I've reached the point where i've absorbed enough information to identify problems with the orginization, assets, and anything that is holding back sales and awareness of Crystalized Osmium. Convincing people the asset is good is only one part of increasing sales; Eliminating inefficiencies and correcting mistakes that where made early on in the start-up process *before* the asset goes global is another BIG part of that.

I want to start off this review *very positively*, and i beg you to remember this paragraph going forward as i'll talk about my findings. Return to it later if you start questioning your decisions if needbe. After absorbing a massive amount of information and looking at every aspect of the asset and orginization - I've only found one area with major problems, and in fact, *any* problems at all. From the first meeting, learning that most of the businessplan i had thought up was already implemented, to getting feedback from people i got in as late as yesterday, to understanding the full technological aspect of the asset.... I have been amazed at every step how well everything has been *thought through*. This is not something i see in most, and dare i say, any other company. You guys are not afraid to implement technology from the very start, while making sure it doesn't dominate the asset, the mistake of others who market themselves as a "tech company" when they are not.

This company has my fullest respect. I would never, in my life, for no one, input this kind of effort as i feel it must be earned, and i feel that purely through sound business decisions as well as the leniency and trust you've given me, you've more then earned my fullest capabilities.

With that said. No one is perfect.

The one area in which the company fails miserably is Marketing. There's no sugarcoating it.

AGAIN, i stress, the main reason why the failure is so deep is because, literally everything else, is so damned good.

Think of your marketing as that ugly friend that hangs around a group of sexy cheerleaders and they let her stay cause she makes them look nice (and prettier). It needs a makeover.

With that also said - I'm not the type to shower with compliments. I *name* problems, because *you* *need* *to* *know*. Keep in mind that my autism means i don't know how you feel, therefor i also don't know if i offend. Unless i get feedback, i *am* blind, and i won't get feedback until you have read this - at which point it is too late for me to "soften the blow" in the text you've just read.

I stress: I *NEVER* ever Ever EVER *EVER* mean to offend people i respect so much. When Scarlett told me i had offended her, i cried for an hour, as that's what excessively strong emotions mean (though to be fair i was REALLY stressed out and it was just the straw that broke the camels back). Unfortunately the disconnect goes both ways. I talk freely, but that is all. I've stopped apologizing, as I no longer wish to apologize for who i am, but I compensate for my transgressions with my honesty: Just as you can be assured that i *WILL* name a problem if i see it, you can rest assured that if i give compliments, it is reality.

From this point forward, i won't sugarcoat, disclaim, or hold back. My trust in you means that i trust you to remember my kind words above, and realise that one or a few mistakes do not reflect badly on the overall product, company or future of osmium - As long as you're willing to admit to them.

A Mistake is Only a mistake if you Refuse to Admit to it.

Let us begin.

- THE WEBSITE.
It's garbage. It's garbage code with garbage decisions, nigh all of it on the front end. As far as the backend goes, i haven't found any lag or problems loading, logging in, finding stuff once i found it. Again - your tech is solid. But whoever made the storefront was smoking stuff i wouldn't even touch.

First off it doesn't remotely respect bandwidth. I've found out that the pictures of the letters and numbers in the "i love you" calculator at the bottom ALL are *low resolution JPGs at an extremely high pixelcount for their purpose*. Example:

Take the letter A. It's good to use because there's currently no letter A in the shop, so it doesn't show up in the top menu and allows me to isolate the cause. This is also confusing by the way, you want a consistent menu and simply say "out of stock" when the product is... well out of stock. People don't like change, especially not changing storefronts.

If i screenshot the website on my 2560x1440 144HZ €500 gaming monitor, then draw a box around the letter A in Paint.net after selecting it, i get a ~180x160 rectangle.
Saved as a JPG with the highest quality, that comes to 17,5 kilobytes. JPG is a lossy format (throws data away), PNG is a lossless format (always looks good) and supports Alpha (transparancy, which JPGs do not); and as a PNG, the filesize would be 29,1 kilobytes. That is with a white background - If i cut out the letter A, the PNG with a transparant background drops to 13 kilobytes.

That picture of the A live on the website is in reality 1487x1526 pixels big with a filesize of 300 kilobytes (If you wish to check, go to the website, hit Ctrl+S to save it, select a directory, and just browse the files). Not only that, but i work with screenshots quite a bit (you should see my "memory box" of just this year, ~1100+ screenshots) and have all my life, so i can spot a JPG that has been resized a mile away - looks blurry as hell. So not only is the picture excessively big, it is HORRIBLE quality, making the osmium look like plastic crap. Again - it's not the osmium that looks like crap, it's the fucking picture made by whichever fucking moron who thought it was OK to resize a JPG after saving it once (or multiple times even), HURTING YOUR BUSINESS!

I've downloaded the entire website to my PC. *Just the letters and numbers alone* come to 12 MEGABYTES of data that needs to be transfered every pageload when it's not in the cache. Now, 8 bits is 1 byte. So when you hear "8 megabit connection" think "1 megabyte connection". On an 8 megabit connection this website takes 12 seconds to load just the "i love you" calculator, burning YOUR bandwidth and the customer's datacap if they have one, still common in the US.

The worst thing is at the end of it all, the pictures are hidden inside the calculator most of the time, so at the end of it all you don't even get to see the data you burned. I swear - if this was made by somebody in my project group in my *first year* of my IT education, i'd punch him in the fucking face. As an educated system administrator, this offends my sensibilities.

You will NEVER reach rural america like this. I understand why it hasn't been a problem so far - All the german countries are well connected. Cyberspace is my home so i pay for a fat pipe, so i didn't notice either at first. But the spidersense got to tingling anyway - And this problem NEEDS to be fixed, and whoever didn't get the bright idea to resize those pictures should get at the very least a salary cut or lose a bonus. Just because bandwidth is more available now does NOT make this OK! Honestly if my employee gave me this website i would've fired them and look for somebody better. It really is that bad. I might ruin somebodies life saying that. But since i know what damage a poorly made website can do to a business, and the MANY lives THAT impacts - i feel no need for mercy.

I haven't checked on Mobile, but if the same problem persists on mobile, i'm coming to germany with a taser. You're using 12 megabytes of data for something that should cost ~400kb, not even.

FIRST RULE OF WEBDESIGN: MINIMIZE. DATA. TRANSFER. Quite literally the first rule. Even if bandwidth is plenty - smaller sites load faster and lead to a better customer experience. But don't go crazy, cause just as with writing where Elegance > Wordcount, Elegance > data transfer. Spend the data where it's worth, chop off the rest. The main banner is 253 kilobytes (YEAH i'm not kidding that shitty picture of the A is 1/6th BIGGER then your main fucking banner. See why i'm so pissed?) and could easily triple in size and quality, and since it's the main banner and thus gets alot more eyes then the calculator at the bottom, your views-per-kilobyte-transferred ratio would be alot better.

That's the only technical problem i've found and needs to be dealt with *A.S.A.P.*. Having the calculator doesn't matter - Having high quality pictures of the asset while reducing bandwidth traffic does.

RECOMMENDATION: Well, this is not a recommendation, this is an order. Get better pictures of the letters, have your guys resize the raws to the right size (no bigger then 400x300), make the background transparant (and give the calculator a white background, which is a hexcode so literally ~1kb of code, achieving the same result), and save them as PNGs instead of JPGs. I won't accept talkback on this either. It's that bad. I have a shop with MY name on it, and it's making ME look bad cause i'm supposed to know these things. Your actions directly affect others. Fix it.

As egregious as it is, that's the only technical issue i found. I will say, on the onboarding site now that i've gotten 5 people in - It needs an "onboarding succeeded! Please visit this link to customize your shop:" screen after the form has been filled out and submitted. Every single one of my guys (and me 3-4 times) got confused because after the submit, the page refreshes and just returns to an empty form.

Now i'll move on to the main issue with the website (and the brochure, and the photos, and everything marketing related really), and it's exactly the thing you recruited me for:

Representation.

You guys are *not* representing the asset correctly. To show you, let me share some private comments my team made to me *while i was recruiting and onboarding them*, so these guys are literally people who agreed to upend their future for you, so if they comment - it's out of worry, not mistrust. Also i'm paraphrasing a bit, due to my memory problems.

Shannon, who's had a healing crystal shop for years, after i showed the shop immediately went for the giftboxes:
her -"OH look at these i want one"
"yeah the stuff looks really good"
"The woman in the picture looks stupid though xD"
"yeah i know, their marketing could be better"
"She looks like she doesn't know what she's holding but she knows it's expensive xD"
"Tell them to fix the pictures xD"
"allright i will ^_^"
"are you happy with the opportunity? :D"
"I'll be happy when they fix the pictures xD i'm just a perfectionist but it looks real stupid".

