I made pretty much the comment that investing in a pinball business was a risky bet with minimal upside potential on their FB page and my comment was removed and I was banned. Great way to start taking a company public by appealing to collectors of a product you sell by appealing to social media. SMH

An absolute farce! Anyone dumb enough to toss $$$ into their pockets in the hope that you get something in return is very risky. This is almost like going to the roulette wheel in any casino and throwing money down.

The stock market is risky enough let along tossing your hard earned dollar into some two person operation with their assurance that they will pay out any dividends to shareholders. I'm sure they'd never play with numbers to line their pockets with your cash. Can't wait to see this one end up in court as some poor dumb person flushes their personal nest egg down the toilet with some fly by night pinball distributor. Yeah nothing will go wrong here.....LOL!

he's got scam artist written all over him!

Roulette has better odds!

used car salesman if I ever saw one!

Yeah, no. 460k of debt and they only had 7mil in revenue with a 20% profit supposedly?

At prime rate that is like 2k worth of interest payments a month, which would eat away that profit.

That’s a major red flag to me. And I’ve run my own business successfully for over a decade.

Well, they're up to $13,300 raised with 9 hours to go. They can splurge on the jjPotC Collector's Edition with that kinda dough!

I'm sure that both of them are good people and mean well, but after the stuff that's gone on the past few years with public fundraising and preordering in pinball, it doesn't really go over well, lol. That's really the core issue honestly. Maybe 5 years ago it would have been different. Seems like it might just be easier to buy one of the bigger players in the Chicago area, aren't local businesses usually valued at 3x earnings or around that? A million should buy 300k in earnings a year from a business.

Listen, until you got woke, we all were that sucker born every minute, and the fool whose money they soon had parted from us.

Go no further, those who hate to read.....

Point in case- the year 1990, the day, Sep 3rd. The occasion: My friends anual Labor Day Karaoke blow out party for friends, family, and customers (so he could write the whole thing off his taxes, smart man.)

We get there and he has a nice A- cabinet/ C- playfield Eight Ball Champ sitting in his front yard. We were mezmerized, we played it all night. We asked him where he got it and how much he paid for it. The local vending company he called said we have one machine for sale, Eight Ball Champ, cost $2000. He went down, played it, had it delivered. I looked at my brother and he looked at me and we said WTF? This thing was more than $500 bucks? Now we credit our friend for making us realize that home ownership was an achievable thing, damnation if we were going to pay that much unless it was way a newer than a 5 year old Bally vendor cast off. We did our homework, and I bought a Pinbot at auction for $750 about 6 months later, My brother picked up a Black Knight for $175, only because the backglass was scratched from corner to corner. Both machines working all the way, only needed rubber and lamps and power resistors. Now, we went down and watched the auctions for about 6 months straight learning the trade because up to this point we were players not owners, and certainly not royalty of being an actual operator (who we saw as the luckiest sons a bitches in the world cause they played pinball for fucking FREE) And we watched what the conditions were, what they went for, kept lists, took notes, bought coffee for all the workers, shook the hands of a lot of nice people. Did I get taken?, only by maybe $50 to $75 bucks because they knew where it was headed. Op to op at the time they were going for $650 to $750 just because it was an earner.

I do not begrudge the vendor who sold an EBC to my friend for a nice profit, but my friend had access to everything I did, he just didn't take advantage of taking a little time. To this day he claims his time was more valuable than the shelacking he took on that machine. Yet my brother and I both ended up with machines we love to play to this day. That EBC is long gone.

Every hobby has its noobs, and every hobby has those who don’t care. Let him sell to those who are willing to pay. That is the capitalistic thing to do here. If he rides the bubble and it pops, so will he. If they ride the gravy train and make some bank, are you against it only because you are competing with those willing to spend more on pinball than you want to for new or older machines?

Here is a quick 10 second economics course for those who may not have had it...

Price equals what the market will bear at the present supply as demand commands. Right now thats about $7000 for a NIB machine average.

You want the price to go down? Stop demanding new machines (by not buying them) and they will.

I look at the price increases as the cost of doing business to keep new pinball machine and NIB remakes of old machines coming.

https://www.crowdfunder.com/the-pinball-company

I think the bigger issue is that they have existing interests in barcades, appear to be opening more, are going after the LV Pinball Hall Of Fame, and are reportedly pursuing a second attempt at their own pinball machines after a less than successful first try, whilst only disclosing and making a pitch around retail location expansion and online sales.

