It's not really about intelligence. I struggle with crap all the time. It's about working within your skills and knowing your limits. And having experience to know what time frames are feasible or not. And - as Steve Jobs would always say - hiring and listening to people smarter than you are.

On that last note. You've got all sorts of feedback here. Not saying they're smarter but the breadth of skills is very wide, much wider than yours alone.

Everyone is telling you this is unrealistic. We aren't trying to shit on your dreams, we're trying to guide you away from disappointment.

Also seriously. Stop using the term "Whales" Its a synonym for "rich sucker" Again, how many people have to tell you the same thing before you think "Hm, maybe they're right?"

That's not what David Fix told him!

So John do you know why you have contracts ? Well, its so when your contractor fails to deliver what you thought they were supposed to deliver, you aren't left holding the bag and forced to declare bankruptcy. Contracts are NEVER needed when things go well. They are ALWAYS needed when the wheels come off the bus.

Do you think your investors are going to go after your art person, game layout, board designer, or assembly engineer when you deliver Zidware 3.0 in 6 months and your customer goes WTF ? Nope, they are coming after you.

At that point I think your only defense in court is going to be "But your honor, I made it clear on pinside that I have no idea what I am doing and they gave me money anyway"

Maybe that is the purpose of the thread. Your lawyer will pick thru these last 200 posts and declare "Oh my god how could anyone be so dumb to invest in this after reading that thread". You got to play around as a pseudo pinball company for 6 months, your customer gets nothing, but you aren't liable because nobody in their right mind should have ever invested in this.

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Point, counterpoint. I was told the same about my business when I trying to get first opened as well. Big difference is I went and signed my life away with collateral(my home, my pinball collection, my vehicles) and got it done my way and all the naysayers went silent. I now have a business and property valued at north of $2.5M . I put my own skin in the game and made it work.

John has no clue as to that is how the real world works.

That's one thing I learned from the jpop fiasco - I'll never be part of something again when that person has no skin in the game.

That’s a pretty broad statement that John has no clue how the world works since you really don’t know that just because you think that you do.

Congrats on your success btw.

This could be the launching pad for John and his pinball future!

Have fun with it and prove all the naysayers wrong.

George Foreman, Walt Disney, Elton John and multitude of famous successful people filed bankruptcy before. No biggie

And Don’t let ‘em rain on your parade John.

was it even a bigger mistake not to sell PINS at $85?
now its $21.
didnt you say you had/controlled ~50,000 shares at one time?

Not really at all. I sold on the way down. Not at $85 but made a nice profit. Tough to time the peak or buy at the trough.

FANG, DVN, MSFT, AAPL, GOOGL etc.

Now Energy was an easy one when you go to war on fossil fuels. Huge Divs etc

Despite that ride up, lost several “whales” in the short term on the way down with FANG and DVN. Do I wish I would have sold FANG at $160? Sure, but hope to get the chance again.

Yesterday was a monster day. Up several “whales”. Some days it goes in the other direction. That’s life

Let’s see, I do wish I would have sold out of growth sooner and made more money. Maybe you can let me know when to buy back in next time?

What else would you like to know?

Oh yeah, my worst trade of the year was buying META BEFORE 1st qtr earnings were announced. Then the beat down happened and continued since. I sold out right away but it was bad.

I’ll list some other bad trades if it would make you feel better The stock market is at times a humbling place to be, failure is a routine part of it short term. Long term? Just the opposite.

Bottom line I guess, pinball? Frolic would probably know how much money we have made on all the Stern LEs purchased over the years when Kman was laughing at us.

Oh yeah, here’s another idiot move. I bought a TS4 CE.

TPB could be another “monster” winner!

yosemite sam shows how to get it done right.

Lets see been working on pinball most of my life, & doing pinball projects. I have a good understanding of how business works over the years dealing with different rights enforcers. People here well know their names over the years. Yes I went bankrupt after doing playfields shipped for $500 US for the last 7 years. Guess that is why the average price now is almost double that. Previously almost 15 years ago as a pioneer of uv flatbed inkjet production for playfield restorations I took serious wrath & abuse over trying to use that technology. Guess what I was right & most of the pinball experts were proven wrong! Continued on with backglass & playfield production when people were still going on that NO you must screen each color. Not a art or color expert which there seems like a number are never happy with what ever you do.

