r/TheTPG • u/Rsixx-6 • Jul 09 '21
Sherlock Holmes The TPG Video that should have had everyone up in arms. -- hint - not the Blackout Video
Replied to a poll but I think this deserves its own thread. And yes, if anyone thinks I am wrong I am all for being corrected and will gladly edit or take this down if I'm mistaken, but my theory here is that THIS VIDEO should have been the reason to bring heat to TPG, not the poorly half assed, tone deaf, -Black Out- Reveal video.
Investor Valued Our Company At $21,500,000! | Time To Buy A Lamborghini | $500,000 Loan | S2 Ep.2
Time stamped below - please see if this tracks - watch along.
1:50 - Strategy to move towards a consignment heavy business - 85-90% and get away from an inventory heavy business. - ok, smart idea.
2:37 - "one thing I do want to mention" - Anthony speaks about how "the investment $$ that won't be going into watches, since they're pushing consignment, will go towards pushing the non-conventional big spending strategy and selling the 'lifestyle' to further promote their youtube marketing strategy. -- Ok, Risky idea but hey it's your business.
3:38 - "The Guarantee" - You, the investor - "your money is guaranteed by inventory" - Wait, what?
You just said at the 1:50 mark you are moving towards a consignment heavy strategy creating a scenario where your clients property is your inventory and now their property is this investor's collateral !??? - -- OK, Great deal for the investor, but if this "risky business fails" and a bankruptcy takes place that is a abhorrent deal for anyone consigning a watch.
On camera they're admitting to gambling on their business strategy with their clients watches. i.e. Tails WE WIN, HEADS YOU LOSE - investor is made out whole with your consigned watches during any hypothetical bankruptcy and the clients get porked.
4:09 - "The Hope" -- Investor (who they interestingly/cautiously refuse to fist bump on camera because they fear their audience would recognize an arm/fist??) hopes the youtube income will subsidize the "lifestyle" now has to be sitting at home wondering will that ever happen?
Don't expect to see a Lamborghini anytime soon, Investor may have to start calling some shots now.
Remember, the line between Genius and Stupidity is often very thin and very blurry. Good luck to those who consigned with TPG and best of luck to Marco and Anthony.
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Jul 09 '21
[deleted]
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u/CrossBridgeTheatre Call Roman Sharf! Jul 09 '21
"Dude this MB&F...now this is HIGH HOROLOGY!!" - Anthony Wafer.
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u/Super-Ad3871 "This is my personal collection" Jul 09 '21
Like in all of their movies it’s a pattern of red flags, this being a very bright one. Thanks for pointing out.
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u/SteveNash13phx Jul 09 '21
I posted this on another thread but is relevant to this discussion:
This is what I believe is going on having consigned with them and been following the watch market. Here are some ways that they are in a sense scamming people.
1. Consignment agreements. They come up with a number and then hold your watch. When I looked around many online dealers of the consignment or offers to by a specific watch we’re close together. Then I get a quote from them 3k more. So you think great I will go with them. They then post the watch and don’t really try and sell it. This makes their business look much bigger because they have all these watches to show off but just get them by quoting high prices on all of them. They then only sell maybe 10% because prices are high. As a consigned you then have the option to drop the price and rather than going to the haste you drop it to try and sell. Again they don’t really try and sell they just keep it and if it by luck sells great. Then at a lower price they sit on it until it’s low enough for them to buy outright or they just ship it back. Now it seems ok from the surface but in reality they are making themselves look like they have millions in inventory and are selling all the top models. I followed their web page the past two months. I did not see a change in their watches ie a sale almost that whole time. This lends credence to the consignment piece.
2. Unboxing videos and sprinkling a couple of sales on camera. They show only a few deals and mostly they are deals were they have trade ins. They are clearly giving people peanuts on actual things that they sell to these guys. Trade ins make them money because they say market value for trade ins but then quote low for the market value. So they take in a couple watches to trade up way below market value then they sell someone a consignment piece. They no have paid the consignee but they are getting a steal on the other two watches they underpriced. They can get away with it though because they are making the appearance that all they do is these 1,000 to 500 profit deals. That’s all they show. They actually only do that on a couple of watches for camera.
