Hello, I'm Thomas. I'm not new to the scene, you may have remembered during lockdown, on the old UKVac forum, I tried to kickstart a cab restoration business. It was a divestment plan from my cryptocurrency trading days. If you were there at the time, you know what happened, I accepted pre-orders for not-yet finished arcade cabinets and it failed spectacularly; the funds from my cryptocurrency days dried up, lockdown was in full effect, so I had to call a day. Thanks to the support of family and other members of the community, I was able to get everyone refunded. I wasn't the only one to be burnt from my failure unfortunately...
Before I kickstarted the project, I found Pat (anyoldusername) on Youtube in 2018, he posted a video about using magnet strips to adjust/fix convergence issues on Blast City monitors. I had just bought my first Blast City candy cab from Ronnie/RKLOK, but like every newbie to the game; I wanted it perfect. I sent him an instagram message, the rest is history. He was keen to restore another Blast City (mine), but I already had the bug.
I applied the networking skills I built from my cryptocurrency days to the arcade business, but I was also learning the business as I went along. I spoke with countless, key members of the community (including Martin, John Bud, Japanarama John, Michael (France), RKLOK Ronnie, some random filipino guy who tried to scam me, repair specialists such as Gunblade (we spoke about the chinese reproduction monitor flyback/chassis that could save a lot of candy cab monitors down the line at the time), and other community members locally and across the globe. Everything at the time felt like it was slowly falling in place, but it didn't last.
By the time everything was said and done, I had 40-50 project candy cabins across 3 x 20ft self-storage containers which cost me £120/month per container. Pat was essentially doing all the hands-on work, such as taking deliveries, moving, stripping down, swapping components. At this point, my divestment plan was taking longer than I expected and was not yet bringing any cash in. I took the (wrong) decision to advertise the cabs for presale with the promise that they will be restored to a certain standard. This effectively passed the pressure on to Pat, who was offering his time/services in exchange for the future promise of earning some finished cabinets for himself. The overall pressure set off a negative spiral loop of constant delays, rushing projects and unforeseen issues (such as the Aero Cities being badly dented, even with a powdercoat they didn't look right, repaired monitor chassis failing, etc).
The day eventually happened, the money dried up and it was the middle of winter; panic set in. I finally opened up to my parents about my financial situation and the response was "If you don't stop this now, not even we can help you". I told the bad news to Pat, he reacted how you would expect and understand. I was now on my own. With 3 containers of non-functional cabs and the storage bills racking up, I once again applied my networking skills, but this time out of duress. I swallowed my pride pill and sent Andy Palmer (the owner of Arcade Club) a brief message explaining my situation. He immediately asked for my number and rang me. We agreed to a price for him to purchase the majority of the cabs, the Arcade Club team came to the rescue. It took 3 trips from Manchester to Exter and back to clear out most of the containers. Some of the funds were used to issue refunds to everyone who placed a pre-order deposit.
Where am I now? Thankfully, everything is going ok. I now run Comicoin, which was my other divestment plan. Comicoin wouldn't exist today if I stood around and did nothing at the time. The cabs today are actually living inside of Arcade Club, they have exiting things aheads from what I've heard. Personally, I feel like I'm a small part of their story, and I think that's great. I tried to keep some leftover cabinets for myself (Konami Windy IIs, some Namco Noirs, an Egret II and a couple of Super Neo 29s), but to keep cashflow strong for Comicoin, I eventually parted with them. The Konami Windy IIs went to Mark from Heart of Gaming, the Noirs and Super Neo 29s went to a private seller (I'm currently trying to buy back the Super Neo 29 haha), and the Egret II is in safe hands with Pat, thankfully we reconnected and are now friends again.
For me, the moral of the story is the following:
* don't take money, preorders, etc unless you have a high degree of certainty you can deliver on the promises
* if your actions affect other people negatively, make it right
* no matter how hards things can be, with the right help, the right tools, you can always turn it around
* the money I personally lost, I now think of it as 'student debt' from the School of Life
* be always kind
Before I kickstarted the project, I found Pat (anyoldusername) on Youtube in 2018, he posted a video about using magnet strips to adjust/fix convergence issues on Blast City monitors. I had just bought my first Blast City candy cab from Ronnie/RKLOK, but like every newbie to the game; I wanted it perfect. I sent him an instagram message, the rest is history. He was keen to restore another Blast City (mine), but I already had the bug.
I applied the networking skills I built from my cryptocurrency days to the arcade business, but I was also learning the business as I went along. I spoke with countless, key members of the community (including Martin, John Bud, Japanarama John, Michael (France), RKLOK Ronnie, some random filipino guy who tried to scam me, repair specialists such as Gunblade (we spoke about the chinese reproduction monitor flyback/chassis that could save a lot of candy cab monitors down the line at the time), and other community members locally and across the globe. Everything at the time felt like it was slowly falling in place, but it didn't last.
By the time everything was said and done, I had 40-50 project candy cabins across 3 x 20ft self-storage containers which cost me £120/month per container. Pat was essentially doing all the hands-on work, such as taking deliveries, moving, stripping down, swapping components. At this point, my divestment plan was taking longer than I expected and was not yet bringing any cash in. I took the (wrong) decision to advertise the cabs for presale with the promise that they will be restored to a certain standard. This effectively passed the pressure on to Pat, who was offering his time/services in exchange for the future promise of earning some finished cabinets for himself. The overall pressure set off a negative spiral loop of constant delays, rushing projects and unforeseen issues (such as the Aero Cities being badly dented, even with a powdercoat they didn't look right, repaired monitor chassis failing, etc).
The day eventually happened, the money dried up and it was the middle of winter; panic set in. I finally opened up to my parents about my financial situation and the response was "If you don't stop this now, not even we can help you". I told the bad news to Pat, he reacted how you would expect and understand. I was now on my own. With 3 containers of non-functional cabs and the storage bills racking up, I once again applied my networking skills, but this time out of duress. I swallowed my pride pill and sent Andy Palmer (the owner of Arcade Club) a brief message explaining my situation. He immediately asked for my number and rang me. We agreed to a price for him to purchase the majority of the cabs, the Arcade Club team came to the rescue. It took 3 trips from Manchester to Exter and back to clear out most of the containers. Some of the funds were used to issue refunds to everyone who placed a pre-order deposit.
Where am I now? Thankfully, everything is going ok. I now run Comicoin, which was my other divestment plan. Comicoin wouldn't exist today if I stood around and did nothing at the time. The cabs today are actually living inside of Arcade Club, they have exiting things aheads from what I've heard. Personally, I feel like I'm a small part of their story, and I think that's great. I tried to keep some leftover cabinets for myself (Konami Windy IIs, some Namco Noirs, an Egret II and a couple of Super Neo 29s), but to keep cashflow strong for Comicoin, I eventually parted with them. The Konami Windy IIs went to Mark from Heart of Gaming, the Noirs and Super Neo 29s went to a private seller (I'm currently trying to buy back the Super Neo 29 haha), and the Egret II is in safe hands with Pat, thankfully we reconnected and are now friends again.
For me, the moral of the story is the following:
* don't take money, preorders, etc unless you have a high degree of certainty you can deliver on the promises
* if your actions affect other people negatively, make it right
* no matter how hards things can be, with the right help, the right tools, you can always turn it around
* the money I personally lost, I now think of it as 'student debt' from the School of Life
* be always kind
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