Elliot, who's located in California (and we've got a plan for grassroots marketing in Hollywood - simply drive up there):
(after onboarding him, doing an interview, and talking actively for ~4 1/2 hours)
Me - "ugh i'm just tired... I'm rewriting the brochure cause their marketing sucks..."
"... i mean.... They're selling an asset 1000 times more rare then gold and they're glueing it to peoples faces man...."
"GOD I KNOW RIGHT! I really hated that picture actually. I was like, "is that glitter or.... what even is that?".
"yeah well don't worry i'm fixing it."

Talking to Tom from palisades just on skype:
"i'm rewriting the brochure and then i'll compress it into a flyer for you guys cause why the fuck is a brochure 72 pages in the first place"
"Lol good point".

From the very beginning, before Lynne even made her purchase, talking to her:"
Me -"The letters and numbers are really stupid xD"
"Yeah it looks tacky"
"looks like something i can literally buy a block away in the discount store"
(can't remember the rest it was too long ago but if you ask her she'll agree)

Meanwhile every single person i tried getting in had the same comment at the start: This looks like a multilevel marketing scheme.
I've convinced them all that it's not, for good reason. But just so you know, you've set it up quite close to the same thing, so it LOOKS bad.
I can market anything, it's all a matter of perspective, it's just that the perspective you're showing the world isn't the right one.
And no i'm not gonna believe you over my team that is DEEPLY loyal to me.

Let me make one thing very VERY clear:
- All your >sales< success so far is based on the strength of Osmium alone. You are selling a killer asset, truely a work of art, and THAT is pulling YOU forward. Your shop and marketing is putting people off. And the way it should be, is the other way around: You should lift your asset up even higher.

No wonder you've had trouble in Russia and Hong Kong. Other people see that you don't know what you're doing too yknow. But unlike me, they don't spend ungodly amounts of effort trying to explain it. Why go through the trouble of explaining problems and possibly get fired for talking back, when they can just rip you off like everyone else in the markets. You die and they just move on. HAHA loser, try harder next time.

I wish marketing was as simple as quantum mechanics. It's no place for a bunch of decent Germans. Now, an agent of chaos like me however....

RECCOMENDATIONS (it's quite a laundry list - but it will fix literally everything. I'm nothing if not thorough): 

- PICTURES: THIS is the main thing that's ruining sales. Yes, Ruining them. You are thinking of the numbers you've sold so far during your startup period and "it's going better all the time", am i close? That's absolute fucking PEANUTS within MONTHS with what i'm going to do to demand. You have NO idea how *big* the market really is. I do. I'm a human behaviour specialist. As long as you've been looking at the metal, i've been looking at people. I'm looking at your current site, compared to how it could be, and you could double your acceleration rate (AKA how fast an exponential curve curves up) on better, high resolution pictures *alone*.

1) All the pictures now are uniformly lit stills of the material. I cannot possibly express how insanely stupid this is, and i'd slap your photographer if i could. Photography is more then keeping a camera still, yknow. And before you start: I've got talent for photography too. The current smartphone i got as a birthday present this year, which my father selected based on its camera capabilities, because "he knows i'm creative and wants to see what i come up with". Every Kermis i'm the photographer, i even went on a boy scout trip when i was younger where i took photos so often it got put into the song at the end of the trip (i knew - so i took a picture during it). My sister has a very expensive €1300 camera she got when she went through a photography phase (and she still takes pictures for herself) and asks me plenty of times how to take a picture if she's stuck. My father built a darkroom in our garage to develop photos and after the divorce in his closet. I'm not just some shmuck with a smartphone. And again this is aside from my technical knowledge from working with picture and video formats all my life, going back to a 486SX 25mhz computer.

This ENTIRE time, i've been working under the ASSUMPTION that the asset is as good as it is. Because the pictures are hot garbage and tell me nothing.

Until i was talking to Scarlett on how to get a few local jewellers in, and she sent me a ~300 Megabyte *actual high resolution video* of her using a simple flashlight and going back and forth over a couple of naturally formed crystal disks.

My eyes went O.O right away. You know what my internal voice's reaction was?

"THIS STUFF IS SHINY AS FUCK! HOH-LEE-SHIT! I'VE NEVER SEEN SOMETHING SO SHINY! THESE GUYS ARE MORONS! WHY ISN'T THIS ON THE SITE?!"

Remember that sharing my most private thoughts is also effort. It creates uncertainty for me in my calculation of "how you see me".

Lynne recently recieved her purchase. I asked her for photographs of the box and everything in it so i could get a visual feel of what we're dealing with. The box looks great (it could be improved but that's another section), but the amateur quick photo she made and sent me of a simple bar looks MAGNITUDES better then *anything* i've seen on the website.

Yknow why? Ununiform normal house lighting causing shades and sparkles on the asset and she took it on a modern high-resolution smartphone picture.

You could *fix this today* (if you can admit you have a problem):
1. Go grab the assets
2. Place them on a BLACK VELVET underground (the black contrasts with the sparkles), just a cloth will do - but high quality cloth.
3. Place a WHITE light at an angle above the osmium from the north direction. Use a spotlight or the flashlight on a 2nd smartphone. Whiter = better.
4. Grab the best smartphone camera you have, use the biggest megapixel mode it has (those are built to rescale the photo down for more detail).
5. Photograph the osmium from above from the south direction, BUT, have a *slight* angle to the camera, so it's not 100% from above.
If "straight from above" is a 90 degree angle, you're looking for ~85 degrees.
6. Import the photograph to a digital editing software (i use Paint.net - it's simple cause i'm a 2D moron and its open source), and rescale it to 4K resolution: 3840 × 2160 pixels. This is the highest most commonly used resolution in consumer electronics. Save it in the .PNG format, as it's lossless, so it doesn't delete data.
7. Save the rescaled large version, then open the original again.
8. Rescale it again, but now to 1280x720 - this is the lowest resolution of the "HD" resolutions. Save it separately, again as .PNG.
9. Open the original for the third time. Select the Wand tool. Click on the black velvet background and adjust "hardness" slider so that it basically only has the black background selected and you're happy with the edge.
9. Delete the background and anything else that's not part of the Osmium. Don't forget parts inside pieces with holes in them like an A! Keep it transparant.
10. Resize the picture again, this time to a resolution of 320x200. Save it as a .PNG so the transparancy is maintained (this also decreases filesize dramatically).
11. Then tell your website guys: A) Replace the thumbnails on the website with the smallest version with transparancy, B) Replace the *default* picture for ALL assets on their separate pages with the 1280x720 picture scaled down (so it still looks good when people hover over it with the zoom glass). NO HUMANS! The default has to be *about the asset the *customer* comes there to buy*.
12. Then tell your website guys to create a button below the picture window that says "View in 4K" or something similar, and when a person clicks that, it opens up the full resolution picture in a separate tab.
13. If they can't do both in an hour or less for the entire shop, shoot them in the leg.
14. Once the shop is updated, use whatever partner mailing list you have to send around an email "SHOP UPDATED! please check it out and let your customers know."

If you wanna pay for a trip and a consulting fee i swear i'll come to Germany and do it myself with my own bare hands, i'll even bring *my photography studio lighting kit*. The above process would take me, with access to the materials and a smartphone, 2-3 hours max for the entire shop. If i had arrived this morning, your sales would've already start taking off as i'm writing this at 22:00, and doubled by tomorrow morning. When you see the difference of old and new next to each other you're gonna feel like a fool for ever thinking any different. But that's ok - if there's one sentence that exemplifies my life it's that "if people can't see it, it isn't there". Goes for all of us. Just gotta be aware of it is all.

This is the *quick* fix. For the true fix i would need a custom setup:

- Basically the above setup fixed in a small machine: Camera mounted in the middle on a tripod, with a ring around it where a angled LED can make a full revolution on a track. Write a script that films 2 full revolutions of the LED so you can automate the process: Put the asset down, hit a button, wait 3 seconds, send the file to the webdesigner/editor. The idea here is to create a Looped GIF. Having a revolving light around Osmium is sure to create massive sparkling. After the camera records it, an editor (i could do it myself it's really simple) can create a high quality GIF of the movie that you can use both as thumbnail AND full size in the shop if people click on it. Because it's standardized (just put a dot on the cloth and place all assets on the dot for centration) because can compare videos in their head which convinces them to buy. And because Osmium is, i believe the technical term is, "Fucking Sparkly" - Those thumbnails will >draw attention< ten times better then the current pictures, and 3 times better then the above improved process.

