Maybe they were really "talent first" in the beginning but that's what led to low profits in the first place?

>>102737291 (OP)
You're going to hate me for saying this, but it was because they hated unicorns and thought they could be rich without their money.

>>102737291 (OP)
Vtubers are glorified marketing mascots, and Vshojo made terrible business deals in pushing products.

spent too much money paying /vt/ shills

>>102737291 (OP)
Because they spent money but never made money. It's really that simple. They had no revenue streams coming in to match the spending it took to make it look like they were a real company.

>>102737371
fucking kek, repeat after me, anon: Unicorns and Homobeggars are basement dwellers lanwhales, most of them have little to no money.

>>102737691
cope

>>102737291 (OP)
Because the cut they took wasn't enough to pay for their employees and marketing.
Simple as. T
he individual talents will now have to pay more out their own pocket if they want people to handle their sponsorships, merch, legal, marketing, communications, etc for them.
Not to mention whoever vshojo was paying to DMCA every instance of THAT ironmouse clip off the internet. They were actually doing a good job at hiding it.

>>102737291 (OP)
>connor cucks
>zentreya the tranny

>>102737291 (OP)
same reason as idol corp, which is weird that we saw them going down and never suspected a thing about vshojo who were practically the same

>>102737718
cope

>>102737291 (OP)
Gunrun could just nepohire already established indies and let the money naturally flow in

But nah he needs to be "better than Hololive" by commissioning new models, spamming MVs, throwing ads in Shibuya, hosting a concert and on top of that, forming a new branch in Japan which will double the employee cost. As a result, the operational cost blew up and there is no way the policy of 100% cut in revenue can make up for it

>>102737291 (OP)
If you want to be talent first don't have shit talents

>>102737804
>no u
Nigga, VShojo is dead, you're not going to win this argument.

>>102737291 (OP)
They spent money on useless Tokyo station ads in english, expensive parties and other pointless shit.
The model itself is not impossible to work with if you keep a small team and manage your expenses properly.
They, however were absolute retards with no experience in running a business, thought they could beat hololive unironically buy shilling on /vt/ and tanked themselves into the ground.

>>102737291 (OP)
Western market is trash

>>102737691
They are basement dwellers lanwhales, but they're also willing to spend their money for their oshis to pay for their boyfriends's condoms

>>102737291 (OP)
Multiple reasons
-Not enough revenue for the corpo side. A lot of the splits went to the talents and they can't change that model because their talents will leave.
-Trying to one-up Hololive. Never works if you don't have the same resources as the competitor.
-Failure to get more funds. They got 11 million from Venture capital in 2022 IIRC, which doesn't last considering the amount of talents and expenses.

>>102737973
This basically.
Also their vtubers sucked ass: no good streams.

>>102737291 (OP)
You can't pay bills with botted streams.

>>102737291 (OP)
it's always been greed anon.

>>102737291 (OP)
if you don't own the ips and all your talents are independent contractors then nobody is going to invest in your company, you're just a shitty talent agency paying tech company salaries

>>102737291 (OP)
unironically because the talents are all vapid disgusting whores and grifters. The "talent first" meme is nothing but a marketing ploy. Imagine having the entire entertainment machine to shill your fake ill whore and all she has is around 43k peak viewership on her entire fucking career.

>>102737291 (OP)
Corpo dedicated to mentally ill women (right wing) - Massive success.
Corpo dedicated to mentally ill women (and a tranny) (left wing) - Burns down.

Shocker.

I think the burning money first to promote your brand doesn't work on this kind of industry, usually a company would give promo,bonus etc operating at loss to promote their products then would gradually reduce the ads and raising the price of the products to make profit, in Vshojo's case hiring member with generous contract alone means you're operating at loss so you need to change that eventually and the problem is when you change the contract the member will just quit

>>102737371
>>102737691
I genuinely think unicorns are waking up, and they're not just toeing the line after, they're leaving.
And when they are completely gone, this entire hobby is getting shuttered.

>>102737291 (OP)
They hired a failed Cover staff.

>>102738744
>entire hobby
Careful anon, you're painting a very wide brush with that one. You're including the vtubers who only do shorts and never stream when you say that.

>>102738915
Yup, share am. The smaller Vtubers tend to be 1000% more dependent on gachis, not less dependent.

>>102737809
The funny thing is that NOVA was doing well. If he'd done more of that sooner it could have survived.

>>102738945
Yeah, and they're not streamers. You're talking about a different market from vshojo.

>>102739027
Then what the fuck are you even talking about? How is that the same hobby then?
Sounds like you are moving the goalpost.

>>102739086
It's not the same hobby ESLbro, that's my point. When you say ALL vtubers, you're catching innocents in the crossfire that never played into streamer culture that treated vtubing as a mere avatar and never bothered sticking in character.

>>102738956
Their JP branch can sustain themselves, they are doing well but not that well they can afford to sustain the entire company, the EN branch is a huge money sink with their business model hiring established vtuber by giving them generous contract

>>102739237
All they had to do was go superNOVA and nuke the entire VshojoEN branch years ago for being a gigantic money pit. No offense but those bitches ain't Pokimane or Amouranth.

>>102739186
I didn't say all vtubers, retard. I said the hobby, as in the streaming and entertainment model we are all familiar with, that is the only one discussed and referenced on this board, and you are the only who needs this explained to you.
You are still moving the goalpost, and tacking shit onto my statement that wasn't there.
Kill yourself.

>>102737291 (OP)
They took nothing from streams, just sponsors they were bad at getting and merch they were bad at delivering. Most girls had nothing available to buy 11 months of the year.
Meanwhile they blew money on staff they didn't need and couldn't afford, stupid expensive ads in tokyo, vshojo custom cars, pointless lore vids. concerts their viewers didn't care about etc.
Was never gonna balance out like that.