Shouldn't they be covering all facets of their business and plans, especially when the things they're not talking about in the pitch for money are the ones which could potentially have the highest costs and chances of failure?

less than 30 mins left. will they meet their goal?!? doesn't show how much they raised of their $10M $8M goal and you have to donate a minimum of $100?? pretty baller move

The Pinball Company _ Pinball and home game sales are surging_ Invest in the ind (resized).jpg

That's a valuation cap of $8M for the first $500k of money pledged / invested, against what they say is their $10M valuation.

Unclear what their goal is.

They've raised $19,800 so far.

Why does my gut feeling tell me immediately that these two people cant be trusted? Kind of funny how he openly admits to shady business practices like its no big deal.

80% of sales these days are Internet Based
does Amazon have retail outlets everywhere?

Wasn't this the guy who was going to Buy Pinball Life and Spooky and take over the world of Pinball Manufacture?

The guy is insane. I bet he is so blinded by his own ego that he does not even realize how bad this whole thing looks on his company.

Wasn't the whole thing started with FIL money from the start?

Amazon is currently adding retail outlets, via high-tech, no-checker places and through their purchase of Whole Foods. Very strategic.

This wasn’t the guy who I had heard wanted to buy pinball life and spooky.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I don't see the manufacturer specifically listed for The Jetson's like with Metallica. I see the logo for Spooky Pinball, is this maybe because it is simply a top seller?

Screenshot 2018-11-16 at 8.31.11 AM - Edited.png

Screenshot 2018-11-16 at 8.31.37 AM - Edited.png

arh must have been the deeproot guy

Well,I spent $100 to Tom Arnalds PHOF in Vegas,wtf,U never know)>(

If I were investing I'd want something more tangible than reviewed financial statements. Reviewed does not mean audited and scope is raised very high. I would want to see copies of the prior tax returns which have been signed under perjury by a CPA. I'd also be curious on the R&D costs that are reported for prior years for pinball development.

Generally equity raises of this size would require audited financials.

But... I'm not investing... Plenty of places to get a good ROI these days. Good luck to others.

And something of only 100 of a supposed 300 game run of Jetson.

As did I, because Tim has a proven track record. He’s also been on the scene a long time and is well known.

The countdown was until the campaign launched. It does not end until May. The amount of “fake news” in this post is hilarious. I just posted a new thread with my comments. All this negativity reminds me of when I started this company 12 years ago. I need to print this thread and put it in an envelope labeled “Do Not Open until 2028”. We appreciate all the support. Go Pinball!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-pinball-company-wefunder-comments#post-4693230

What is your net profit ? 16-17 ?

I am not sure what their business model even is. Is it:

a. museum (Chicago HoF)
b. distributor
c. retail sales/outlet
d. barcades/arcades
e. pinball repair
f. pinball manufacturer (Jetsons, Scooby Doo)
g. other
h. all of the above

The ads says they waste money by paying locals 500$ for set up, they want to expand to lower this cost on this issue . But after that he says they will give free white glove set up.
I am confused on the potential for profit in that case

All these guys need to do now for success is hire Otaku as company CEO.

Add stay out of areas prone to flooding.

I read the page and I looked at the financial info, skinny as it was.

I'm trying to understand what the business model wants to be. As near as I can, they are a pinball repair shop and reseller / retailer. They are suggesting that the business should be expanded to be closer to their customers.

There are many, many questions I'd ask.

But to me, they appear to be a successful game store of sorts. There are a few of those in PA. I view them as one off businesses. Successful, yes. But scaleable? I don't think so. The market we are playing in simply isn't big enough, it's boutique.

A wonderful place for dedicated, small business owners to do well. But not something that, in my opinion, has a ton of room for organic growth that warrants 3rd party investors.

I wish them success and they certainly seem good at running their store. But too many questions, for that reason... I'm out.

Good point.

He is also on the record about his stances on pinball related issues. Supporting the phof is a good thing IMO.

Second that!

Appreciate the honesty in their expo talk.

Even when you're honest about being a snake, you're still a snake.

All I know is there is major talk of them making a Scooby Doo machine for their next one, if that is so, they got $5,999 from my pocket!!!!!! I will deposit as soon as the pics are shown.

Scooby doo would interest me, too.

The original.