I got my timelines that have been clearly laid out. Smart people already know 1-3 is way easier to do. 10 will be a big hurtle to do. So please keep trying to bring this project down even though you have ZERO interest in it. If I have 1 or 3 whales I will be very happy with that.

David Fix never said the word WHALE. I hope he brings it up on a future podcast. Maybe his exact response will finally be heard by people that cannot read! Do not know how many times I have to continue to say it here. Is it 3 or more times already. It was another American Expert!

no I do not want to wonder the streets looking for returnable deposits on cans for 5 cents.

This alone proves you just want someone to give you a $100000. If you really want to make this happen, go out there get that cash and make it happen. Go get those cans, show your investor that you want this that you're invested in this, that you care.

Thing is, You don't it's a scam.

So i got this in my FB feed yesterday. I’m like why the eff would this come up. Then I remembered i read this thread and it all makes sense…. FB def tracking my activity

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The problem with all your other projects is that you announce them, took playfields/money without knowing exactly HOW to do those processes, and did not have it perfected. The first direct ink process with Space Shuttle/Sorcerer had people send you their pfs, you sanded them with a hand sander, sealed and white layered, then the print shop printed the art on it. If there was a misalignment or art didn't fill a dip you sanded the pfs and tried again. Then when it did work you sent some people back someone else's pf, some with original under pf damage, stripped holes etc. Your timelines for completing/perfecting the process slipped YEARS, one of the customers ended up having to fix the SS art file, and the Sorcerer color was too dark. When it DID all work and people got good enough pfs they DID look good, but your whole production process was a crap shoot.

The Seawitch/Stargazer playfield repro was basically a repeat of the above, made promises, took money, and then had to create/perfect the process. Your DI backglass production looked GREAT, but that was a lot simpler as someone sent you a scan, you bought glass, had the printer print it up, and it was out the door. Again, pf timelines slipped years, and in the middle of this you decided to become a Stern dealer, got/bought 10 or 20 new games, and planned to open an arcade (see tv news story). It seemed the timing was bad and looked like that's where the pf money went, because you were doing more one-off pfs for new buyers while the original pre-paid supporters were still waiting for their pfs. You stated that 50-ish of each pf was pre-ordered, but when you started to get near the end you said you had made 200-ish (?) Stargazers/Seawitches, but still had 30-40 pre-paids waiting on pfs. Now again, when the pfs got to buyers they looked GREAT, and the fact that YOU glued ALL the inserts on all the pfs and did a great job is prob'ly what drove you insane.

You admitted many times that your timeline estimates were always way off, and I think obviously you're doing that again here. All the smart people are giving you good advice, and you should do a reset on TPB and do things the right way to avoid all the headaches you've suffered through before. And make backglasses again! That Iron Maiden looked awesome.

MM

Seems like this guy knows John and his business practice very well.

John has no clue what hes doing.

Wow...Bowden is the Whale Guy?!

So you are saying there’s a chance!

We just saw Joey Chestnut take down 67 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Anything is possible.

Where is Whysnow when we need him!!

Wow I must of did something over the last 15 years before I sold out the business to look after the last of the prepaid guys. Somehow you forgot about my fulltime job of 25 years working 6 days a week + OT. Just the minor stuff like Pinball Parts are hard to manufacturer. Guess a bunch of people that have no interest know better than some of us that try to do something.

No John, a bunch of people that have no interest, but have actually done something and run successful businesses ourselves do know better than you do. You just choose to call all of us naysayers, and ignore your own past history when predicting your future unbridled success.