>>102739334
Vsinger thread is right down the door. There's ASMRtubers who don't bother with streams too. I only poke my head into threads about streamers to laugh at them. You retards got exactly what you wanted by ignoring the good vtubers who did videos, by continuing to not watch the totally in character vtubers with not a single stream on their channels. Repeat after me: Vtuber is not synonymous with streamer. Streamers are a cancer on vtubing. We need to get every last streamer out to purify this hobby.

>>102737291 (OP)
they didn't balance their accounts.
never go into the red unless you have connections to bail you out or the government is paying you

It all comes down to Gunrun's obsession with "beating holo".

They spent too much money on stupid things (ads, cons, office location) to look bigger/more successful than they were. They hired the wrong talent, and had to give up too much in the contracts, just to look and sound more successful than they were instead of building up talent more naturally.

It certainly didn't help just how incompetent they were with merch/sponsors (their only income), but gunruns's hubris would have always killed them in the end.

>>102739300
Well, the thing is it will shatter the illusion of Vshojo brand that would cause problem like people losing faith on them etc, not to mention Gunrun's ego won't accept the fact that they will be a small company from one of biggest vtuber company "rivaling" Hololive

>>102737291 (OP)
csuite paying itself exorbitant salaries. same as always.

>>102737291 (OP)
Truth,
Their policy of "ip belongs to the talent" makes established ones seek opportunities on its own without relaying on the company thus profits are escaping.
Their merch store/maker was shit and slow for the most of vshojo existence so talents looked and made by themselves outside company reach, so again profits are slipping. Merch got better but it was already too late.
Lack of events, well probably because there was no money.
Lack of direction, every vshojo has its bubble and unity was gon for about 2 years.
Simply put, that's what made vshojo stand out from the test of vt companies was their fall.

>>102737291 (OP)
because Gunrun hired his friends to work at the company as managers and paid them and himself far more than any of them were worth
He also spent a fortune on things that didnt really do anything for the company but existed purely to stroke his own ego like the ads in japan
and then because he was pissing away all this money, he tried to sneakily change contracts to give much worse terms to talents, hoping they'd pay him enough to pay them back the money he owed them

>>102737291 (OP)
I believe they tried to grow too fast, instead of focusing on becoming stable they got drunk on debt, taking on more and more talents.

Remember the big fucking pillar ads in Shibuya station when they had a whole three Japanese talent? Dumb shit like that.

>>102739857
But NOVA has cute girls in it and they could get back to EN later once they proved themselves. Letting the EN girls go with goodwill instead of tormenting them like Veibae could've even endeared them to future collabs down the line. They could have been the Lawson's of vtubing.

>>102740362
It was pennies in comparison to everything else

Holy shit just saw the pitch deck with the crazy inflated payroll/salaries. The nepo-hiring wasn't limited to talent but all the behind the scenes staff, who apparently were also doing absolutely nothing of value.

>>102740410
250k a day per pillar is not pennies.

>>102737291 (OP)
>don't watch streams
>don't buy merch
western vtuber fans are shit

>>102740454
How do I get in on these scams?

>>102740562
Never buy merch, never donate, never subscribe/join membership
It's the most non parasocial way to consume vtubing or online entertainment.

>>102737973
We've already got a few small corpos copying the vshojo but smarter (so far) than Vshojo, it's fairly obvious that they spent a lot of money on "keeping up appearances" so they can sell their image as the premier western group.

>>102737291 (OP)
I doubt it was the business model that failed. It's probably because they were spending their money on dumb shit they couldn't afford.
VAllure also gives a shit-ton to their talent, how they earn profit though is by simply spending less.

>>102741156
>they were spending their money on dumb shit they couldn't afford.
So it was the business model failing. They thought they could act like they're bigger than they are and somehow reap huge profits later, while promising next to no cuts from talent revenue.

They seemed to think they would make money off streaming revenue instead of concerts and merch while over spending on advertising in order to appear like they had the money of larger vtuber companies.

>>102739608
>Vtuber is not synonymous with streamer
NTA but I don't get it. A good vtuber is a vtuber who streams, no

>>102741439
Don't know what "good" would mean but as far as a company is concerned a good vtuber is someone that makes money, streaming doesn't have to be part of that.

>>102740410
no it wasnt, they spent millions on those ads, just to feed Gunrun's ego

>>102740103
Add on the fact that a large chunk of their profit was supposed to be merch and they could never get that shit right. Every company they worked with dropped the ball when it came to getting the product out there and even when they switched to in-house more recently there were the same fucking delays. But maybe it was never the other parties they were working with but the actual staff dragging their feet because they were too busy playing Fortnite instead of getting their job done and just ended up pointing the finger.
Unlike what some anons are claiming in this thread their merch drops did sale. People just didn't fucking receive it. Take when Mouse would do a merch collab with someone who actually ships their own product like Apari for example, things would sell out. Her Nendo was also a top seller on AmiAmi for a bit.. Though people who ordered it off the VShojo website didn't receive them for an eternity.

>>102741437
Concerts don't make money. It's all of the stuff attached to the concert that does, like sponsors, concert merch and blu-rays.

>>102741156
Doesn't the majority of Stronny's earnings go to the company too? She's one of the biggest earners, at least in gen 1, so it helps when the CEO puts more of her money back into the company rather than take a fat cheque to buy a sports car

>>102741568
If people didn't receive merch then they never really completed sales. Also the talent might have been willing to not get payed for months but manufacturing and shipping might have been less patient with non payment

>>102741568
>Every company they worked with dropped the ball when it came to getting the product out there
But were those always the partner's fault? I get the feeling a lot of the issues could have been caused by vshojo.