And it doesn't introduce anything the site doesn't already have, because if you go to the site and *hover over* the thumbnails you get a very hard to see shitty particle sparkles effect. C'mon man. You created the most sparkly thing in existence, and *that* is the website thumbnail? And it *only* happens when you hover over, which not a single soul will ever do, because they all *wanna see what it looks like*. Not some shitty browser particle effect.

To continue with the pictures, there's two more elements that need to be dealt with, both pertaining to Models.

2) First lets touch the elephant in the room. I've been informed that the woman holding the boxes is a personal friend of Ingo who he wanted involved in promoting the asset. Most if not all salespeople will tell you involving friends this way is harmful to business and you shouldn't do it - I am NOT one of those people.

I want to make something *very* clear from the start: I believe so much in involving friends and good people they're literally my entire salesteam.

And another thing: My suggestions are *all* focussed on a perspective on involving Ingo's friend MORE, not less. I'm not trying to get rid of her, i literally want *more* pictures of her.

HOWEVER! There's a right way to go about things, and there's many wrong ways. Shannon was right - the gift box pictures look considerably stupid. But i am known for my specificity so let me be very specific about this very touchy subject: The gift box *>PICTURES<* look stupid. Not the woman - the way in which the woman was utilized. Again - i'd slap your photographer twice if i could, because he made an ass out of the directors friend.

I have a suggestion to fix this quite fast, and combine it with the fix for two other problems i've found on the website: Uniformity and Size Comparison. I'll talk about those first before the fix, as it ties everything together.

By Uniformity i mean the *additional* pictures on the website of each asset. The *number* of pictures per store page differs highly: Some pages have ONLY the shitty compressed picture and nothing else, some have multiple pictures of the asset, some have multiple pictures plus literally some random ass model acting fancy. It looks completely random as to what piece does and doesn't have a picture of it, and the pictures themselves have no uniformity either - the shitty main pictures are all the same, but the additional pictures most certainly aren't. This is a BIG problem as it ruins people's ability to connect and compare different pieces in their mind - Some pieces have more info then others, which confuses the issue. Prices and dimensions aren't the only things people compare, and alot of those things happen in the mind. You still have to account for them though.

The second one is related to that, Size Comparison: A letter is roughtly 6 millimeter by 4 millimeter big. *i have no idea* how big that is, because i NEVER work with anything that size on a daily basis (it's basically a grain of rice, isn't it? Isn't it? I DON'T KNOW I HAVE NO POINT OF REFERENCE), and ALL the letter has in pictures is a GIANT picture of the letter (again, got a 27" gaming monitor and bad eyes so i sit close) that in no way offers any idea of the size of the darn thing. I can *fucking guarantee* you - ANY BODY who buys a letter on your website then receives it is going to be shocked as they thought they where getting *alot* more. Also; Americans don't know metric anyway.

ALL of these problems can be made to go away by standardization, and ALL can be fixed *within a week*. The new situation will feature more material of Ingo's friend that puts her in a *MUCH* more flattering light while driving sales through the roof. Here is what i suggest:

Standardization.

THE FIRST PICTURE OF ALL ASSETS HAVE TO BE *OF* THE ASSET! I cannot stress this enough. The people are coming to your shop to buy. If you where selling pants, and people wanna see a pair, you're not gonna tell them to wait and have your friend put them on to model them, would you? Turnover would be horrible.

THIS INCLUDES THE GIFT BOXES! In fact, in cases where the packaging is also important like a >gift< box, the First photo should be the asset itself, the second photo should be the asset *in the box*, *with the box*, and *nothing else*. They're also buying the box. Not Ingo's friend (god i hope not).

But again! There's a way to utilize friends. As i said, with the letters, i have *no* size comparison so i have no reference and no clue. However: I do have hands. In fact, i would say, pretty much anybody buying this stuff has hands. And we all know the approximate size of female hands too.

So my suggestion is very simple: Standardize the SECOND picture (or third incase of the packaging reason mentioned above) to a single hand holding the asset. Since the investors disks are the largest asset and they still fit in the palm of a hand, make the picture very simply of Ingo's friend holding out the asset on a flat palm, fingers closed together. Again - It's about the asset, not the hand, only for size comparison. Since it doesn't matter *what* hand model is used as long as the hands don't look awful, We can use ingo's friend, and because standardization is beneficial, we *have* to use Ingo's friend for *all* hand pictures. Make sure she gets a mani and a pedi before the shoot! :D

Then there's the third picture of the models. DELETE ALL OF THEM! My comment to Tom came from a place of honesty: I GENUINELY cannot believe you've *actually created the new gold*, A THOUSAND TIMES more rare then gold, and you go about gluing it to peoples faces while you're telling me i should pump the price as hard as i can cause of rarity. It's just a massive, massive disconnect and *one of these two* has to go (what if a piece worth several thousand falls off and bounces away? -_^). Since my bank account says i should keep the pump, the dumbass models gotta go.

You do realize that the picture of the model lying on the beach with the stars on her forehead... Looks about 2 grams.... probably has multiple millions glued to her forehead from a 2024 perspective? It will be when i'm through with it.

You're trying to get people to buy gold by marketing a solid golden toilet. That sounds utterly ridiculous to you now, but that's because gold's got a 5000 year history. Osmium has a 7 year history. Have you thought about how these pictures are going to look with a 30 year history? The internet saves everything yknow. This site is already on the wayback machine (internet archive website).

Instead we standardize it again. Everybody *is* interested in how the material looks during possible every day use, so i understand why the pictures are there. But you guys need to think *REAL HARD* about what the actual, pragmatic usecase for each piece would be.... and THEN highlight THAT with a model.

First off i think the star pieces on the faces of the models are stupid to begin with, there's only one function for something that small and weirdly shaped and expensive and that's earrings. But we'll get to product lineup later. What you need to understand is that for the third photo, *not the model*, but *the situation* should be highlighted. Again: Nobody gives a shit whether the model is Ingo's friend or not. This means it doesn't matter if we use her, so we will, but the rando customer *only* cares about what you have to sell and whether it's any good to begin with.

I'll give you a perfect example: The Cat and Dove flat shapes. I immediately see a use case: A Pin or Broche. So what do you do? Have Ingo's friend wear a broche then look straight into the camera with a stupid grin cause she's got no idea how to position herself as she's not a professional model?

No. You have her wear it in a broche shape in nice clothes. You sit her down in a comfertable and elegant/decent looking chair. Preferably in a room by an lit open fireplace, real wood none of that fake shit. You give her a book, tell her to just look down at it and read it like she normally would. Broche's are usually worn on the heart, so the left side, meaning you photograph her from her left, holding the book with her left hand so her chest is clear and exposed. Have her read a bit, and tell her to shift her reading position a few times so you can get multiple positions to choose from. Snap a bunch of pictures and even record a high-framerate video of her reading in the glow of the open fireplace, with the flames creating sparkles off the osmium. Photograph from fairly close as the assets are small (and we don't need her legs) but make sure it includes the entire upper body and face.

What people want to see is how THEY look when THEY wear *the asset*. The gift box pictures currently are about Ingo's friend... Because the stars inside the box with her full body in the picture are SO GODDAMN TINY I CAN'T EVEN SEE THE PRODUCT!

You take a picture of Ingo's friend in the way i described above, and because the asset will look insanely attractive, Ingo's friend will look insanely attractive. Remember the group of cheerleaders? Works the same way. One's usually the really pretty one the lesser pretty ones hover around because it makes them look good in comparison to groups which don't have that super popular kid. Point is: Humans compare. We compare all the time, anything to everything. If the asset looks good, the situation looks good and people think "I can see myself wearing that" - then they are effectively thinking "i want to look as good as ingo's friend". And THAT is the picture's true objective, to lift both of them up.

Every. Single. Piece. On the store store should have these 3 pictures (4 in case of important packaging - though adding a shot of the packaging of all assets is a good idea too) at a minimum; Together with the main picture's various resolutions as i've described above. Then if you're smart - ONLY and i *do mean ONLY* when a paticular piece has been worn or otherwise displayed by a PROMINENT figure, you ask them if you may display that picture on the shop. If you have permission, you add it to the lineup at the back - if more are available, stack em.

While i'm all about involving friends, i'm also all about staying realistic - people are never gonna care about Ingo's friend the same way they care about Johnny Depp. While we can make her the main model, adding people of more significance to the lineup (AFTER they bought it ON THEIR OWN! can't pay people for this) will be insanely profitable. I'd go as far as giving them a special offer to get that picture and that picture only - then you're paying them for their hard earned status, not a decision or opinion, and it remains ethical.

Finally - the main banner. WHAT is it with you guys and holding osmium up to people's faces? Is that the market you see for this stuff? Carrying it around infront of your face all day or when that gets tiresome, you glue it to your forehead? Couple million worth of metal and labor?

