Bright Things Share Discussion Threads

[norbus] 12/4/2010 16:10

Yes if I can get the clarity about the philosophy forward to convince me this is not unduly influenced by boffinish thinking. I spoke to Dom twice, and I did not want to be pushy so I waited for an update to all holders. I got no reaction from you or Carl to ask for one to all holders

[the analyst] 12/4/2010 15:30

You still in the market for more, then Norbus?

That's another good sign...

[norbus] 12/4/2010 15:18

A good sign; no one offered it to me ! :-/

[the analyst] 12/4/2010 13:47

Unusual for such a big trade to go through. No impact on the price, either...

[the analyst] 12/4/2010 11:42

"We actually tried several different free websites such as Ning and Yola and we found that their websites were a little complicated to build." Shawn tells us, "They didn't offer the things we were looking for to start out. Then we found SocialGO and found it very easy to use. To start with, SocialGO offers many features for free that other websites don't have. They offer appealing choices to setup your network for you on the Concierge plan, its really simple to do. My wife and I do not have a lot of experience in websites, as a matter of fact this was our first website and SocialGO made it really easy for us to get set up and get started."
Having access to a personal account manager who is a professional web designer is not the only benefit of the SocialGO Concierge plan. Access to the widget store and all its unique applications that can be added to your network can be what makes the difference between a successful network and just another run of the mill fan site. "SocialGO offers a lot of helpful tools to establish a great website." says Adora, who has added several widgets to her network, including video chat, which is free and allows members to chat to one another via live web cam link.
Making a successful social network can be very expensive and time consuming, but for Shawn and Adora it has been easy. They have already acquired nearly 1000 members. "It was very easy building the website and it is becoming very successful and gaining in popularity.""

[uncle_bob] 11/4/2010 19:31

Norbus.
Has Proactive missed it also.

[norbus] 11/4/2010 19:28

It's posted on the header above. Seems you've missed it

[uncle_bob] 11/4/2010 17:21

ARE YOU GUYS aware of this capital injection of $800k at the beginning of the year. I can't seem to find an RNS for this, or am I missing something.

Also I think the note from Proactive Investors has missed this.

[norbus] 11/4/2010 17:04

Dom has deep pockets, and presumably he is not about to cut holes in them! They
need the share price up from here whatever happens, especially if they need more funding
I suspect Vickram will have 1st call, and a placing need not have an open offer

[carl79] 11/4/2010 10:08

uncle bob, i dont thing there has ever been "demand" for BGT shares prior to a placement...if anything, anyone wanting to buy holds off to see what price the placing will come - most who follow can gauge when money will be needed and hence a cash call announced - eg; the next quarter imo...

As TA has said, the longer this cash call is absent, the better they must be doing from a revenue generation perspective.

Dom has deep pockets imo - not short of a penny or two so my guess is he'd take a slice. They also have a new FD who may want a few 100k and of course Alex etc although im not sure how affluent they are - they may not have a spare £10k knocking round to buy into a placing...Finally but not least of which are their institutional investors - given Vikrant's experience, i'd expect he had a good idea how far the most recent placing would take them so is either expecting another one or is pushing for some debt financing...with an anticipated income stream of £0.5M-£0.7M per annum they could probably take on some debt - possibly not enough to take them to the next level but asking the market to hand out cash may no longer be the only option...just my thoughts...

[uncle_bob] 11/4/2010 07:33

I can't see them being able to raise more money by means of a placing, there is no demand for BGT shares at the moment and what's more the company is not doing anything to stimulate demand by way of issuing a trading update.

Buying and selling has stopped, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them withdraw altogether from the equity markets and go private.

[carl79] 09/4/2010 19:25

Hi SirM,

Cheers,

I never saw it till you posted. But to be fair, are they telling us anything we dont know?

We expect money to be required soon...

We have already raised doubts about the rate at which they are attracting (paying) customers and have intimated that further prod devpts may improve penetration...

We are not falling ourselves to buy but in the same breath are not selling by the boatload so it is a bit of a nothing update for me...I have thought BGT a "hold" as opposed to a "buy" for a while now - i wouldn't be posing concerns as i have if i thought it a screaming buy...

Things just seem to be happening a bit slowly but this is ONLY due to a lack of update - they may be firing on all cylinders behind the scenes - i am happy to wait for the next update and will take stock of the situation then...

Hope you are well?

[the analyst] 09/4/2010 15:30

Have been in contact with them recently to get an update, might get in touch again soon if I feel the need...

[the analyst] 09/4/2010 13:41

I still think they can pull it off, mind. Just that they probably need to raise another couple of million to do it. So, we may be looking at doubling the shares in issue.