Their business model was pretty straightforward.
>we sell merch
>you get 1/2 the profits
the end. That's the model.

The only thing that can explain it failing is that money vanished somewhere. That left them desperately searching for new money to pay off the old money that was missing.
Somehow money went unaccounted for. It should have been extremely easy, 50/50, and yet the money wasn't there.

>>102741597
I consider all the stuff around concerts merch blu-rays etc as part of making money from the concert.

California salaries

>>102741712
Did the money go missing or they spent it on things like advertising in places like tokyo subway and at anime conventions.

>>102741156
I really do think the business model could have worked if it was better planned. They didn't do some basic things that they should have if they wanted it to work. Take it from an actual VShojo viewer, they:
>Didn't have a permanent merch presence in any form that would bring in money until nearly the end
>Would only do FOMO drops on the store
>Would not do FOMO drops at events (Mouse even suggested a VShojo Gacha to have at AX or something and it was rejected)
>Even then, wouldn't do very many merch drops
>Had no kind of perishable merch for most of its lifespan
In like the last year they finally did some perishable merch in the form of Ironmouse and Froot tea, and it was unironically their top selling item on the store because it was always available and anyone who liked it and wanted more would have to buy it again. If this system is going to work it needs to be a little overbearing with merch. A minimum number of merch drops per year baked into the contract for each talent would have done wonders for profitability. Geega was always pushing for "Legacy Merch" that would be available year-round outside of drops so if you just felt like picking up a VShojo mousepad one day you could, but they never did that either. They also took way too long bringing merch in-house literally this year is when they did it when that should have been a top priority as soon as they got their seed funding.

It really seems to me like this could have worked, they just did a horrible fucking job with it lol. And that's not even going into the excessive spending which other people have talked at length about.

>>102741728
The thing is that some people don't get this and just go and do a concert. You also kind of need to show that it's worth to pay to see the concert by doing some free streamed ones first like hololive does.

>>102741810
>Would only do FOMO drops on the store
What does this mean?

>>102741901
FOMO = Fear of Missing Out. Basically run a merch drop once so people are enticed to buy it because if they don't they'll never get another chance (unless they go secondhand)

>>102737973
>and other pointless shit.
Yeah, like why did Fugi lose his job when VStream failed? How involved was VShojo there and how much money was spent on it?

>>102741810
I remember always hearing from big streamers how much of a serious moneymaker merch was so it sounded viable to me. What surprised me about VShojo was how few merch drops they had and I always suspected that I had been vastly underestimating how much money merch made if they were still afloat with that few. And now come to find out that no, they weren't floating at all lol.

>>102741859
>The thing is that some people don't get this and just go and do a concert.
Probably a lot of the people both talent and management are either young or new and they are just happy to put on a show.

>You also kind of need to show that it's worth to pay to see the concert by doing some free streamed ones first like hololive does.
You need to show it is worth going if you aren't selling out shows, for places like holo if you notice they have talent talk about the concert because they want people to buy the VODS.

>>102741950
But I mean what kind of merch are you talking about? Something like time-limited birthday and anniversary merch that's only on sale for a month?
That tends to do the best for most vtubers while permanent merch isn't all that popular.

>>102737291 (OP)
Because Gunrun had 30 employees that he probably paid a very generous salary.

>>102742043
Merch can be a huge money maker if you can price it right to make money and people are willing to buy it at that price. If you can't do those two things it goes from how you make money to how you lose a lot.

>>102742107
Yes. Time limited stuff. Most vtuber corpos do mostly FOMO drops primarily. VShojo's were mostly for new models and outfits, but only Mouse and Zen were debuting models super frequently. The rest of the group would do it like twice a year at most, and wouldn't usually have merch every time.

>>102741681
I kind of implied that a couple sentences later.

>>102742242
Wonder if Mouse and Zen were the only ones making money or they were just incompetent and couldn't get their act together to try and make money selling merch.

>>102742092
>they are just happy to put on a show.
Of course but if we're talking about doing it for profit then you need to have more than that prepared.
>You need to show it is worth going if you aren't selling out shows
Or if you're doing something as stupid as trying to sell a stream-only concert without any prior examples, like Vshojo did that one time.

>>102741439
No. A Vtuber is short for virtual youtuber and you dont need to stream at all in order to be a youtuber.

>>102742357
Think it is pretty clear Vshojo did tons of stupid things.

I don't know that a stream-only concert couldn't work

>>102741404
You'd be surprised at how many companies kill themselves with "keeping up appearances"

>>102742662
Just look into Business liquidations and you can see how many companies this happens to.

>>102742351
Henya and Mel definitely moved merch too. I couldn't imagine members like Haruka and Froot drove that many sells though.
As I type this Henya is apologizing for her last merch drop.

>>102740863
Spending money != Parasocial, you can spend money to show appreciation for the streamer/content, you can spend money because you're an attention whore and you can spend money because you're a fool with too much of it. Not everyone who spends money on vtubers thinks the online anime girl is dating them.

>>102742242
Back when they started Vshojo were doing seasonal merch and events pretty well, There was Halloween, Christmas, Summer, Spring, etc. events and merch. They didn't even need to tie it to a new model/debut just get some nice new art of them in seasonal outfits to throw on some stuff.

But then they started having problems with merch partners (new industry, small players, unable to keep up with the demand of a client like Vshojo)

It Felt like the merch side of Vshojo fell apart completely once they tried to bring it in house, and then they tried to focus on brand deals.