Multiple people that have built pinball machines from scratch have told you your timeline is way too short. Multiple people who have had to budget this process have told you that with a need to hire multiple contractors your dollar amount is way too low. Multiple people who have dealt with you before have reminded you how your predictions on delivery were way way off due to underestimating the complexity of what you were undertaking. And finally you have yet to lay out any clear rationale why the outcome of your project will end up anywhere other than where JPOP landed And the reason you can’t do that is there is almost nothing to back up the idea that this time it will be different.

No scam has been committed yet, but once you start spending other peoples money and provide them less than what they think they paid for, watch out.

Find $5K yourself, talk to your friends to help you build a one of a kind on the cheap to show what is possible, come back in a year and show us where you are. Lay out the team who is helping to convince that indeed this time it is different.

You just want to cut all the corners here, even though you will be certain to find out that’s not really possible when manufacturing games. And with the debacle you went thru with playfields, why you shouldn’t already know that is a head scratcher.

I once told my friend that I wanted to go out and raise $2M to start my business. He told me that was a terrible idea and that I needed to put in the hard sweat equity to get the job done myself snx slowly build up. 5 years later he was right and I am still in business because I followed the advice of someone who had more experience than me.

If we truly wanted you to fail we would just egg you on and eat popcorn while the debacle unfolds over the next year. We are bashing on you so hard because we don’t want you to fail and we are tired of watching the same script unfold again and again. But at this point it seems to make little difference because your mind is made up.

FWIW I always wanted to get a backglass or two from you, but couldn't bring myself to send you money knowing other people were still waiting years for paid product from you.

Having a 27 days a week job with 84 hours overtime is reason #1 you shouldn't have taken on the burden of either of those products without having the process perfected or cured stock on the shelf. You seem to have a 'Pinball Munchausen Syndrome' in that you are addicted to the showmanship of making product announcements like a Gary Stern or Jersey Jack, but then have excuses that delayed/derailed/died your production. Selling 'the business' to make good on 8-year old prepaids is not something you put on a resume.

Despite not being able to finish the pre-paid pfs, you were ready to start new endeavors in the past year as follows.....
- making repro playfield plastics for games
- making other new repro playfields
- making repro classic Bally & Stern coin doors and drop target banks
- offering to do playfield swaps for $
- offering to be a consultant on repro playfield production for any 'manufacture or playfield producer'
- offering to 'build games for international customers in Europe or Australia to have available to USA shows'

Also made some unique Pinside posts such as.....
- posting that Dutch Pinball should 'make whole' all the pre-paid Early Achievers
- demanding that Haggis provide video of parts and employees to prove they actually had Fathom in production, despite posting he had 'no interest' in buying one
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jaws-by-haggis-pinball?tu=greatwichjohn

The fact that he is 'biz verified' by Pinside might be a concern for the site.

Bingo...taking preorder money is almost always a sign of crappy management skills on projects like this. It creates more headaches and heartburn than it is worth. From day one, I have refused to take pre-order money on ramp projects I announce because I think it's wrong. I won't let a customer pay until I have finished products on the shelf and ready to ship. Why? If the project takes longer than expected (because I too, have a day job with regular OT) then it isn't really a big deal because I owe people nothing. I front the money for making tooling, molds, raw material, etc because that's what real companies do. Taking money from customer A to fill customer B's order is a fools errand, and you will soon be in a hole you can't dig out of. I sleep a lot better every night knowing I don't have someone elses money in my pocket while they have no parts from me.

On something like a backglass, if you can't afford to have half a dozen printed up front, you probably shouldn't be taking something like this on. If you are using a subcontractor, this is even easier as you aren't the one carrying the up front costs of the machinery and raw materials...you're the middle man. You sell the half a dozen at a profit, rinse and repeat with a larger order (because you made some profit on the first 6, right?) until demand is met.

You want 10k a a game up front from mini-customers because you can't afford to front the money yourself. What happens if your costs run over on the first game? Do you go back to the well and ask for more money? Or do you skimp on mini whale games 2 and 3? What if your games are not done for TPF? What is your contingency plan? What makes you think you can take a project 10x more complex than a blank playfield or a backglass and complete it in a time frame that the professionals have deemed overly optimistic at best?

