Bankrupt

[El Presidente]

I keep going bankrupt. This time I got as far as my first text campaign using a marketer.

[Galactipod]

There are many factors. How fast are you expanding? You could be pushing too fast and hard, hiring too many employees too quickly. How closely do you monitor and adjust your servers, if you're not using the cloud? You want the same throughput on your web, cache, and database servers.

[zenmike]

I repost this on the Discord server from time to time. Maybe it will help you. Also, feel free to check out the Discord server for more tips and help :)

----

Always start with a Social Media site. The initial features require the easiest to product components and modules. This is the easiest site type to start with.

Don't over-hire early. With a developer, designer, Sr. Dev, researcher and sales exec in the small office you should be able to get profitable, hit your investment milestones, and scale growth.

Personally, I like to train myself to maximum efficiency before hiring any staff so I can hire at any level and research salary and demands before making an offer. (Thanks for the reminder @Enzo!)

Then research, add features (video ads), add users, and sell bigger ad deals.

On ads, video ads get the best rate, so I always try to get to video ads as quickly as possible (though definitely run text ads in the meantime). If you keep all your features even, aren't using ad block or ddos protection, and keep your support up, a site can support 3 video ad slots.

Remember to renegotiate ads as your user base grows - more users => more impressions => more $$$

Also, make sure to negotiate your CPC. You can always get more than the initial bid. And make sure you're starting with the highest bid. If you've got sales people searching, you could have CPC rates from $4 to $8. Let your reps search and pick the highest value offers to negotiate from.

But also make sure you have enough impressions to fulfill your contracts or this could cause you to lose a ton of money. If this happens figure out why your users are leaving the site.

Finally, focus on getting your milestones and doing what Pam tells you to do. This will keep you funded while you're getting up and running. Keep things tight until you start making money, then scale as fast as you can (without over extending yourself). Negotiate new/bigger ad sales -> increase marketing spend to add users -> repeat.

[Galactipod]

Originally posted by zenmike:

Always start with a Social Media site. The initial features require the easiest to product components and modules. This is the easiest site type to start with.

I would disagree with "always." You can easily succeed with a different site, it'll just be a little harder.

[zenmike]

Of course. You can play it however you want. But for players struggling to get profitable, this is the easiest way. If someone can't get past their first text campaign they're not looking for tips on how to make it harder.

[punt_vassius]

HI,

Until you start earning enough money the key factor are :
1. Time, speed and proper scheduling.
2. Spending and managing money wisely.
3. Checking everything permanently.

Clues:
1. Going for a social media or a meeting site are less features / components demanding.
2. Negociate everything at your advantage, especially salaries (Max 4K5 per employee).
3. Hire people when needed and fire employees when they are not useful anymore.
Tihs specifically apply for Researcher and SysAdmin who are not always usefull.
4. Spent your RP when you needed and exclusively for the things you really need.
5. Pause the game everytime you have to check something or make a decision.
6. Purchase stuffs only when needed, don't wast money for cosmetic things.
7. Don't forget to give 1~3 days off to employees when mood is low.
8. Stay on "Fastcloud" servers until you start making enough profit.
9. Don't make loans unless you are sure you can manage the stress.

And the last one but not the least:

The begining of the game is very timeline based, I mean you have to reach certains steps within a certain amount of time to stay in the race, if you miss a check point pressure will increase and this may also lead you to bankrupt, if you miss two check points in a row its done.

If you wanna chat a bit more about the game logic, just leave me a message here, I'll add you to my friend list so we an chat a bit.

See you.

[Decatsmeow]

My derp strat is when you start the game, spend some time for your character to train by themselves. If you're feeling lucky, you can probably hire two other people and have them train with you. In my experience, gives you a huge advantage in the early game while conserving money for wages.