>>102737691
Not just that there are definitely Muslim SEAs that larp as Unicorns

>>102742780
They had talent capable of moving merch so that isn't the problem
>>102742849
Was the problem the merch partners or VShojo not being able to pay for goods?

seems to be they had to much unneeded staff for what they was suppose to be sorta like how hololive must be bleeding a f' ton of money on those 600+ staff that arent even for vtubing or related activities

>>102742849
They didn't bring it in house until this year. They made their big announcement about it at like Christmas or New Year's last year, and unironically after they brought it in house things improved dramatically. Of course given what we know now that was a fix that came far too late to make a difference, but if they'd done that in like 2021 I think things could have very easily turned out differently.
>>102742849
I remember those early things and I liked them a lot, but yeah I remember the shift away from SharkRobot to a store VShojo owned being the start of merch issues. But if they'd stayed put or moved inhouse much earlier then I think those regular groupwide corpo drops could have made the difference.

Really though at the end of the day this is all armchair exec'ing so no telling how things would have actually turned out. I just think that it could have worked if some very obvious moves were made.

>>102737798
VShojo was bigger than idol. Ironmouse alone probably makes more in a day than all of idol in a month.

>>102743217
Wait that wasn't supposed to be 2 separate replies just one lol.

>>102743276
Never understood Ironmouse's appeal

>>102743506
BLTs.

>>102737371
It's less that and more that they do literally nothing to market themselves as a coherent group of vtubers. Even without the unicorn/gachikoi bucks the least they should've done was push the oshi culture that drives people to buy merch and give them free advertisement with emojis on twitter and the like. If you took the top 10 biggest twitchfag indies and put them next to all of vshojo without the vshojo tag you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. If they wanted to succeed as a business they needed the company itself to be the selling point. No one watches members of vshojo solely because they're in vshojo but tons of people watch hololive, nijisanji, etc just because of the corpo name on their profile. The loose talent-first approach just does not work for building a brand, it's idealistic and unsustainable.

>>102737726
this, and

>>102737973
this, and

>>102738295
this, and they didn't take it into account and thought they could act just like other businesses with nothing to compensate, and did this,

>>102739799
this and

>>102740454
way to administratively heavy for the number of talent.

>>102741810
>>Would not do FOMO drops at events (Mouse even suggested a VShojo Gacha to have at AX or something and it was rejected)
>>Had no kind of perishable merch for most of its lifespan
these kind of suggestions would be rejected because they required the earnings to be split again, probably, based on the personalities involved we're learning about...

>>102743780
>The loose talent-first approach just does not work for building a brand, it's idealistic and unsustainable.

not exactly, it requires a very different route. attempting to use the normal methods while doing this was definitely going to fail.

>>102743562
Bacon, Lettuce, Tomatoes?

>>102742662
>>102742770
I probably would be surprised. It's pretty amusing imagining a bunch of guys deep in debt attending some big shot parties pretending to belong when their demise is just a year or two away lmao

>>102743894
>It's pretty amusing imagining a bunch of guys deep in debt attending some big shot parties pretending to belong when their demise is just a year or two away lmao
That is all of tech startup culture. It should have ended when people weren't getting payed but if Mouse didn't come out and quit they probably could have kept the plates spinning for a longer time.

>>102737973
This alone
https://x.com/akiba_asterisk/status/1533615692703969280
Cost them about 6K$, if it was for 7 days.
https://cheering-ad.jeki.co.jp/en/products/jr-yamanote-line-panorama-akihabara

>>102737291 (OP)
bad finance management...
it seems...

The whole "operations cost" is a schlick. Sure the concerts and events are pricy, but 90% of the content is talking / playing while streaming a game, it's impossible nobody made a profit out of it. Gunrun just lived a millionaire life and and didn't invest it back, even so the Vtuber fade has passed away for a long time.

>>102744221
Didn't they also sponsor a few cons or something that cost a lot and did almost nothing for them

>>102744327
I think that was Phase.

>>102741504
>>102742447
How do you even get to that money making point without streaming? Has there been any successful vsingers without having some streaming now and then for their fans

>>102737726
Which clip?
>>102740365
What torment?

>>102744370
Not talking about this year since they probably couldn't afford it but previous years

>>102737291 (OP)
Because they didn't have a business model that could sustain their existence.
Go on and tell me how vshojo makes money, beyong VC funding.

>>102744324
If money is being made you have to pay taxes on that income, if you have any kind of equipment you have to pay for that as well as replacing it if it breaks, if you have physical space you need to pay for rent and insurance. Without looking at finances and if everyone is has a lawyer somebody at some point will see what money is left there are many ways they could lose it all with poor management without anyone stealing funds.

Likely more information will be revealed in the future but I'd say it's highly mismanaged company in a typical techbro fashion

With roughly 25 to 30 employees and I'd expect average salary to start around 75k USD on low-end, so it's already close to 2m in expenses for just existing. If they had offices - another major expense.
So even to start off - already at or close to estimated annual revenue (not profits) with nothing to show for it. Business travels, advertisements, art and merch preparations, psyops, parties etc will quickly add up.
They were deep in the red so it's easy to see why if all sponsorship, merch money went to Vshojo first that talents saw none of it or had to wait years for it if they got it at all.

My only questions are what talents are least vocal about issues and who received their full cut from sponsors and merch (basically Vshojo scale sinder 2.0). Because gaslightning had to be done from management and other talents to go years without questioning where is money, where are contracts etc. NDA or not, if I'm not getting paid, I'm involving lawyer and asking uncomfortable questions.

In case of Mouse - I hope she does have in writing that money was supposed to go to charity.

>>102745103

>>102745284
those are projections, where's the actual, real data this was based on?