It's a poor usage of space, and that is the second lesson you learn in website media design: SPACE AND LOCATION MATTER!

I'll give you 1 very simple example: The disk she's holding is off-centre. It's to the left of the middle of my monitor. You know what people focus on? The middle.

Speaking of my 2560x1440 144hz €500 gaming monitor (i'm just gonna keep repeating that until i drive the point home your website doesn't take resolutions into account). I took a screenshot of the main page as it appears on my screen. Then i drew a box in paint.net around *just the model's face*.

It's about 950x950 pixels big. 

ONE THIRD OF MY SCREEN IS FACE! ARE YOU SELLING FACES?!?!

HER LEFT EYE IS 320x200 PIXELS BIG! IT IS STARING INTO MY SOUL!

Since you've probably got no idea about relative sizes: I'm running Windows 10 which i'm sure you know. On the same screenshot, the file explorer icon on my taskbar is about 50x50 pixels big. I can fit, and i'm not joking about this, 25,6 taskbar icons *inside of her left eye socket*.

's a bit excessive, dontcha think?

My point is. ALL of that space is *wasted* from a webdesign perspective. Meanwhile, you've got information below that (my personalized shop) that takes up *less* space then the face. THAT information contains the welcome text, my information, my logo.... *the reason why people come to MY webshop*.

You want that information BAM in their face. Right when they open up the shop. They wanna see the asset, they wanna be amazed, and they want me to sell it to them, otherwise they wouldn't have come to MY shop. You do NOT want to waste *a single second* selling your product because in this supercharged world where attentionspans are extremely short, you *can* lose people extremely fast.

How i would fix this is simple: Redo the banner. Keep the hand holding up the disk, because it tells relative size. Divide the banner into 2 halves, then center the object in the left half. This means the bars with info are in the way - But again *location location location*. You can take 2 of the 6 lines out: "Last precious metal" (Rarest will do it trust me, and the more text you put up there, the more text that shares attention) is unnecessary and doesn't make much sense anyway. I know what you're trying to say, "the last precious metal to come to market", but that's not what the banner says, is it? People don't hear what's in your head. Second would be "suitable long term investment". If it's the rarest precious metal with the highest value density, with strong price performance, it'll be a good long term investment. 

Don't patronise people. Let them come to their own conclusions and they'll feel smart. If you talk this asset up like crazy, then they go look at the prices whether it is or isn't a suitable long term investment, and they go "It's WHAT" - the rich ones will buy it and the poor ones don't have the money anyway.

"The customer is king" means you need to make them *feel* like a king. Not actually aquiesce to all their bullshit. If you make them Feel like a king from the start, they won't cause any bullshit to begin with.

AND YOU HAVE LETTERING GOING OVER YOUR PRODUCT! OH MY GOD I DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING NOTICE THAT BEFORE! "als" LITERALLY GOES OVER THE DISK! FOR FUCKS SAKE!

It needs redoing by a fucking proffessional.

Delete 2 of the 6 bars, move the remaining bars to the left-right top-bottom corners (surround the asset so it becomes the center of attention even more) and shorten "Highest value density of all precious metals" to "Highest possible value compression" This brings the length in line with others, is no less true, people already know it's a precious metal because you literally already said "Rarest PRECIOUS METAL", makes the ones who never heard of "value compression" before wonder what it means which adds mystery (cause it sure sounds smart hot dang) and it drives their desire to find out what it means - this means they'll look deeper into osmium as it's now tied to osmium in their minds.

Meanwhile you'll have a centered eye catching asset that's NOT covered by lettering and surrounded by words that drive attention towards it every time a person reads a line. AND - The *entire* right side of my monitor on the main banner is suddenly completely free.

And it would form a perfect spot to move my (and everybody else's) shop information to, and i can start grabbing attenion *right away*.

When the shop looks like that, I'll tell you what happens when THE AVERAGE MORON comes to the website. Naturally, this process works on all humans even the smart investors - even i follow the same process. I just do it at lightning speed then caveat the information by "that's what everybody does, what more is there".

People find the link in some randomass place. You can't predict this. They click on it without any contextual information other then a recommendation or a story how somebody got rich off buying early (remember that time moves forever forward! Once the link's out there it's out there). The page loads. Their eyes are focused on the middle of the monitor. They see a divider line - well clearly this is not the place to be. From their perhiphial vision they see text and a logo on the right, and something shiny on the left (WHY IN GODS NAME AREN'T YOU USING A LOOPED GIF THAT SPARKLES LIKE FUCK you have any idea how much easier that'd make my job? AND NO COMPUTER GENERATED STUFF! Straight video to high quality GIF).

Humans go for the shiny, so their attention shifts to the left. They see the asset dead center of the left half. They're already mesmerized. Their perhipial vision shows them where the words are, and they wanna learn more about it. Rarest precious metal top left corner. "Oh, it's a precious metal? Rarest you say?" Because the other bars aren't below that one, their perhipial vision needs to search again. But the asset is sparkly - their attention is draw to that first. After receiving and analyzing that information (cementing it in their head), they ignore it, because they're looking for text "not sparkly" (that means the sparkly is inside their head). They find the next line, top right corner cause we read left to right. "Unforgeable Crystal Structure". "Ah so it can't be faked? That's good" (but trust me that's a bonus, not a feature. No need to worry once it's in the vault).

They're gonna look for the next words. Well, left to right, top to bottom. Where is the bottom left when your eyes are trained top right? Diagonally opposed. And what is the path to those words? *straight across the asset* imprinting the shinyness a third time. Then they read "Strong Price Performance". "So it's sparkly AND it does well as an investment?!". The last pass to the right doesn't cross the asset, but 3 times is enough. At this point, they start skipping the picture out of FOMO - fear of missing out. "Highest possible value compression". "HIGHEST POSSIBLE?! I gotta see how much this stuff costs". 

That'll drive a large portion to the shop itself which is what you want a main banner to do. Others still have doubt - that's what the shop info is there. Left to right again - Left side has been checked first, what's on the right? Well - My sales text ofcourse, talking them into buying.

If they still have doubts after that and they want to see "the asset in action" via large pictures or videos - THAT is when they SHOULD start scrolling. NOT before. If they scroll for the text, >you're moving the asset offscreen and out of sight<. That's poor salesmenship.

Now that i'm done with the pictures, lets move on the the rest of the main page of the shop. The other pages are fine - if not a little sluggish. I have an older PC and run alot of stuff so i notice if it's not absolutely mint - but for others it's probably fine, i can't really tell. But the oversight pages, or the individual pieces pages are fine. Though - honestly you should add a "preorder" button or some other form of order when the asset is out of stock but will come into stock later.

This is in part because of the way you have to sell the asset: Because each piece is unique in dimensions and weight, you can't use the traditional "order 1-2-3" counter. But this also has the effect that if the shop is empty - it's empty. If all items have been bought, there's no way to buy. No way to buy, no way for people to spend money, no way for you to earn *any* income. Even worse, the A dropped from the menu because it's out of stock, and again, changing storefronts are NOT a good idea. It's *much* better to have the letter be permanently on there, BUT, if the asset is out of stock show a still picture that doesn't glitter instead of the moving glittering thumbnail from the full solution (Or a more greyed out still taken with uniform lighting for contrast). It's a nice little easter egg for regulars to discover (Because when they do, they'll tell their friends, which drives more traffic to the shop - especially if they tweet about how cool that is). And it gets the point across.

Meanwhile btw i can still access the A page. The link of "https://www.buy-osmium.com/en/letters/letter-b/" i can just change manually to "https://www.buy-osmium.com/en/letters/letter-a/" and that works (yeah we spent alot of time hacking eachother's shit in IT college when we had a 4 hour microsoft word class). Brings up a *completely empty page* though. NOT EVEN A 404 SORRY THIS PAGE IS MISSING error.

For shame. Total amateur hour. The shop literally turns off all shop elements if there's no asset left, then leaves people in the dark. How HARD is it to just put an "out of stock" banner on the shop page? THAT IS INDUSTRY STANDARD FOR A REASON YKNOW.

Reminds me of my father when he wanted to design a few mobile games and he didn't put a main menu in while asking me, a hardcore gamer who was designing games for damn near a decade, for advice. Verbatim: "i don't wanna use more then one screen". "Dad... Everybody does it for a reason. It gets too cluttered otherwise". "Yeah but i don't care how other people do it, i'll do it my way". That lasted about 2 months. You can only do it your way if you know what you're doing. Ironically he taught me that while teaching me classical music composition, at the very beginning no less, talking about how popular music artists didn't know what they were doing and couldn't even see the walls of the prison they were in.

After the pictures comes the next part of the website:

THE VIDEO.

