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From:	elventear@***********.net.pe (Pepe Barbe)
Subject:	Advice: Shadowrunners Entrepreneurs
Date:	Wed, 22 Jan 2003 00:31:28 -0500

Message no. 1 Hi all,

Last session we ended the introducing campaign for my players' PCs into the
Shadowrunning world. In the end they got screwed up a lot, I took away most
of their toys; also I gave them a lot of money in compensation and I in the
end I think it was pretty much leveled up.

Now that my players, ex-zaibatsu workers, are left out in the cold world of
the streets instead of the comfy and secure world of the corps they are
planning to do something with the money. They are thinking about buying
some kind of business to use it as laundering scheme, mascarade for their
works and also getting some profit out of it. They've been toying about
getting a Bar somewhere. Also maybe getting a host to do some information
smuggling and especulation.

Could you guys give some advice about anything of these situation? How to
handle the profits of losses of the business. And any other nice ideas you
may come up with?

Thanks in advance,
Pepe

From:	mancini@******.com (Steve Mancini)
Subject:	Advice: Shadowrunners Entrepreneurs
Date:	Tue, 21 Jan 2003 22:10:20 -0800 (PST)

Message no. 2 > works and also getting some profit out of it. They've been toying about
> getting a Bar somewhere. Also maybe getting a host to do some information
> smuggling and especulation.
>
> Could you guys give some advice about anything of these situation? How to
> handle the profits of losses of the business. And any other nice ideas you
> may come up with?

Lesse..

1. Finance Skill? Establish some number of successes per virtual month
to make a profit - sorta like selling stolen gear. Maybe figure out
a % per success. It would depend on the business for details.

2. Protection. Nice new business.. have they bought protection from
the local Mafia/Triad/Tong/Yak insurance company?

3. How about the cops? Are they ball busters in the neighborhood?
Would the cops maybe do a check on their licenses, their SINS?

4. Bars are great (cliche) operations - what is the average lifespan
of a bar? Do they want to be nouveau popular? That cute elf among
them might not be able to say no to the local barfly elites who
can make/break a bar's reputation.

Have fun...

Da Minotaur

From:	shadowrun@********.net (Augustus)
Subject:	Advice: Shadowrunners Entrepreneurs
Date:	Wed, 22 Jan 2003 00:26:09 -0800

Message no. 3 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Pepe Barbe" <elventear@***********.net.pe>
>
> They are thinking about buying
> some kind of business to use it as laundering scheme, mascarade for their
> works and also getting some profit out of it. They've been toying about
> getting a Bar somewhere. Also maybe getting a host to do some information
> smuggling and especulation.
>
> Could you guys give some advice about anything of these situation? How to
> handle the profits of losses of the business. And any other nice ideas you
> may come up with?

The general thought on investing in a business venture is that it should
take 2-3 years to return on itself
(ie: a business that makes about $100K a year will usually sell for
$250-350K barring any unusual circumstances)

Since this is a fictional universe and the characters involved are going to
tie it into illegal activities and money laundering, you can figure it will
go alot faster.

Some thoughts:
- Deal with income from the bar in the longest terms possible... don't tell
the PCs daily what the bar made... or even once a week. At a minimum deal
with it on a monthly basis or even go into 'business quarters'. This'll
save you alot of headache in the long.
- If the business is "too profitable" there are always things you can do...
accidents, crooked cops or health inspectors, fines for noise voilations,
licenses to buy, etc... or just a few bad days... not to mention the
accountant could one day run off with the money...
- Can always bring in organized crime... they might want a cut of the
business, want them to carry their slot machines and pool tables, want to
supply all linens and glassware, wants them to buy food from certain
companies, wants them to hire certain people
- The bar should turn some kind of profit, but if it was super profitable
and made millions... then everybody would own bars. Typically the bar
should generate enough income to pay for its expenses, its staff and then
leave a few bucks for reinvestment into the bar (to buy better lights,
better sound system, etc) and then on top of all that maybe return $2-10K
per month in profit for the owner(s) (before tax)

Thoughts from past experience:
- Players always want these things to be big money makers... in reality they
shouldn't be. Other than time "in the hospital" alot of the stuff the PCs
do is on a day to day scale... businesses should run on a bigger scale.
Heck, if the bar takes 2-3 years to return a profit, the game may not even
be going on that long (depends on how much downtime your groups have between
runs, etc)

