there's little doubt we made mistakes & spent money in places we didn't need to. Chalk that up to inexperience & being on a steep learning curve. But it's not that we were asleep at the wheel. We were--and still are--trying to compete with extremely large, well-funded companies.

Continued...

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

The point is to illustrate just how rapid & dramatic the loss of ad revenue was: that is, it happened literally overnight & of course coincided with the worst market crash since 1929 & the concomitant collapse of the economy. And don't forget: many auto & financial advertisers (some of the biggest spenders on sites like ours) all of a sudden had no money to spend on payroll, to say nothing of advertising.

Continued...

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

On top of holiday spending, there is also a phenomenon known (crassly) as "end-of-the-year budget dumping." That is, if ad budgets have been approved, ad agencies don't want to leave money on the table unspent, so they hurry to spend it in December. The point here is that December is historically the strongest month of the year.  So it's shocking to see it come in as the weakest month of the year, as happened in 08.

Continued...

[InvestorVillageAdmin]

We appreciate your feedback & will do our best to address each point.

In answer to your first question: it was Dec 07 not 08. While it may be open to debate as to whether 07 qualifies as "good times" or just "normal times", it was nothing like 08, when the market crashed & the economy came unglued. Also, in "normal times" ad revenue jumps in the 4th quarter, especially in December as Christmas shopping heats up.

To be continued...(apparently comments are limited to X # of characters)