I’d like to point out to everyone that John has no interest in what you’re saying and hasn’t shifted from his fantasy world view one iota despite two threads.

So, stop trying to be rational and logical, this isn’t the place for it. I think Rarehero has the right idea. At least it’s entertaining.

Hah I knew the dates were either a misguided attempt at generating "fomo" or related to the date he has to pay people for the bankruptcy.

Thing is you aren't trying to do anything but have someone to give you a $100000 for no good reason.

Also, You didn't even attempt to defend or refute anything that gentlemen a couple post up stated about you and your big business practice. That says a lot.

Here is the facts, believe what you want:

Despite not being able to finish the pre-paid pfs, you were ready to start new endeavors in the past year as follows.....

- making repro playfield plastics for games
Said it could be done, but none ever done. Contractor sign shop that did my cnc work had a laser cutter same as CPR

- making other new repro playfields
Never got the chance to move forward on that one. The finished art never seemed to be done. I also was going to do work for PPS, but Rick came up empty. Wanted to start doing em games no one wanted to do.

- making repro classic Bally & Stern coin doors and drop target banks
Yes I looked into it, did not move forward since others said they were going to do it. Provided Marco Specialties with further cad info from a guy who did not want the hassle of dealing with people for drop targets.

- offering to do playfield swaps for $
Yes doing a few now that I am retired. Keeps me in shape for future builds.

- offering to be a consultant on repro playfield production for any 'manufacture or playfield producer'
Still here to help out those in the industry or interested in joining it. Still give out free production advice here for anyone interested.

- offering to 'build games for international customers in Europe or Australia to have available to USA shows'
Yes I did & zero interest.

Feel free to post your stuff here like this & I may respond to it. The new deadline for anyone interested in the TPB project is August 1, 2022

I will say it again: going through my personal bankruptcy since November 1, 2021. It is a minimum 2 year process. No money is going towards my personal bankruptcy, & any funds coming into the project will go to a independent agent (NOT ME). In Canada the first thing they do is meet with the creditors owed, mine was mostly very high interest credit cards of about $33k US which some with minimum payments would take 100+ years to pay off. Just turned 58, support myself & my wife on my pension of about $23k US.

My company Great Pinball Limited ended, & did not go through bankruptcy. I made sure to finally fulfil any customers still waiting on a Seawitch playfields with my products that I made by Fantastic Pinball. Over all the 15 years no contractor was owed money. I paid for their mistakes when shit happened. Hundreds of playfields were made & the early days I did way too many free restorations which cost me way too much personal money.

Thanks to all my past customers who were mostly understanding with years of delays due to production problems, work constraints, health issues, & trying to have a personal life.

You must have hit send post before finishing this last post. No worries, I’m here to help.

“It is after further personal reflection on all these difficulties I have experienced previously that I now see it is not a great idea to proceed forward with TPB as planned in its current incarnation. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Do be determined since the project might still die. The next stage is getting the approval of a TPB prototype. Could be the only 1 Big whale pimped out version, or up to 10 mini whales. We will soon find out what the status is. So far there is interest in a few $10k US games, so the project is a go at this stage. Proved there is interest, & interested buyers for one.

No one has changed my mind, & still on track.

Is "broken record" still a forum violation?

So the one pin would be developed with a higher BOM than if the 10 games were built, right? You have set a deadline in 9 mo and a price of $100k or $10k. The design will be done differently and with subcontractor support and a higher BOM for the whale. Any whale with a brain is going to ask you to build him 10 mini-whale games, so plan on building 10 games. That would automatically mean you won’t be using higher BOM or Subcontractors. Do I think GWJ can buy a license for TPB, design and code a FUN game, build ten copies of game, fix bugs and polish code and have them ready in 9 months? 100% sure he can’t. It doesn’t count if GWJ were to produce a steaming pos just to get credit for producing them. No, the point is why design a game if it won’t be the best it can be nor as fun as a Stern premium? GWJ’s better plan is to suck down $3,650 of beer over the next twelve months, while designing and building a home-brew TPB on his own dime. Bring it to TPF and get feedback. Only then do you know what the game is going to be like and THEN open up order banks and collect deposits for 10 games. You should be able to build and sell between 0 and 10 games, depending on how you did.