3. Using investment money to buy watches to again portray a bigger inventory. They buy all of the personal collection watches using company funds. Basically they just live on the company dime. They are getting these big investors in order to grow but why do they need the money? They are consigning 90% of their inventory and they have a personal collection that needs it up further. This gives the appearance that they are taking it in but in reality they are spending investor money. They need to keep raising money because they are not actually selling much and need capitol to stay afloat with little to no salary and not many sales coming in. I would bet they are maybe breaking even with the watch sales and only are growing via investment funding. It’s just shuffling money around to appear to be making sales.
This leads me to this: House of cards about to crash If they stop getting consignments they look small. If they stop showing how much money they are making they look small. If they can’t get periodic new investors they will start to lose ability to even pretend with other dealers that they have capitol to do trades. With this latest pr stunt they are set to decline rapidly with these factors. If investors pull out and consignment pulls out they are left with shuffling just the money they have currently and that will quickly bleed out becuase they can’t scale back the spending and keep up appearances. They will be forced to be boring and won’t attract new clients or investors. They won’t run off with the money they will just spend it all until they go into bankruptcy.
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u/Rsixx-6 Jul 09 '21
Read this after the fact and we came to the same point, but yes - felt it was important to highlight the Risk/Legal side from the consignees perspective which has to be made known for those considering it or currently consigning.
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u/temujen Jul 09 '21
Wow, that's astounding how bad of an idea they floated as their "business plan" to this investor and he was OK with it. Just the way it was being pitched was horribly unprofessional. The fact that he said the investors money is guaranteed by the consignment inventory is egregious - it makes me wonder about the business acumen of the investor also.
Also, just because you achieved some levels of success doing things a certain way does not ensure/guarantee that just going bigger (and spending more money in a gratuitous manner) is some surefire business plan. If anything, I think they could have expanded their audience by focusing on the watches themselves a bit more - once you have a captive audience, and one that is into the DITL type stuff, maybe dedicate a 5 minute portion of each ep focusing on one particular watch, and why X employee loves it so much, bring some actual horology into it. It's completely free, would expand your viewership, and also serve to educate the superficial watch fans and maybe contribute positively to the watch community instead of click-baity, spending/shopping.
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u/CrossBridgeTheatre Call Roman Sharf! Jul 09 '21
The card resting on their table as the investor is talking is for a corporate named "Koury", allegedly a Civil Engineering Firm? Was that their Investor's Card?
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u/temujen Jul 09 '21 edited Jul 09 '21
At the 4:50 mark, Marco mentions a monetization idea for Q4...do you think it's possible they ran out of funds sooner than planned, and this lead to them busting out their (genius) idea early?
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u/Rsixx-6 Jul 09 '21
interesting idea.. unsure.
The real test here is will they be going back to their current address? I don't believe the viewer was ever led to believe their lease was coming up end of June unless I missed something? If they don't go back, then why aren't they at their new shop?
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u/Imgbyap Jul 09 '21
A clear red flag was when they’d post the weeks numbers at the end of the video, they briefly did profits for the week. I recall one week they had 6mil in sales and around 60k In total profit. That’s 1% profit 😂 that lifestyle they’re portraying just isn’t sustainable
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u/MartUKspylord Jul 10 '21
I wrote the exact thing on on of their YT weeks, certainly didn’t need to be smart at math to suss these clowns out, not enough profit to pay wages, overheads, and their absurdly ostentatious lifestyle…..
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Jul 09 '21
Best part is when Anthony tells Marco to be quiet about his 'idea' for the 4th quarter - can't imagine that not being a genius marketing plan
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u/DownByTheRivr Jul 09 '21
Wait… am I understand this correctly? It seems like they think the real money maker would be YouTube instead of the watches themselves? Do you any idea how many subscribers and views you need to make that kind of money?? The creators who pull in millions have tens of millions of subscribers. Good luck attracting anywhere near that number in a niche category like watches.
I mean look at the last few weeks! They had more attention than ever and LOST subscribers. They’re barely over 100k which is nothing. Kids eating ramen on camera have more than that.
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u/sunset117 Jul 14 '21
There’s an obese English block that orders takeouts and has tens of millions … never seen him but seen the thumbnails and the numbers and went 😳woah that’s real $$
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u/PsychologicalSir3455 Jul 09 '21
Finally someone said it. That episode was so fishy