- If you don't give the PCs buckets of cash, they get frustrated... feeling
that you are just acting like "that" to keep them from making any profit...
its worse if you actually do anything bad to the business (burn it down,
have it robbed, have the mob move in), then they tend feel that you are
picking on them and turning it into a money pit

- Definitly don't deal with the bar on a daily basis... and don't try to set
it into some kind of die roll formula. Come up with the figures yourself
based on what you think should work for your campaign. Dealing with the bar
on a day-to-day basis can lead to alot of headaches, alot of bookeeping in
your game and you might end up giving out more money than you expect in the
long run (unless you keep tabs on everything you give them, you might lose
track of what you did and it could add up fast)

- Don't make it about numbers... don't make the PCs keep a balance sheet or
fire up Excel or something to keep track of expenses, etc... they don't need
to know the cost of a keg and then how much they make off it... and how much
they are paying X, Y and Z per hour... keep the numbers broad and fuzzy...

Thats about it

Clint

From:	renouf@********.com (Marc Renouf)
Subject:	Advice: Shadowrunners Entrepreneurs
Date:	Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:21:10 -0500 (EST)

Message no. 4 On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Pepe Barbe wrote:

> Now that my players, ex-zaibatsu workers, are left out in the cold world of
> the streets instead of the comfy and secure world of the corps they are
> planning to do something with the money. They are thinking about buying
> some kind of business to use it as laundering scheme, mascarade for their
> works and also getting some profit out of it. They've been toying about
> getting a Bar somewhere. Also maybe getting a host to do some information
> smuggling and especulation.

A bar is cool. I've had players do this kind of thing before, all
with varying degrees of failure or success (largely based on how
realistic their expectations were). My last group of players decided to
go upscale and start their own "security" company. As far as profit went
it was a money-losing proposition (the rent on their building alone was
brutal), but it gave them just enough legitimacy to make getting permits
for borderline legal equipment easier. It proved problematic once
the "cover" was blown, however, as once the authorities suspicion fell on
one of the runners, the others were tied to him through their mutual
employment with the front company. That kind of investigative attention
proved somewhat uncomfortable for them.

> Could you guys give some advice about anything of these situation? How to
> handle the profits of losses of the business.