First off - The thumbnail is perfect as a banner. That's the best highest resolution picture on the site. Even using that picture, lining up the bars to the left of center, and the shop info to the right of center, would be an order of an magnitude better then the current situation to draw attention to the asset. This frustrates me greatly.

EVEN MORESO BECAUSE THE ACTUAL VIDEO IS ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT RESOLUTION! YOU KNOW WHAT RESOLUTION IT IS?! 640 BY 320 PIXELS!

YOU KNOW WHAT THE RESOLUTION OF STANDARD EUROPEAN TV, PAL, IS? 704×576

YOU KNOW WHEN THE FIRST PAL TV BROADCAST IN WEST GERMANY WAS? 1967!!!!

THE INFERIOR AMERICAN NSTC IS 720x480!

AND THIS DOGSHIT BLOWS UP TO A 2560x1440 RESOLUTION ON A TWENTY SEVEN INCH, THAT IS A 68 CENTIMETER, SCREEN.

WHICH I'M SITTING 40 CM AWAY FROM! I HAVE A TAPE MEASURE, I MEASURED!

I CAN'T EVEN *READ* THE FUCKING DISCLAIMER! I SURE AS SHIT CAN COUNT THE PIXELS THOUGH!

Congratulations you're more then half a century behind on everybody else. It's a damn good decision bringing me onboard because i think by now you're surrounded by yes-men who are far too afraid to lose their job to say anything to you, while Scarlett just loves you and your work too much and is blinded by that.

I'm not. I'm one hardcore motherfucker. You fire me over this i won't care, i'll just find somebody else who does appreciate the candor. Because *i am not being any harsher then your average human being*. They just won't tell you - but they WILL tell THEIR friends!!! There is such a thing as negative marketing too, where a negative reputation spreads beyond your control. Just look at modern cancel culture.

Now, i've already got a plan in motion to fix this with higher quality then you've thought possible. I've already talked to scarlett about contacting Tom Scott:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBa659QWEk1AI4Tg--mrJ2A

He is a youtuber with 3,4 million subscribers and his channel is *nothing else but traveling to interesting places and showing unusual interesting things*.
He's a total techhead - an accomplished programmer himself so he's got quite a brain - and he's known for his eloquence. Aside from being quintessential british, which always does well in advertising, he records pretty much all his voiceovers and walks on locations in one take. While most of his interesting locations videos are between 3 and 8 minutes long (perfect length for the video on your website), i *have* seen him shoot a single take of more then 15 minutes in one go. As far as i know, he never writes a script. He just does the research, collects the information in his head, and records a video, and is wildly successfull.

Considering the extreme tech involved in osmium, this being an entirely new process, and i'm sure Ingo would like to just let rip against somebody genuinely excited for this stuff - which increases the quality of the video greatly. Ingo can filter out himself what he can and cannot say about the process, while Tom will filter out what is and isn't interesting for THE GENERAL PUBLIC (which is who we're selling to) - and condense it all to a short 5 minute video. His camera work is top notch - there's a reason he has 3,4 million subs - and he is sure to show the assets in their best light. If you just give him a piece of osmium for his troubles i'm sure he'll help shoot a bunch of panning camera shots as well as promotional footage of just about every asset you put infront of him. If you'd ask me to do it, i'd say if Tom's available have him do it. Some of the stuff he talks about is extremely dry (filtering algorithms for pete's sake) but he always makes it interesting to listen to and watch.

Getting B-roll of scarlett, her jewelry as well as her inlaying a piece will do very well too: She's a beautiful, elegant, succesfull and accomplished woman, who owns her own jewelery as well as being the vice president of your company. In this day and age of feminism, that will do extremely well, without feeling pushy or on the side of the rabid woke crowd - her accomplishments stand on their own, as her jewelry is some of the most beautiful i've ever seen, something everyone will be able to see.

The deal is simple, yet elegant: You invite him over and ask him to do a video on this stuff like he would normally do. You tell him up front that the idea is that this video will be featured *on the front page of every single osmium shop, which is the only place to buy the literal new gold*. Naturally - this would be a great boon for his channel. It'll drive traffic from you to him, while driving random youtube viewers to you. Cross promotion is the ONLY way to get ahead in the modern marketing world - something i had plenty of time to figure out while working as a streamer for 11 months and getting nowhere. Imagine that! Me! An average viewer count of 5 after 11 months of 40 hour streaming weeks!

So yeah - i don't just say these things because i pretend to know better. It's because i've tried literally everything else and got dragged behind a car for my efforts. Made $100 bucks after 5 months tho!

Please learn from my mistakes. I have.

Meanwhile, what *you* get, is >a fascinating story<. People keep telling me they keep re-reading my articles, and re-watching my videos just to absorb all the information, even 6-7 times!!!! *Eric Sprott* the canadian multibillionaire who made his money in gold and silver, and advertises he has 90% of his net worth in it, and is literally the only sale you ever need to make in your life if you wanna legitimize Osmium (me and scarlett are working on it, he already told me yes (AFTER 3 DAYS OF WORKING FOR YOU! YOU'RE WELCOME!), but his wife is sick so giving time is the best course of action right now); Told me verbatim: "I saw your video was an hour, and usually i'm like "meh" cause it's just the usual talking heads and i tune out after 20 minutes but no you kept me facinated for the full hour".

You know how i pull that off? Because >i tell a coherent story<. Tom's capable of doing that too, except he's also a very experienced video maker and i am not. And to top it all off - Because you're driving traffic with cross promotion on a popular site, that video will easily become his most watched video - And that is a *very* covetable spot to have on *any* youtube channel.

Best part? He'll upload a very high resolution video to youtube that'll look boss even on my screen - And you can just Embed the youtube video like everybody else, so it >doesn't even cost you data<. And that 40 megabyte video is by far the biggest file on your website. I might not edit video on the daily, i do do it regulairly, and i can tell you the video file of the quality YOU NEED TO HAVE FOR SUCH A PRIME ASSET is 400 megabytes. Conservatively, because you need it to be in 4K to be future ready, and a 5 minute video can easily be gigabytes. WHY do you think EVERYBODY uses youtube?

Your website's size is currently 47,5 megabytes.
Without the letter pictures and the video, but with everything else, it's 4 megabytes.
If all pictures are replaced according to the process above, the expected size should be around ~8 megabytes (though if i did it myself i could mess with quality until it's even lower).

ASIDE FROM THE INCREASED SALES FROM PROPER MARKETING.
This will decrease your bandwidth costs by a factor of 5 - something VERY important if you drive all your traffic through the same website. IT CANNOT BE INEFFICIENT!
Get a specialist - and PAY FOR THIS because it's one of the *highest* return-on-investment decisions you can make; Spending big on YOUR MAIN STOREFRONT, and it could very well be reduced by a factor 10 from the current situation. Yes - it's that bad. Yes, i've been educated in this in a time where bandwidth was ALOT more limited (2003-2007). If somebody had made this website in my project group in the very first year i would've scolded him, and if he talked back, i would've punched him in the face, it is THAT bad. As i said - the video quality is below 1967 levels and that is completely unacceptable.

I'm not kidding when i say i would fire people over this. Not scarlett, she is as "embedded" as you are, having seen all this a billion times and wishing very hard for things to succeed, being scared of change.

BUT SOMEBODY ON YOUR IT TEAM SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST TOLD YOU, IF NOT NEVER MADE THIS MISTAKE IN THE FIRST PLACE! DO THEY EVEN MONITOR BANDWIDTH?! DO THEY EVEN COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT "Huh. This website is draining far more data then it should for what's on there."? APPARANTLY NOT!

And i figured it out after just looking around on it for 10 minutes talking to you in my head explaining why it's garbage, and i decided to right click > view image on one of the letters in the i love you calculator to find out why it looks to godawful. Go ahead, try that. That's why i'm so pissed. They shoulda caught that, start up or not.

I don't know when this mistake was made, but you can easily calculate what it cost you: The days between the website went live and now, the bandwidth costs of that are 500% of what they could've been, meaning you could've spent only 20% of the money on bandwidth that you spent on it so far OVER THE ENTIRETY OF THE WEBSITES LIFE SINCE THE DESIGN WITH THE CALCULATOR WENT LIVE!

This is why i'm beligerant to people. "If they don't see it, it isn't there". This includes gross overexpenditures. So yes, i have just as hard a time convincing people to fix *their* mistakes which is costing *them* heaps of money. And i've just found that shocking people awake, then biting on and not letting go, is the only thing that has the desired effect. Being nice has never gotten me anything but delays, missed and cancelled opportunities, and angry friends when i pointed out their lethargy. EVEN *just* stating the data, that your bandwidth costs are 5 times higher then they should be, often leads people to think "Nah it can't be that bad". It is. Even the shit quality video (which i'm sure you *do* have high resolution somewhere) could've been uploaded to youtube from the start as youtube started in 2005... during which time they already supported 1967 resolutions.