>>102745103
Is operating in California really that important if one is running a techbro startup?

>>102737291 (OP)
Too much staff, incorporated in fucking CALIFORNIA of all places. This means regulations, minimum wages and a fuckton of permits regulations licenses compliance etc

>>102737371
funny how most of them are multi millionaires and you're completely missing the point because you can't admit you're a fucking cuck for a different corp. and no i don't hate you. i didn't even like vsj. i just think you're a hypocrite and caught up in tribalism

>>102745396
Yes, that is where investment money is, in addition most companies inc in Delaware

>>102737371
>ironmouse basically known as cdawgs lapdog bubble gf
>became the most subbed user on twitch ever
>raised 500k and then another 1M for charity no sweat
yeah bro its totally impossible to succeed without unicucks. vshojo was sooooo screwed, it totally wasnt them fumbling everything logistically and stealing everyones money, it was that they werent GFE pandering!

>>102746480
you dont understand anon, the unicorns NEED vshojo to lose because of males, so that they can save ex-gura from the inevitable male collab that she is about to do the moment the refund period for her merch wave ends.

>>102741810
do you unironically believe the vwhorejo viewers would ever buy any merch?

>>102744221
They were convinced Hololive was done and they could poach more talent by waving the flag of "Talent freedom", didnt work out at all.

>>102746612
It did work they are just such a poorly run company that the more talent they brought on the more money they lost.

didnt the ceo literally spend money to shitpost on 4chan

>>102746567
According to their slides they made double the ammount from sponsors than merch.
Is that normal?

>>102746769
Maybe, the split as far as the company cares could be better on a sponsors compared to merch and you don't have the cost of the merch to deal with.

>>102746722
At this time they already at Kson and Nazuna, assuming the goal was to get more Hololive or Nijisanji talents to jump ship, it failed completely.

>>102745284
I'd be more interested to actually see their financial sheets, not a pitch

Even if they included talent manager salaries into cogs, it still should be separate line on their sheet
So looking at this - salaries are likely in 3m to 4m range alone so sponsorships and merch does not even cover basic expenses

>gross margin improvement is driven by higher take rates in updated talent contracts & in new IP licensing revenue segment
translation - we plan on fucking talents even harder. We do not own their IP by the way, invest in us
If this is real and not parody slide it's the most lobotomizing thing I've read this year. Vshojo did not own IP, was planning somehow licensing it and fucking their talents even harder on top.

>>102745396
Depends on what is your goal. For long-term sustainable operations - you'd want to operate in states with most favorable conditions for business. For streaming related business where most if not all operations could be performed remotely on top of most work being subcontracted either way (art and merch production, music production etc). But for sustainable operations you would be careful to not overhire to the point of not covering even salary with revenue alone (not counting taxes and other expenses)

For running techbro startup and leave someone else holding the bags, California seems alright.

>>102746567
Yes you fucking peabrained retard. It's how dopamine works. You do a merch drop, and people flock to buy it. Fucking holy shit FeFe sold like 2 waves of lube and a fucking sextoy and it sold out. People will buy for their favorite Vtubers just for the fucking novelty of it.

>>102737726
>The individual talents will now have to pay more out their own pocket if they want people to handle their sponsorships, merch, legal, marketing, communications, etc for them.
This is something that many aren't pointing out, especially those who were poached. They went from leaving stable careers to having their new "prosperous" jobs collapsing overnight. They're effectively having to run a business on their own now, when none of them knew they weren't getting paid at all.

>>102746922
>Stable careers
>Niji
Yeah Anon. Real fucking stable.

>>102747069
>many of them are still streaming under their company
vshojo is gone bro. stop trying to shill for them.

>>102746922
If they haven't been payed for 9 months, they have been running their own business the whole time they just didn't know it yet.

>>102737291 (OP)
>But why wasn't their business model successful?
Anon VShojo didn't own anything, they didn't build anything. They were supposed to create something. How can an indie like Shylily create trading cards and co-own a Vtuber award show with Fillian, but VShojo, with all its 11 million, can't do any of that? Where are their meta projects, video games/anime/manga, their Vtuber schools, their coffee, their own convention?

>>102747160
>How many graduations this year?
>Only six!?
>That's not that many!
Okay Millie. How bout you graduate DEEZ

>>102737809
>new branch in Japan which will double the employee cost.
japanese labor costs are way lower than californian ones. he fucked up hiring LA troons

>>102747425
If it is in Tokyo and not coding Japan costs could easily be higher

>>102737291 (OP)
Vshojo collapsed because of three factors
>contracts were too good
They didn't get enough cuts from their talents while their talents were becoming insanely rich, Mouse alone became worth 5 times what is current vshojo.
>Lack of vision and mismanagement
They could have grown exponentially if they unironically did nothing. They spent too much money on frivolous things like high wages for nepo staff, after parties and other failed projects like a streaming platform or even marketing. instead of pushing the alarm and stop spending their plan was to recruit more talents and lock them into monthly inescapable sponsor contracts
>Distrust
This is the most important part. They were done the moment they broke trust between their most supportive talents. They could have survived if they were honest with the talents who built the company. Ironmouse and Zentreya alone could have helped salvage this company if they came clean.

>>102737291 (OP)
>Hire staff made up of people who have never ran a successful business
>Waste large sums of money as a big FU to the competition
>Spend the bulk of efforts on promoting a single talent who's only marketable quality is people taking pity on her
>Paying for unnecessary stuff like /vt/ shitposts that would be free if you were actually relevant
The business model was based on getting headlines so they can continue to grow by getting ever new lines of credit from the banks. All the while, management embezzles the money that the talents made by paying themselves ridiculous salaries. It worked exactly as intended.