You actually hooked a sucker for this? Who? Iceman?

Get the timeline correct: 6 months, September 2022 - March 1, 2023 for Texas, SXSW & TPF
Build: 1 only $100k US pimped out pin, or 1-10 mini whale $10k US

Ben: Mini Whales are out there, & I am not going to announce them. The country is the only thing people will see, & only 10 days left. I have a feeling I might have to build 10, but hoping it is only 3.

I see your point and it is valid. You’ll have six months from Sep 1. You’ve also reminded me that you don’t need to build all ten games, you could easily build 2-3 if that was your number of orders on Sep 1.

That reminds me of something. So if the timeframe to build 1-10 games is the same, you must be building all games at the same time, right? You’ll have 10 (whatever number) cabinets and same number of playfields etc. All ten games would be finished at the same time. Otherwise, I can’t see how 10 could be built sequentially, in nine months.

The timeline is there. Deadline to join in with the pod is August 1. They would be built as a group up to 3 or 4 at a time, or less at a time in the shop. Which is not very big. Cabinets will be built & finished in my area. Might be Fast Pinball for electronics. 6 month build timeline. There will be only 1 pinball machine available per person in the group of mini whales, & only 1 Big Whale pin if the right person is found.

First joke call from someone in Chicago metropolitan 312, No I do not need toilet paper!
Early morning in bed from 858: The 858 area code, which went into use in 1999, extends north from the San Diego beach communities into La Jolla, Del Mar and Solana Beach, and inland to Rancho Santa Fe, Rancho Bernardo and Poway.

Again Wrong!

?

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Although condemning prank calling … this thread could get real interesting if you keep posting some of the calls received or your responses. The above is funny as hell already.

BTW, did we see you at Pintastic in the JJP video? Name given was John Greatwich. If so you didn’t appear crazy at all to me. Maybe even a nice guy. But I didn’t hear a Canadian accent, nor see any beers around you, nor hear the term whale once. So probably not, right?

How many times do we all have to say it here, stop with the whole "looking for a whale" song and dance???? And you have the nerve to be upset about David Fix???

But yes, here is your quote:

"Yes I talked with a knowledgeable person at the show along with David Fix. Told me the way to go is the rich people that usually do not post here, but see what is going on. People know that I can get numerous pinball pieces done, & I can get a fully working game done. $100k US is a reasonable goal for a one of a kind licensed pinball machine. If it moves into production it will be a win for those involved."

Rich people are rich because they are not stupid with their money if they had to earn it on the way up. You are looking for stupid rich, someone who is grossly overpaid(athletes, actors, musicians and drug dealers), inherited their money, got lucky in the stock market or won the lottery.

Your knowledgeable person and David Fix gave you advice that you are not completely comprehending.

Here is another one of your quotes:

"A licensed theme has a better chance at getting picked up for production, or to be a one of a kind trophy to a whale investor. Yes my personal bankruptcy is public knowledge, along with my pension of $23k US for my wife & I. Still enjoy working on many games, & I own none after having hundreds. My life is much better working less, & selling off my parts business."

You are a walking contradiction. You say here your life is SO much better working less & selling off your parts business. If you were to find a donkey donor is the new machine going to build itself? Sticking to your timeline you had better be prepared for 16 hour days, 7 days a week. I really don't think you have a clue as to what is really involved......pinball is hard.

Might know Jacks voice if he calls. Still funny how they still try to disguise the voice.

Gee, if that doesn't make any mini donk investor feel real good. I will build 10, but I only really want to build three.

Oh boy.....

This is a real game of pin the whale on the donkey.

Who is the American Pinball expert who started this Whale revolution ?!

I would rather just build the one & only super pimped out $100k US version. At least I could hire pro help from pinball past for design & art.

^^^ haha