You have no idea how much sales that shit video has cost you and genuinely i hope you never will.

I wish i was done, but i'm not. Everything below "opportunities with osmium" and the plug for osmium jewellery is superfluous. ALL unnecessary shit that serves to draw attention away from the product. Realize this, and again you can just look at this on the website: The top bar, where you can browse the shop? That scrolls down with you. So when you scroll past those pictures of the bars, shapes and stars - Those pictures are completely useless. You never wanna take attention away from the shop bar, but when people don't wanna look at the shop bar (meaning they're uncertain if they wanna buy) you don't push it in their face. Again, patronizing.

To make matters worse the images of the osmium in between the large pictures are again, dogshit quality, and ONLY serve to *distract* from the larger photos, which can never be viewed fully. You know why they are there? Because the programmer needed a moving bar to transition from background photo to background photo, and you can't leave those thick bars empty. So whatta ya do? Well ya just plop a couple of shapes with couple of links on there mate! Just resize the pics no prob eh?

No thought went into this storefront what so ever.

And just get rid of the i love you calculator would ya? It's cute, but that's all it is. In 3 years not a single soul will use them except the rich. It's much better to just feature the heart piece and allow people to figure stuff out on their own. That'll take care of the images problem wholesale.

Bottom stuff's fine. Standard. And i like the partner login, nice and snappy. AGAIN on the backend everything runs smooth but the store is a mess.

That's it for the shop. Follow my pointers for quick fixes then hire a real specalist, and pay through the nose for it, to get it done right. You're going global Ingo. You can't afford mistakes like this anymore. It was fine for the startup phase, but with what i'm going to do to the price, the website's a detriment in its current form.

I wish it stopped there - But like i said, Marketing is the only mistake i found, and it is a very consistent one.

THE BROCHURE
Total hot garbage. The translation is AWFUL. Worst i've seen in a long time.

I offered Scarlett to translate it from english to dutch. It would give me a good opportunity to learn the material, help you guys out, earn a lil on the side and she thought it was a great idea.

NOW I NEED TO STRESS SOMETHING: UNTIL the translation, i hadn't looked AT ALL at the brochure. No need, cause i had most of the technical info in my head and i was building my team first, so when the idea to translate it popped into my head i had a multitask reason so i got to it right away.

There's a mistake in the very first sentence. No, i'm not joking:
"Since 2014, osmium is tradable as the last of the eight precious metals"

In proper english that is: "Since 2014, osmium has become tradable as the last of the eight precious metals".

It's past tense. If you're talking about 2014, which is in the past, and it is tradeable now, then it "has become" tradable since 2014.

>The entire document< is LOADED with mistakes like that. I swear. I know how twitchy people get about this kind of stuff, so i've been writing a changelog on the side that shows you *exactly* what has been changed, and the reasons for those changes, so you can see exactly *why* it's wrong.

Currently, >the changelog< is 10,441 words long, and the brochure's ~8,250.

I'm on page 38. Out of 72. I'm halfway through. It's that bad. I've prioritized it no.1 and am working through physical pain to bring the damn thing up to my level, ASAP.

I know why you haven't had (that) many problems with it yet. So far, you've been distributing it to non-english speakers. Alot of the translation is literal - It's exactly what you would expect from a german who hasn't lived among english speakers for a very long time. I'm Dutch, so i can closely relate, except that my english is exceptional due to my mental health problems pushing me into cyberspace where i've been playing with Americans since i was a teenager (and i was getting compliments that i spoke their language better then them since i was 15, so trust me, i know how to speak to them, i've been doing it a very long time).

Also i'm actually smart. I don't know who this person is, but as far as language is concerned, they're not smart only trying to sound smart, and it shows. "Geometric material loss" is NOT an english sentence, it means nothing, yet it is repeated throughout the document.

!!!!!!!THE BROCHURE CONTAINS A SERIOUS BREACH OF ETHICS!!!!!!!
Page 15:
Resale without a spread in international markets should be strived for.

This impacts agency, choice, and free will. Up to this point in this document, the brochure has been one big advertizing push for owners and jewelers. In effect, you've been trying to sell to a customer. You are then telling that customer, effectively, "You should hold onto it".

This is literally the advertising strategy of Bitcoin. And if you, even once, encourage customers "just holdon to it", you're doing it from a place of greed. Because, as the sole provider of Crystalized Osmium, the more people hold, the lower the supply, the richer you get. That's greed and the first step on a very slippery slope to corruption.

You may wish it, dream it, hope it, want it, desire it, pray for it and opine on it - But you may not tell the customers what they should do. Not now, not once, not ever. I've outright deleted the line in my version - as well as i've started deleting more often by page 38, because there is an *extreme* amount of redundancy in there.

Mind you - The version i got is 7850 words, and my version is currently ~8250 words long. And even though i've added an entirely new page, mine's 1 pagecount less.

So. Not only is it a dogshit translation, it furthermore does not spend the wordcount >where they should<. Location Location Location.

I mentioned Value Compression in the meeting, and i was assured that "yes, yes, that's what it's all about".

Well. IT IS NOT MENTIONED ONCE IN THE 72 PAGE BROCHURE! good lord. Oh sure, it repeats that the darn thing is rare until it's blue in the face. A search reveals the word "value" mentioned 9 times.

You know how many times it's connected to value density? Once. Page 15: "Extreme value density, low storage volumes." 3 lines down from where you told people to HODL. Never explained. Never mentioned again.

So i added a page about it myself. Know what i did? Googled a kilobar of gold, and grabbed the picture of Ingo's friend holding a bar up to the camera (which i got from the same document and is actually a very good picture and shows how a friend SHOULD be used to promote an asset), put them side by side, and simply underwrote:

"A 1000 times more rare then gold, 1 gram of osmium could replace 1 kilo of gold".

THAT IS HOW YOU ADVERTISE! YOU DON'T TELL, YOU SHOW!

What people are going to see now, is a *large male hand needing its entire surface to grab hold of a kilobar*
*directly juxtaposed with a female hand holding a bar ****BETWEEN HER FINGERTIPS*****.

Forget the picture underline. That's not the punchline, that's the setup. The punchline is the realization the reader has in their head: "a kilobar is heavy but >i< could hold that between >my< fingertips?"

You want to sell an asset, you have to create a connection between the customer and the asset. Since the customer has never heard of the asset before, before you can build a bridge, you have to toss them a line. If they're not inclined to reach for that line, you'll never sell a thing.

Agency sells. Giving people the control to make their own decisions, and they will decide to buy from you, rather then the next guy who tells them "YOU HAVE TO BUY THIS". No i don't have to do anything, good day sir. That's the mistake startups make and why they get snowed under the media violence of the big spenders.

Make no mistake. You guys ARE NOT a monopoly! NOT when it comes to >people's attention<. You might have the best asset in the world, and i honestly believe you do otherwise i wouldn't be in this mess myself trying to fix it, but that only gets you so far. If you can't convince people to join you of their own accord something that could take weeks (i'll see to that) will take decades.

Now i'm not gonna mention the brochure further, the moment it's done i'll send it plus the changelog to Scarlett. There's a good chance once she's done reading the changelog she's gonna feel embarrassed and implement my version straight away - that's fine. The damage so far has been minimal because you guys haven't gone global yet (yeah guess why it's taking so long). The new brochure will be ready long before the end of the year, ready for the 2021 push.

Don't forget. I have a responsibility to my team. If i hand them a shit brochure, they will not be able to earn a living. I'm not gonna give this thing in its current form to anybody until it meets my standard of writing. And considering i can write 83,000 words in a month of which a 43,000 words article in 5 days that can be considered a true magnum opus and has recieved critical acclaim by all who read it, you can be assured of a pretty goddamn high standard.

It's the first piece of work i'm actually gonna ask payment for. Don't worry scarlett offered me upfront you guys are very nice to me. I mean to say i usually don't feel i deserve money for my efforts when i feel like i'm helping a friend. Not this. This is hard, additional work i should've never had to do. It wasn't why i was brought onboard, but now that i found out about it, there's no way either not-fix it or let this slide without compensation.

You guys need a VP of marketing, and a good one. I am || this close of giving up my independence, demanding a salary and taking a bigass broom through your entire orginization top to bottom my goddamn self. And yes i am well aware of the trappings of 2010-2020 companies of letting the marketing division determine company course - That's not my aim at all. My aim would be to do a clean sweep, top to bottom, fix all problems that are left over from the startup phase with my fresh eyes and sharp mind so the asset has legs to stand on when it's gone global. Once everything is clean, institute policy top to bottom that keeps the train on the track. Once the policy has been reviewed, approved, put in place, run for a while and upgraded to the final version from real life experience and feedback - Genuinely i couldn't care less and i'd go back to just streaming and selling.