>>102738773
looks like he got hold of the tweet of the pitch deck or something. there's a new post in his linkedin but I can't access since I dont want to use that site

>>102747355
>>Only six!?
>>That's not that many!
When compared to everyone in Vshojo leaving? Yeah, that ain't many.

>>102747501
You are describing almost all of silicon valley

>>102747314
They didn't even have to they're own 3D studio or modelers. The talents had to shell out on their models and settle with vrchat shit. And they really thought that they can stand up to niji and holo?

>>102747561
>Be Niji Intern
>Forced to defend Black Company
>Other Black Company implodes because mismanagement and stealing from a charity
>Still lose to them
I hope Riku's pocket change is worth it.

>>102747534
He was apparently the omegakiller >>102747598

>>102747501
pagpag analytics

>>102747635
vshojo seethe

>>102737291 (OP)
the streamers made Vshojo burn $4m a year for their shit, but they are the victims :(

>>102747658
the translation

>>102747724
I'm an indie fan now faggot. You have no more scapegoat.

>>102747578
Successful companies pay back their investors because they actually have a successful business plan to make money. Those companies also own their own IP and assets thus they can actually get loans by backing them with their own assets. Non of which vshitshow had.

>>102737291 (OP)
>But why wasn't their business model successful?

Because the retard running the ship did not have a tight leash on everything. The people he left in charge were retards and assholes. They were doxing their own talents. That one time when Nux exposed the doxer. They initally thanked Nux but then deleted their own post and then did a 180 and told their talents false info to cancel Nux.

At once point they had $11 million in investment money. But they did not spend any of it wisely. Employees were hiring their own friends for very high wages. They threw money everywhere like hiring billboards and shit advertisement spaces in Japan. They HIRED people to shitpost other companies like Hololive on places like 4chan. They thought they had fuck you money but they quickly spent it all.

Then when money dried up, they did a massive layoff on everyone except their own friends. By then, it was way too late so they kept the Talent's money while using it to pay the remaining employees. Even stole charity money. This shit is nuts.

Revenue - Expenses = Profit

You should be able to solve this.

>>102748104
duhhhhhhh but what if expenses is bigger than revenue bosss hurrrrr durrrr that makes the profit lower than zero durrrrrrrrrr

>>102748329
Just remove the - in front of the red Profit number and the Profit turns green!
Economics are so easy.

>>102737291 (OP)
You shouldn't hire so many people if you cannot sustain the cost and you're already in red.

>>102748522
If everyone just poaches more people who bring in money then everyone who is already in the company will get paid.
It's actually a very reliable structure that keeps building onto itself and assures early adopters a lot of money.

>>102737291 (OP)
because their CEO can't accept getting pay less than their talent

>>102747847
>'m an indie fan now faggot
I mean, it's not like you have a choice now.

>>102748601
i find even the pyramid scheme comparison unfitting because they had auditions for so long and literally nothing to show for it. they paid applicants money to keep quiet about how the auditions went when they were rejected. like they only wanted to hire 5 viewer minimum? you cant have only big fish in your ponzi scheme for it to work, it's just pure retardation

Their plan from the beginning to make money was always
>*winks at you* ;)
It was always going to end up as some sort of pyramid scheme in the long run, down to using established celebrities to prop up a brand that seemingly does nothing but exist as competition for existing brands that DO have their own defined goals
Like, what did these ads even mean? Who are they for? Are they trying to sell the idea that their own makeshift celebrities have it better than the others branded celebrities? What do they sell?
Considering how so many people who hovered around Vshojo shat on Hololive's practices, it was pretty clear that the entire intent was just
>Our brand is MUCH cooler and MUCH MORE STABLE than the other brand, our micro-celebrities agree!
And somehow it fucking worked, but the problem is that they ended up not being able to secure any revenue stream because anyone who is good enough to sustain their own gig would never agree to their deranged terms at that point, but those were the sort of people they wanted to attract to them in the first place.
The craziest thing is that it worked on a couple of people, but not enough, so at some point they just resorted to embezzlement and fraud. I don't think there was a genuine honest belief of Vshojo's mission statement, just snide attempts to push the market share in their favor.

>>102748750
It's crazy that they projected 40 members when they couldn't debut a single application and only debuted poached nepohires.

>>102748768
That shit was more targeted at lowly streamers who didn't know any better.
>omg talent freedom! That means I can play games whatever I want and don't have to worry about song perms!!"
The thing that gets me tho is why Tokyo of all places?

>>102749354
>The thing that gets me tho is why Tokyo of all places?
that's why I said it was a concentrated move against the other corpos by attempting to show that Vshojo is better than them. the entire goal was shifting market perception, not to trick low viewer streamers

>>102737726
You referencing the clip about her talking about having a kid?

>>102749354
It was targeted at Hololive

>>102748768
>hime hajime
kinda remember a Gigguk vid a short while ago about new work or something... didn't watch.
>missing company money

hmm...

>>102737291 (OP)
men in there

>>102738295
These kind of agencies exist everywhere, they don't need the IP and instead can rely on a penalty clause where the talent has to essentially pay back the value of all the brand deals
I've personally never heard of one where you're allowed to just leave

>>102737691
>repeat after me
yeah, no, you're not gonna manipulate me. either a vshojo shill or delusional vtuber wrote your reply

>>102743276
Difference was Brave bought Idol and not Vshojo. The merchants at Brave knew something was up with vshojo

>>102748768
WHY were those ads in english even?
What do you want japanese business man going and coming to work do with these posters?
>Tarentu Fleedom?
>Is that a new domination fetish?
>let me look it up on my hentai site later at home

>vshojo's main attraction is english language
>splurge money on japan instead
Why?