That's fine of they become a £50-100m company, which is the sort of minimum target they should be aiming for, imo

[norbus] 09/4/2010 12:05

TA

Thank you; I did not see the presentation, and I'll look forward to that. It felt after December that they are on a different road map; part of that, I expected them to have a little more interest in the share price to reflect development and progress in case of the inevitable next funding round, which I'd not really find helpful at 1.25 or thereabouts.

The financials are fundamental and gauge progress,cost thereof, and indicative to B/E. That has me confused alright, as does technical and market progress . I had expected an update in March based on last year, hence my frustration at lack of metrics for progress since December.

PS:
the broker's note issued today on Carl's thread downgrading BGT to hold reflects my sentiment and fear of a missed opportunity to minimise dilution.

PPS
Where is the presentation?

[sirmark] 09/4/2010 11:54

Hi Karl without reading back not sure if this has already been posted released today

Bright Things (BGT, 1.375p, £4.4m) The December 2009 release of the interims to September 2009 highlighted underlying cash usage of £0.88m in a period when marketing spend was increasing. The company raised £1.6m during the first half and another £0.5m post the first half. Consequently we believe the business has enough cash to June 2010, based on the half year cash burn. BGT has also acquired a software developer – so reduction in the cash burn rate is improbable unless usage soars. With a March year-end the Report & Accounts will have a qualified accountant's report unless they raise a further £1.3m. What can reduce the cash requirement is success in gaining paying customers - however, although there has been some upturn in numbers, we do not believe it is sufficient yet to expect anything other than a further dilutive share-raising. As a result we rate the shares as a HOLD, down from speculative buy

[the analyst] 09/4/2010 10:56

Did you watch the update presentation yesterday, Norbus?

It was pretty useful for seeing where the product is, what they are developing etc. None of what was presented was suitable for an rns, but I found it useful on many different levels

I can't really say I've ever felt confused about where they want to take the product. For me, that is clear (which is why I invested). The big issue for me is whether they can execute the plan in a timely fashion or whether competition will ape them

Basically, the focus right now it to continue to develop SocialGO V1 in order to free it from bugs, make it easier to use and to produce new features and widgets that will make it more attractive, useful and enjoyable to use (and hence more profitable)

At the same time, they are developing a V2 product that aims to be better in many ways, especially for third party developers, which will allow the product to develop in new ways and hence will be better suited to establishing new markets

The disappointing news is that things 'appear' to be going much more slowly than planned. For example, it has taken over three months to move the servers and they are still not finished. Also, it seems that V2 is unlikely to released for quite some time, when there was hope (at the AGM) that it would be released early in 2010

The main confusion here, is regards to financial performance

Like others here, I have no idea about their current financial performance - cash in the bank, cash burn, marketing spend, numbers of premium users, average spend etc. Presumably, no news could be bad news on that, but in a super-competitive industry where literally nobody gives out KPIs, they have a dilemma....

Should they release results quickly and regularly and risk giving competition useful, up-to-date information about what is and what is not working?

[norbus] 09/4/2010 08:51

I trust that I am not the only person here who is totally confused about the current status of BGT and where it might be going. I have seen posts from knowledgeable LTH's since I bought into this after the December corporate action; almost all posters are serious and contribute, yet despite this no one can say where BGT are or want to go beyond pure guesswork.

This has to be down to the management who may think that PI's are best treatred as mushrooms, since the management owns the majority of the company, or they are sitting on commercially sensitive secrets that they can't divulge a meaningful status update statement to all shareholders.

It maybe that a reasonable letter to Dominic may bring about a status update to all shareholders. I'd be happy to sign to such if other LTH's agree with same.

[ljsquash] 09/4/2010 08:44

Hi Carl,
I have watched the Alexa site every week day for a long time now, it was obvious when the USA shut down occured, but in the last few days the numbers are way higher than almost anything previous.
USA is down to 7337 from 8,000+ and the % of site traffic has also jumped higher than before the shut down.
The UK has also surged much higher on site traffic, 8.9% today (This was only about 6% not long ago). UK now 5th on worldwide traffic rank it was 9th.

I know the Alexa figures themselves are fairly useless, but when your comparing them against their own figures it should be helpful.

[carl79] 08/4/2010 19:23

Well, thats the million dollar question...they have new offices and new servers so infrastructure should do them for a while at least...staff, yes, they may need more developers and support peeps...

[uncle_bob] 08/4/2010 18:53

Can BGT grow without spending lots of money. Surely they will need to spend quite a bit on new infrastructre and support staff.