I've told scarlett this before. My investing style is simple. I see it as standing ontop of a snow filled hill, where everybody is making snowballs. Most people play around, just roll a nice ball and push it over the edge to see it go. But it's not solid - so it falls apart shortly after when it's picked up too much snow. People wanna see it roll, so they run after it, pack it together again and push it further down. Same thing happens. 2-3 pushes and rebuilds later, they're nearing the bottom, the hill curves up, and the ball won't roll no matter what they do. Then, they look behind them, and see a giant snowy mountain they have to climb again which is going to take ages. All that time, no snowballs.

I stay at the top. I put in an ungodly amount of work compacting snowballs with all my might. Many break, they are the weak which shall not bear offspring. If you wanna be in business you have to be ruthless at times. If it gets too big to compress with my hands i will hold it between my torso and legs and will use my backmuscles to still compress it. Once it's too big too lift, i shall push it down over the ground as i roll it, compacting it even more under it's own weight. Sometimes i go too far, and i roll a ball too big to continue rolling. But if i get it right, it becomes too heavy too move right at the edge of the hill. Then all it takes is a runup, a dropkick, and that ball will start rolling.

And rolling. And rolling. Picking up more snow along the way, compacting it as it goes because of the weight and the strength of the core. If it picks up too much snow, only the outer layers disintergrate, the heavy core continues on its path. By the time it reaches the bottom it will have picked up so much kinetic energy that it'll continue rolling, even over flat ground or small hills, for a very, very long time.

And me? Well. I got my 5 minutes of enjoyment when a few of the fools on the way up had to dodge my ball. After that, a sigh, a stretch, a sit, and a new snowball is started. Before the first one has reached the bottom, the second one will be ready to dropkick.

The things i'm doing now is comparable to compacting the snowball. Marketing is a weakness that keeps breaking my balls. You're breaking my balls here Ingo. You're breakin my balls. (If you wanna test if somebody knows their sales technique, see if they can spot that reference).

Once that's fixed and i dropkick THIS puppy over the edge, you're gonna see some REAL shit. This one has a frozen core. Call me vanilla ice cause ima ice ice this baby.

There's one more thing, though it's not something that's gone wrong it's just something you're missing:

- A FLYER.

The brochure's 72 pages long.

ITS TOO LONG!

WAY, WAY, WAY TOO LONG!

Somebody printed out my magnum opus. It was 81 pages. Your sales pamphlet's 72.

NO ONE is going to keep their attention this long *when they don't know you*.

That's the one thing you keep overlooking here. EVERYTHING is made and written from a perspective of somebody who knows this thing through and through and has been working in a lab on it for ohhhh, rough guess, 7 years? Wonder why that is.

Not to worry, easy fix for this one. A long brochure isn't a bad idea, it's just a bad *opener*. You don't tell your lifes story when you meet somebody for the first time.... unless you're me. Trust me, never gone well for me, it's why i know.

What i'm going to do: After the brochure's brought up to my standards, i'm going to compress it. I can compress info as easy as i can expand it. I'll filter out all the most important elements (Jewelry, Value compression, Security, Rarity, Where to find it) and make a 5 page flyer.

This flyer will end up becoming the basis of my marketing strategy. AGAIN, HOW do you get people to trust you when they don't know you?

Ease them into it.

A flyer is not the first thing you see. The first thing you see is the person handing you the flyer. That's why you often see people doing so dressed in silly outfits to draw attention. If people laugh or are amazed, they're more succeptible to whatever shitty piece of paper you hand them. Quite literally, the performance matters more then the information. Naturally - they might find the flyer online. But then still: it is posted *somewhere*. How did the potential customer get *somewhere*? THAT person, who steered your future customer to the flyer, is your rep in that situation. Naturally - Most of the repping will be done by my salesteam.

The first "nudge" is: Get them to take the flyer AND read it.

That's all. That is literally the entire function of the sales team. Get them to take the flyer, and read it, and nothing else. Once they've accomplished that, the flyer takes care of stage two: Getting the customer FIRED UP for the asset.

Why? to buy it? Of course not. That'd be too simple, and gets you maybe a few small purchases. At this point, if anybody buys, its a bonus. No, the flyer has 1 purpose:

Getting people to take the brochure and read it. After all the flyer has a "where to find it" section.

Basically: You don't have to worry about people you sell to. You've made a sale! Great! They won't be back. Those are the one offs and not worth your time.

The two types you should focus on, are the Fans, and the Undecided. The fans are people *WHO ARE NOT FANS YET* because they too start out as a regular customer. But Fans are people with the *capacity* of becoming a staunch supporter. HOW do you get them that far?

It's easy. You do the opposite of what marketing usually does: You DON'T give them info. You give them a taste.

Just a little taste to take the flyer. Just a little taste to take the brochure. Just a little taste to attend an event. Just a little taste to keep up with developments. By the time they get to the food, they will be so well informed and invested into the asset, denying the asset actually becomes harmful to them, as they'd deny something that has become a deep part of their lives. These are your "recurring customers", what is so unsavorly called "whales" in the marketing industry, as they will continue to accumulate for years. During that time, they are a walking talking encyclopedia and advertising board for you. The advertising value of this cannot even be stated in numbers.

The undecided require a different tactic. You wanna keep them invested in their doubts. Sounds strange, but realise: If they decide NOT to buy, you've lost them and it's game over. So as long as they're still in doubt, you haven't lost them. What you need to do is assuade those doubts. This is not something you can do with pagecount. This is offering a compelling story. They are in doubt, which means they won't buy, but they will listen. If they decide to not buy, they won't buy, they won't listen, and if you push they will their their friends you were pushy. At that point you tell them a compelling story that they can feel wrapped up in.

Fans look for the data, but the undecided get captivated by the story and will read the brochure back to front. Once they're done, they will feel so amazed, >not by the asset but by the >>experience<<< which they then connect with - they will buy the asset connected to that experience, the one you're selling, and they will continue to buy it for a long time to continue to have that connection.

I'll make the flyer myself. As i said, i will simply compress the information already located in the brochure to a very tasty entreé that gets them ready for the main course. The idea is not to be specific - but to be magical (YES I KNOW SCIENCE don't start i already found a reference to "the myth" in the brochure I had to change to "mythical" cause that's a figure of speech rather then a statement, i'm on your side). Once it's done, i'll send it for review.

Right now, these are the main issues i've found, but there's more. This is why this is a preliminary report. For instance i haven't really looked at the training academy under the guideline section, just clicked through the link to the files on its site.... and it's a complete mess too. Few files, short in length, layout's fucked up, and i'll bet you a gram of osmium it teaches people nothing about actual sales, how you want to sell the asset, or any sort of actual training. Only information on osmium itself that's probably repeated in the brochure 4 times.

Don't worry it's on the list. I'll get around to it when i get around to it i'm taking on enough work as is. The changelog with the brochure is so lengthy because it's turning into a master class on "How to and how not to, translate and write a brochure". By the time i'm done, if your ego can handle having made a mistake and admitting to it (i would, but i'm according to elliot "this total cyberpunk badass" so), you can upload the old and new brochure to the academy along with the changelog, and that'll teach every single employee how to market things.

As well as not be afraid to come to you with problems. Unless you wanna end up surrounded by yes-men that'll happily run you into the ground if that means they keep their job, which is already the case, it could be kind of useful.

Because i never just criticize. I'm harsh, sure, but feel free to read literally anything i've ever written: I ALWAYS explain myself, and if it isn't clear, you can ask me and ask me again and i'll explain it again and again. I'm autistic it's all i do on a daily basis anyway xD. The changelog alone will upgrade every person who reads it to amateur from novice, and that's not even close to what i can do for the academy once i've established my own reputation as a salesman.

-PRODUCT LINEUP!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLL at this point i got myself fired, basically, so i'm not gonna type a story just as long as everything else.

Suffice it to say:
- You don't glue the most rarest metal on earth to peoples faces, and you never cut pieces that small to begin with! UNLESS they're going into jewelry.
- You DONT make LETTERS AND NUMBERS out of it! NOBODY GIVES A FUCK about letters and numbers! You know why they always look cheap in the dollar store? Cause that's their fucking place.
- I don't see the sense in making a 0,048g osmium product. I'm sorry i don't. I mean; once you go to that weight why not make an actual diamond? How are you ever going to process that into something useful? At that point you might as well chop it up further to diamond weight and sell it for a fuckton more in pieces.
- Why the cross and not every other religion - that is why it's bad offering singular religious products if you're not a religion.
- Giftboxes are slathered in promotional material - Even though you spent alot of money already, it's not elegant. Also has a cheap pen, but i'm told it writes good.
- Blue light in the box - WHY?! WHITE makes things sparkle! BESIDES IF THE ASSET HAS A BLUISH HUE YOU DON'T PUT IT UNDER A BLUE LIGHT! HOW AM I GONNA SEE?!
Product lineup should be:
investors disks
standardized disks (as close to standard as possible ofc) of 5g -2g -1g -0,5g
Splitbars
Custom shape planner (why isn't THIS automated?)
Jewelry.