>>102751076
Because they wanted to kill both Cover and Anycolour.

>>102737291 (OP)
Too much spending money on marketing and fireworks, not enough actual value. Wasting time and money on "hehe funy meme" "debut" of Hime Hajime, shitty advertisement in Japan that was fueled by their jealousy and disrespect towards Cover and other similar ideas was absolutely retarded idea.

They later grabbed few large and popular names and Mouse crying on stream also ended attracting a lot of attention, but it was too late because Vshojo already burned through most of their initial cash.

>>102751306
That's fucking retarded, challenging an enemy on his home turf instead of forcing them to play by your terms in your homeland. Vshojo deserves to get BTFO for being incompetent ass niggas.

>>102743872
It does require a different route, but going with the more indiviualistic direction gives a hard question of "why even be in the group". Gathering ~10 large indies and hiring a few managerial staff to handle managerial shit, sponsorships, merch, and whatever else isn't an awful idea, but it's no different than Mythic or whoever else in that space and does require you to deal with all the other competitors in the space or just running everything alone.

>>102750778
It was for the illusion, post ads picture on Twitter "look we got presence in Japan" while also targeting Hololive and I wouldn't be surprised if all the talent freedom thread back then was made by vshojoshill

>>102747481
VshojoJP was profitable and could have paid their talents if the money didn't directly go into the black hole that was EN according to their JP branch CEO.
So the contract cuts weren't inherently unsustainable but I guess they should have been lower on average so there's more leeway.

>>102752089
Do they have the same contract? Feels like the generous contract is only for already established member

>>102737291 (OP)
Talent first is anti-consumer

>>102752328
The Nova's were only in Vshojo for like 6 months. Loutlot (the JP CEO) said that the group didn't pay off yet so even that was included in the total balance.

>>102737809
Funny enough he was using the same strategy as the epic games store.

>>102750648
nope, idol have more value than a shell that own nothing

>>102751735
>that's retarded
But anon, they had eleven million dollars, that's like, all the moneys, and poaching from NijiEN had been so easy, surely there must be the exact same rot in Hololive as well.
They even got Coco and Rushia, on paper two of their biggest talents. Nevermind the circumstances of their graduation being unrepeatable.

Gunrun was emotionally on the same level as the average nijisister.

>>102752575
>Gunrun was emotionally on the same level as the average nijisister.
You mean the average catalogfag? Which is funny, because it's been confirmed that they did shilling campaigns here.

>>102752542
Epic is a functioning company with several stable revenue streams and a fixed place in pop culture and the industry.

>>102737691
most of them have no money, but the ones that do make up a majority of the people actually willing spend money

>>102752746
That’s because they have fortnite Monet to fall back on, while gunrun was doing the strategy of taking product that people like and placing it under his thing with no secondary thing to support it.
“Talent first” even sounds like the whole “pro-developer” marketing Tim tried to do.

>>102750648
Buying Vshojo means nothing, they don't own any talent, at best they would buy the brand, and all the talents would most likely leave.

You have the head for this Nazuna. I speak of unspeakable rare girl sigma. Because YOU get it. Continue to do so, and one way is your
Up and Up.

>>102741810
its not that they didn't, they CANT. If you don't own the IP, you CANT make permanent merch without extensive talent negotiations because these girls are geared up to the teeth with laywers (as they should be if they are technically contractors). Imagine you made a card game but a girl leaves the company and starts talking shit or even worse starts some drama all on her own, what you gonna do? stop making the card?

>>102754740
That's possible and not that big of a problem. I mean when Vshojo had their Smite collab it still worked out despite 3 leaving at the time.

keep going

>>102750778
the ads were in Japanese too, but it goes against /vt/ narrative

>>102738295
thirdie take

>>102745316
nobody except the financial guys at the company has those

>>102745284
>With IP licensing revenue included, on track to achieve profitability in Q4 2025
We're almost there bros...

>>102748823
because new streamers require investment and they didn't have time to invest, they needed liquid funds immediately that they can get by selling merch on debut of an existing popular streamer
Their business model literally needed to hire bigger and better talents in orders to move merch to get back in the green
I can only imagine how hard gunrun tried to poach Dooby/Nimi/Saba
It's probably why Nimi is propping up Mouse so much despite showing minimal interest before. She might think her refusing Vshojo's poaching might in some way caused vshojo to implode

>>102754740
You can though. They're giving VShojo a license to use their IP for as long as they're in it that's part of the agreement. The talents themselves were pushing for permanent merch because yes they wanted it too. And permanent doesn't mean in perpetuity just for as long as they're in the org.

And for your card example I'm pretty sure that's what V Card did for Sinder lol

>>102746769
Probably because like that anon said, they didn't do nearly enough merch to make an operation that floated largely on its sales work

>>102745284
to be honest even taking a cut from SCs/donations wouldn't have helped much here, assuming a similar revenue split as others. It'd be a bit more money, but the key problem seems to be pretty bloated costs in non-productive areas (leadership, administration, etc.)

They don't even seem to pay that much for marketing and events.

They probably fucked themselves, by giving themselves and staff pretty nice salaries, thinking they are the next big thing, not treating themselves as the small company they are.

JP was probably profitable (according to both Loutlot and Alex) because they didn't necessarily have all that bloat?

>>102737291 (OP)
The first contracts they put out for the original vshojo debuts were predatory as fuck. It was literally never "talent first". Which makes me seriously wonder why Kson and others members in the group would defend it so hard while knowing they themselves weren't being paid for many months.

