Stock in Ugobe

[DinoFun]

Ugobe........

First Hatch Owners and others that have ordered Pleo are very excited waiting for Pleos arrival. Just thinking, as Ugobe is a new company, it would be great to offer stock options for purchase in the company, as this would drive in new money to further your company goals and dreams to create "New Life Forms" and give people even more opportunities to be involved with Ugobe.

The future is bright and endless!!!!!

;)

[Primus]

ugobe is a privately held company. I doubt they would go public any time soon. Although it would be a great way to drum up some quick cash.

[amjoie]

ugobe is a privately held company. I doubt they would go public any time soon. Although it would be a great way to drum up some quick cash.

And lose control ....

Publicly traded companies have a responsibility to their share holders to "make them money." The share holders have the responsibility of oversight, to make sure the company's CEOs are running the company in the most efficient way possible, facilitating the flow of money to the shareholders. If the shareholders do not like the way the CEOs are running things, the shareholders can take over the company and appoint new CEOs.

So the control of the company is in the hands of those shareholders who own (or wield the vote) of the bulk of the stock. The company is no longer owned by the founder of the company. It is owned by whoever holds the most stock.

The founder could always offer such a small percentage of stock to the public that the founder always had full control. But no one is going to buy stock under those conditions. And there are probably laws governing specific stock percentages, anyway.

Technically, if you want to stay private, but still generate funding, you do something similar. You ask angels (private investors) to help you, in return for a specified payback of some kind. The difference being, they have no explicit oversight and they have no vote in the decisions made by the company. In short, they generally have no control, so the risk is much greater that they may lose their investment.

[Primus]

Right. And UGOBE has already gone the route of venture capitalists. If Pleo is a huge success I have a feeling we will see a buyout or an IPO.

[pleoWhisperer]

Well, buy pre-ordering your pleo, in a sense you have bought stock in the company. ;)

[Amsera]

no, you've invested only in your pleo - not the future development of the company. They have to sell quite a few pleos to make ends meet on this first venture. I believe the magic number for IPO is 50% of company holdings in value of the stock avail for purchase. I would love to be in on the investment, but you have to have about 10 mil sitting quietly in a readily accessible account inorder to do so right now.
The beauty and disadvantage of stock holders is that they do impact the direction of a company.
For now, we have the pleoworld website to impact where we would like to see things go - so be vocal folks (but polite)
So far so good!