EVERYTHING else is a waste. But because these fucking morons couldn't possibly sell their way out of a paper bag who want to run an "ethical" and "sustainable" company while doing nothing but waste materials (Look how cool our pearls are! 90% fail and we can't recycle the material cost effectively! this makes them very rare, woo!)

No need to be nice anymore, they want nothing to do with me and i *certainly* never wanna talk to them again. Continued onwards below from writing the whole thing on December 26th (28th now - they neglected the advice of the brochure).

Finally i've got one last observation that is critical to your success:

- SCARLETT CLAUS
She is the most wonderful woman i've ever met to work with. She's repeatedly reminded me that i'm not the only partner she has to deal with, i've already scolded her a few times for the things i found as well as my usual "get to know eachother but i'm autistic so there's fighting and arguing until the communication issues have been resolved", and she's been nothing short of an angel to me, alotting me far more time then i should deserve compared to other partners, aquiescing all the way. I can't say i've ever had this a pleasurable working relationship and i'm super excited for the future with her in it, both in osmium and her other projects she wants to use osmium as a base of operations for.

And as such i have to come to her defence. You've not taken good care of her. She won't say this herself, but she is *SEVERELY* overworked. She's already commenting to me how her family is angry at her for responding to mails on christmas eve. My style of communication does have some advantages, namely that people feel completely non-threatened ("he just has problems") so they open up easy. Then my human behaviour specialism lets me rip through their personality like it's nothing. She really is a kind angel, and of course that comes with obvious benefits, but also a few detriments - namely she will never speak up for herself or her workload.

She clearly admits she's a workaholic and has set clear limits to try and contain it. For instance she says she spends the days with her horses on the farm, and that's why she'll respond after dark. Regardless i've had no problems breaking these limits, on purpose. Naturally, in the start-up phase i need to know a LOT - otherwise i couldn't have written this review - but i have to take opportunity when i see it, and i'll admit, i've been pushing it with her, to see how far this goes. I can tell you - wayyy too far. I know i've stepped over *some* lines, but she hasn't told me yet. I think it's cause she's gotten the wrong idea about autism (i fixed that today), but the pattern is far too obvious to me: She's too nice to protect herself from what is coming.

I've seen this story far too many times. WHEN this asset goes global, her workload is going to double, at best, immediately. She will make the choice to abandon her family for her one big chance, immediately. As a workaholic she will work herself half to death, neglect personal relationships until they end, and both justify it as being for the cause as well as doubling down on work as it'll be the only thing left pretty soon (you don't wanna know how i know that). If you ask her AT ANY TIME if the workload is too much - she will say no. She's too nice to worry you. Meanwhile, the quality of her work will suffer, drop, cause frustration, and she will burn out within 2 years time.

You're at 200 wholesalers. You wanna go to 10,000. She's already sliding now. She needs help, and the power to delegate, and not "in months" either. Weeks.

This is a real easy fix: Hire more staff to coordinate partners, and have scarlett oversee them, rather then deal with people directly. Partners to staff, staff to scarlett, scarlett to you. I'll tell you i'd be *happy* to work directly under her, as she is a wonderfull boss, though i'm definitely not the right man to deal with partners xD Way to quick to call somebody a moron, except customers, who are king. But i have worked and will work as a streamer, so i know a thing or two about promotion and i've got no problems spending part of my time (not my full time though) on making training and marketing materials for your company, as i think Osmium deserves my attention (But i've got more souls to save! so not my *full* attention :D) Your structure will expand rapidly when everybody will wanna get in on this, and you *can't* have *everybody* talk to the VICE PRESIDENT - who's also head of the ONLY jeweler allowed to do inlays - and demand this kind of time. I feel for her i really do.

And if the new salescrew *don't* demand this kind of time to get up to speed, they're poor and lazy salesmen, and as mentioned your academy really isn't enough. I may not have watched the videos, the first thing i looked at was length, and since i didn't see anything as long as an hour or more, i didn't bother. That's not training. Those are promo videos. Youtube ads.

While i haven't even looked at your orginazational structure yet, purely from testing scarlett's limits (as well as lack of materials and quality of existing materials), i can tell you it's time to start thinking big on that front too, and FAST. It WILL improve efficiency at this point, because Scarlett's already incapable of responding quickly because her attention is stretched too thin, while her love for the product makes her blind to mistakes (she felt offended when i called the brochure "a total mess". My real opinion is that it's a total clusterfuck which i'm embarrassed to hand to my team, and as such, will never, unless my rewrite is accepted).

If i have to wait for her on info - my efficiency drops, and because of the way you've set it up - If i have to wait on scarlett's info to coordinate my entire team.... My entire team's efficiency drops, which costs them their livelihoods because YOU have not seen it fit to offer them salary. Alright, part of the job, fine, but then YOUR end better be up to snuff. Your multilevel system is good for driving recruitment, but it's not without it's downsides. Right now it's fine, but it is going to stop being fine, again, within weeks.

Monopolies only scale under dictatorship and strict chain of command. That is the downside of the monopoly. Monopolies aren't nice, because the consumer NEVER benefits. What would be beneficial for the consumer is keeping the price low so more can share the wealth. And while Osmium's rarity makes the price rise inevitable anyway - that doesn't change anything about the organization or the structure that keeps it standing when it scales. Alot of bad people are going to flock to this, and they will have no problem ruining her life (or ours for that matter) if it makes them a quick buck. ESPECIALLY the Americans. You're far too naive Ingo... it's not the Chinese you should be worried about.

This system is set up as a tree, with branches. Don't let the leaves talk to the trunk. I promise you, she'll crack, and sooner then you think. It's still fine now - don't let it get out of hand. Ask her How Many people she needs, and be a father figure since she sees you as one - don't take no for an answer. I would finally like to say that i do not blame her one bit for the brochure being as bad as it is. If she didn't have to spend so much time dealing with partner shit, maybe she'd have time to actually read the thing closely. Even when she's not busy on partners she's sill gonna work cause she said she's gonna translate oslery over the holidays. Great. Get the woman some help, please. She's gonna have to spit through multiple tens of thousands of words in my brochure changelog yknow. Could've made that alot shorter if she wasn't convinced it'd hurt you cause i'm too direct. Had to double the length with disclaimers since then. Doesn't make the brochure any less shit. Actions > Consequences.

Let me end this preliminary report on positivity as again people focus mostly on the start and the end.

I have not found a single problem that couldn't be fixed by a little bit of elbow grease, >not more then a weeks worth of labor<, maybe ~10k for a proper website specialist for once to redo the front-end, getting scarlett some much needed help beyond the materials i'll make for her and most importantly, *being able to admit a weakness*. The timer can't start until you admit it, and it'll always take that one weeks worth of labor from that moment on, even years from now. I'm dead serious here. I understand you've come an extremely long way through an insane amount of hard work, you've read my background, i can relate, and i'm on your side. So i'm telling you - You're about a month of hard work away from the end goal in total, that goal being multi-millionaire (assuming you're not already). When the brochure's fixed, i have a flyer to give to my people with it, and if the website storefront looks good (especially after the Tom Scott interview).... I'll find my way onto Kitco since they did an expose on Osmium in February 2019 when nobody gave a shit about rarity. I'm sure they'll love an update. I've got a timeline for my own stream's info release of Osmium that i've been hyping up for WEEKS: January 16th. The rest of the team will release something to their subs *simultainously*, or as many as we can get as once. That's phase 3 (our subs media blitz), phase 4 is kitco/public knowledge, as it triggers on any multi-million sub channel releasing a report or interview. And i'll find bigger channels, too. If Eric Sprott makes a SUBSTANTIAL purchase before that (if you can offer him my 3% referral cut to make him invest TENS of millions, do it. I don't give a shit about the money. Get him the lowest price for his first sale to close it. Call it a early bird special. Just make the sale!) mentioning that sale on Kitco is worth BILLIONS in marketing return on investment!!!!!! I'm NOT joking, it's THAT big. You're THAT close. 

That'll be the dropkick. And once i hit that snowball... You'd better be ready on your end. Cause it's never ever gonna stop again :D

- Kirian "Deso" van Hest.