>>102760206
Not just less bloat but there was also a wage gap between JP and EN employees according to Loutlot so that probably contributed.
>but the key problem seems to be pretty bloated costs in non-productive areas (leadership, administration, etc.)
Pretty much what I think as well. Plus MTD was a slacker and wasted time playing games with staff.
https://x.com/GeneralGEEGA/status/1948473021578248599

U

>>102737291 (OP)
TALENT FREEDOM

>>102746480
Yet vshojo had no money

>>102744616
Anon you don't pay taxes if your business is in the red that gets written off.

>>102762930
the fact that fucking Phase was able to remain solvent proves that Vshojo was a massive shitshow

>>102745284
>$2mil a year on payroll
kek, there's your problem.

You can see they planned to cut 400k of that, but still that is way too much.

>>102737291 (OP)
They tried to have their cake and eat it. They were a vtuber corpo, but not a corpo. They had no brand identity whatsoever, the value of the company was based on nothing other than Vshojo was Vshojo, the "#1 talent first agency". They were forced to hire ex-talents because they needed big enough streamers to not be in the red. All that marketing was used to give the illusion that they were a sucessul company, but it was smoke and mirrors. They seized the opportunity of the lockdown and was coasting off of it ever since, without doing anything else to improve the business, and because of that, they couldn't get funding because they didn't have anything real to show their worth. There's a reason why traditional agencies operate the way they do.

How could the business model be successful if your employee ordered 100 models without paying it?

>>102747474
learn how economics work. hiring in japan will always be cheaper

>>102763043
payroll is more than that, they hid talent managers into COGS (cost of goods sold) so that 1.9mil is mostly c-suite and some higher managers than grunt managers

>>102737291 (OP)
Because it's shit. Amazon owns the platform, not them.

>>102737291 (OP)
>Hundreds of useless nepo hires in the back end and literally nobody was doing their job
>Not understanding how to properly profit off of vtubers in regards to merchandising and avenues outside of streaming and refusing to listen to those who did understand how said stuff worked
>Extremely expensive advertising campaigns in nonsensical spaces
>Immensely large quantities of embezzlement on almost every layer
>Spending money on absolutely schizophrenic shit like hiring jeets to false flag and spread narratives on lone
line
>Paying fake lawyers to make borderline to overtly illegal contracts and NDAs in order to control and threaten talent
>taking a absolute fuckton of loans and letting the interest start kicking in hard
Alot of things, and there's likely to be even more to be exposed, It is truly an absurd experience

>>102763486
They didn't have hundreds of hires, they were pretty small but most were overpaid and did nothing substantial

>>102763378
kek holy shit, that's like $4mil on payroll. Fishman could never. That's why he has the talents pack the boxes themselves lmao.

>>102763486
You don't need to lie about a dead failure like Vshojo anon.

>>102751831

you're not wrong. there has to be another uniting factor/pressure undertaken that gives them an advantage. It doesn't even need to be an exclusive advantage, just a competitive one. (like 'any group have an advantage of A1, except us, we have an advantage of A2. It similar but different and we say better).

VC money.

You could do what they wanted to do. Just a handful of people taking care of merch and sponsorships. That's profitable. But VC money isn't satisfied. It demands more, always more. You must grow, grow, grow to the fucking moon, take all the risk, burn all the cash, just groooooooow. 95% of the time that fails,VCs make bank the last 5% and fuck everything else.

>>102764243
>That's why he has the talents pack the boxes themselves
IMO that is based and makes the merch you buy feel more personal

>>102751831
Mythic only gives out sponsors. You'll still need to find a manager and some place that handles your merch / events.

>>102737291 (OP)
btw guys Listen to my song

>>102767926
based on their website they also do merch and legal,

Their business mode (orginally?) was to get a paycut % from the merch in their store and maybe some small % from sponsored streams?
Their store was ass, they spent like crazy in advertisement, employees, artists, etc.
Obviously they ran out of money and should've went bankrupt or change the business model but no, they decided to stay silent and steal money from their talents.

>>102768327
Their website says that but they do not actually do that. Not sure how they get away with it, I guess nobody really cares enough about Mythic.

>>102768321
That's so shady. Don't release a fucking son instantly holy fuck man.

>>102737291 (OP)
The overhead for a company with VShojo's approach SHOULD be easily profitable, especially when talents as big as theirs.

But no company is going to be profitable when they spend more money than they bring in.
Simple as.

>>102750648
Because owning VShojo means you own the brand and nothing else. The deals made with the talents are not part of this buy out.

>>102758668
they literally already had mint signed for almost a year and did absolutely fuckall with her
doober nimi and saba being in would have changed nothing

>>102768690
Did they even have a merch plan? The shitty shop and this tweet make me think they didn't even try to sell merch. Like no one felt any drive to get merch deals roling. No wonder they bled out money if they don't open up revenue streams.

>>102770963
They technically already scammed Mint once with merch
Probably thought double scamming her might be too risky

>>102737291 (OP)
Their plan of taking a very limited cut means they had no money, but they still found ways to spend tons of money.

>>102774212
Venture capitalists invested in them, $11M of starting money

>>102740562
This is only true for western fans of indies and non jp corpos. Turns out what people want is Japanese style corpo structure for vtubers.

>>102741439
No, good vtubers can be all sorts of content. Successful vtubers stream. Theres a difference.

>>102747069
This needs to be updated, there's more of them and more fired too

>>102774475
That's what makes the thing so crazy. They werent just in the red, they were so far in the red they ran through the $11mil of VC money in no time. They werent even close to profitable. They probably got drunk off the VC money and thought they could raise another round but couldnt.

>>102737291 (OP)
They tried to be 'talent oriented', which means taking a small cut, while also pretending to be an idol company. So the same thing that killed every other vtuber corpo.