koki wrote:
At $100 a pop, that would have generated $10 to $50 million in gross revenue. Do you really believe yT had this sort of income?
Yes, it does sound unbelievable but Bernd said he sold 80,000+ for Zeta 1.0 and it was early on so he was expecting to do more sales as reported in this link:
http://www.osnews.com/story/10460/A_Look_at_YellowTABs_Progress.
So, if he was truthful then they would have made $8+ Million in gross revenue. He also mentions having 35 employees - some maybe part time and others full time. That would have been lots of money going to employee salaries ( maybe $1 Million? per year ). And he managed to keep yT afloat for about 3 years, from the time Zeta NEO was released to a few months after the release of Zeta 1.2.
Most users would have bought Zeta 1.0 full version so lots of money came in, then for 1.1 & 1.2, these users were getting the updates which cost $10-15. And there were probably fewer full versions of 1.1 & 1.2 that were sold. So this was a lot less revenue coming in & why Bernd was ready to close shop because with 1.1 & 1.2 he was either making very small profit, breaking even or maybe even taking a slight loss. The updates made yT little money, it was the full versions where the really big money came from.
Where did all this money end up at? I'm sure Bernd was paying himself a CEO salary. Take a look at the German "Castle" he bought and lives in. It is really huge and it was because yT made money off of Zeta sales that he was able to pay himself a large salary and make this home purchase. Zeta made lots of money for Bernd. ( Bernd likely took most of the profits from yT and paid them to himself - leaving the company with very little cash reserve to get by on ).
In 2005, Bernd bought a 300 year old Beer Brewing house with 2,700 sq meters ( = 29,000+ sq feet) to live in. Yes it's on the old side, but it still would have cost lots of money to buy and will cost lots to renovate and furnish. Bernd spends his days remodeling the house from room to room.
http://www.berndsworld.com/2006/09/25/my-castle-1-the-office/#more-32
http://www.berndsworld.com/2006/12/28/sleep-on-the-red-side-of-life/#mor...
Only those that worked in yellowTAB and were in upper management ( close to Bernd ) would know for sure what the actual sales really are. I'd have to review the books myself to know for certain what the total revenue was they took in. Looking at the lifestyle Bernd is living today I have to assume that Zeta made tons of money and a good chunk may have gone to Bernd himself - this fellow knew exactly when to cash in and cash out, to make it rich. Bernd could have kept Zeta going longer from the profits made off 1.0 but there was a good chance he would have been taking losses and would have ended up with less money for himself.
Why else do you think Magnussoft became the main distributor for Zeta? Bernd likely showed and impressed them with how much money was made with 1.0 sales. I'm certain it wouldn't have been convincing showing 1.2 sales where Bernd said yT was taking a loss. And Magnussoft would not have got involved if they hadn't seen numbers to give some indication of what to expect in sales and profits from Zeta sales.