This is tough. As someone else (Clint, I think) has already
stated, business models mature over the course of years and decades, not
days or months. A lot also depends on the type of business they are
starting up.
For instance, starting a bar in a low-life, run down area of town
will make less money than a high-end, ritzy nightclub situated in a more
affluent part of town. It's simply a matter of supply and demand. Joe
Constructionworker isn't going to want to spend 40 nuyen a pop for a beer,
but Broker Jim isn't going to think twice about dropping that for a drink.
Jim's not paying for the alcohol, he's paying for the ambience. Whereas
Joe just wants to hang with his buddies, drink away his woes, and maybe
shoot a game of pool.
That brings us to the intrinsic problem with service businesses:
you need paying customers to make it work. Before you (as GM) can figure
out how much a business can reasonably make, you need to look at the
clientele and the product offered.
Further, you need to look at the location of the business. Trying
to put a dive bar in a ritzy neighborhood isn't going to fly. Similarly,
putting an ultra-chic nightclub in the Barrens is probably a no-go as
well. Even if you cater to the rich crowd looking to go slumming, you
still have your work cut out for you.
Once you have a location in mind, there's another factor to
consider as well. Namely, if there's a demand for a nightclub or bar in
this area, chances are someone has already filled it. That means that you
are opening your bar in an area where there's already competition. How do
you get people to come to your bar and not O'Leary's down the street
(where they've been going for the last 12 years)? And if the competition
is a client of organized crime, expect things to get ugly.
But even if your competition isn't playing dirty, you still need
to attract customers. There are basically two ways of doing that: value
and hype. Value us easy; offer your customers a good product for a low
fee. But oops, fee is directly tied to profit. The more value for your
customer, the less profit for you. The less profit, the more you need to
survive on volume. And there are only so many bar-flies out there.
Hype works too, though it tends to apply more to nightclubs than
bars (dollar drafts of synthahol are tough to hype). The way new
nightclubs attract customers is usually with a gimmick. Better
dancefloor, better lights, better sound system. The one that cracks me up
is the current real-world fad of an "oxygen bar." Yup, that's right,
after dancing yourself silly, you can strut up to the "oxygen bar" and pay
some of your hard-earned cash for a hit of pure, chilled, oxygen. What a
racket. But it's all the rage.
And that's the thing - how do your players plan to have their
establishment become "all the rage?" How do you know which fad will be
huge (the oxygen bar) and which one will be a cheesy curiosity gimmick
that doesn't last (table-to-table phones and cameras)? Being fashionable
is great, but it relies on the whim of the public to catch interested
clientele and word-of-mouth to grow that into a sizeable number of paying
customers.
And hype only works for so long. Look how frequently nightclubs
in places like Manhattan are total hotspots one season and virtually empty
the next. There's a nightclub in Detroit that has gone through 4
different make-overs in the roughly 10 years I've lived in the area. I
think the same people owned it for three of those make-overs, but the fact
remains that they basically sunk huge amounts of cash into the place,
completely remodeling it every few years in order to stay "fresh."
Which brings me to my last caveat: cash. Businesses have
expenses. In some cases, they're absurdly high. A liquor license alone
can be a daunting expense in many jurisdictions. But all the other stupid
stuff (rent, utilities, furniture, security, advertisement, etc) costs
money, not to mention the alcohol itself. And anything over the
bare minimum is going to be even more expensive (Bud Light on tap is one
thing, Guinness on tap is quite another).
So all this stuff costs money, and that money has to come from
somewhere. In other words, there needs to be some kind of accountability.
Businesses are monitored fairly closely. Even if you pay your taxes on
time and in full, expect to be audited. Then the IRS is going to want to
know where all the money came from and where it's going. Most businesses
are started with a loan, but you players already have cash. Where did
they get it? How are they going to explain it to their auditor when he
looks at their personal income tax statements, looks at their rent and
business expenses, weighs them against their outstanding business loans
and comes up with 400 grand that's unaccounted for?
Actually, they're better off borrowing money to start the
business, then using the business to launder their original money a little
bit at a time.

Speaking of money laundering, one little facet of it that most
people don't seem to grasp is that well-laundered money results in paying
taxes - lots of taxes. That's the whole point: it's money that is for all
intents and purposes "legally obtained." So if you are using a bar as a
front for laundering money by inflating your earnings, remember that you
pay taxes based on your earnings. In other words, there are costs
associated with laundering money, chief of which is to the government.
It's not magic. It doesn't suddenly transform a big whack of ill-gotten
gains into magic money that you can spend to your heart's content without
fear of attracting attention to yourself. Think of it like fence fees.
Oh, and did I mention that all this stuff requires a SIN? Fake is
fine, but it needs to be ironclad enough to stand up to an IRS audit.

> And any other nice ideas you may come up with?

Maybe it's just my players, but every time I run a game they tend
to become involved in the stock market. They use it as a legal way to
store their cash supply and to keep tabs on the movements of various
corporations. And every once in a while they make a buck or two. :)
They also speculate in foreign currency (though usually because it gives
them emergency cash in other countries should the need arise). As a
result, I had to come up with a way to track stock price fluctuations. I
based it on the table for tracking currency exchange rates (originally
published in the Denver Sourcebook), but made it a touch more volatile to
reflect the nature of the stock market. Basically, once a month (game
time) when lifestyle costs come due I also generate the values for new
stocks and exchange rates, as well as any SOTA advances. Take care of all
the bookkeeping stuff in one go.
It's kind of funny because it has provided impetus for runs on
several occasions. "Dude, we need to take a run, preferably something
that hurts Mitsuhama's Heavy Industry business. They're taking market
share away from SK like a mother and my SK stock is tanking in a bad, bad
way." Similarly, it often provides ideas for me as a GM. "Hmmm, Ares
stock has gone up dramatically the last few months. Why, and what
opportunities for runs might it entail." That way, there's a bit of a
random element to the jockeying of various corporations that brings more
verisimilitude to the campaign (because it's not just planned or GM fiat).

If you're curious about the stock or foreign currency stuff, let
me know and I'll explain it in greater detail.

Marc Renouf (ShadowRN GridSec - "Bad Cop" Division)

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