I appreciate you taking the time to write out a critique. I had to clarify and rectify some of what you wrote below.
But first, I’m not going to go into your take on PFG’s not having a disadvantage, because a lot has been written on it, and a lot of data has been referenced there. For that I refer to the research on foundation-owned businesses, the success of Rolex, Bosch, Patagonia, Humanitix, ThankYou and other PFG’s, the talks of the PFG conference, and the reasoning for their success in the TEDx talks of Alex Amouyel, Brad West, myself and the writing of Peter Singer and The School for Moral Ambition on these subjects. You can also read my writing, as well as that of @Brad West🔸 on this forum about it. People can make up their own minds on benefits for PFG’s existing or not. I can only anecdotally share that I have had many benefits of being a PFG (I have written on that already), and only one clear disadvantage (the one that might kill this business): the lack of access to funding. Your comment reinforces that system, although you do it with the best intentions (wanting people to donate directly or ETG, which I believe perpetuates suboptimal systems). What I can say with certainty is that we would have not gotten the contract that is likely to make our company much larger and profitable next year (the 3.4M/KG per year textile resale streams).
What is important is that the data and critique on my company is accurate. I’m sure it’s unintentional, but there are some things that I need to clarify and rectify:
I do share monthly KPI’s in our investor newsletter (the one you’re getting), including the ones you mention. Any investor has full and transparent access to past performance and predicted performance. Anyone on here can request and get them immediately (vin@boas.co). Sharing monthly’s here is going to be messy without tables. So sharing FY and estimate of this year here for 2023, 2024 and 2025 (expected). 2023 Revenue/Net Profit 30K/-47K. 2024 225K/-151K. 2025 450K/-170K. This post was written by Brad West, with my approval, and focuses on future performance. There was never any intention to hide past performance, nor do I think it’s as bad as you say:
Granted to you, we still burn 1 euro for each 3 euro’s we make, but this is quickly declining (we burnt 5 more euro’s per revenue euro 2 years ago), and our revenue has doubled in a year where focus wasn’t on revenue growth (see below). I can share current costs and new contract costs, which cuts our biggest cost center (resale fashion buying) in half, so I can substantiate revenue increases and cost decreases with contracts and data. Please note that in the last 6 months our company burnt less than 50K and I expect our Q4 to be close to or break-even, and our two store are net profitable, so the burn is mostly going to overhead and the building of the hub.
This year was a bridge year, we built robotics (in a separate company because BOAS didn’t get the necessary investment for it because it’s a PFG, but I did manage to pledge 90% of my shares to the BOAS foundation, currently valued by signed investors 1M, and most of that value is thanks to BOAS) and AI for faster and higher margin resale with BOAS, and we were securing large contracts (which we succeeded in). With the new contract (can be shared under NDA) we have access to 4-6x more clothing at half the price I’m currently paying. Considering our stores are net profitable (again, happy to share numbers with investors) at the current 2X higher price, we have made it somewhat credible that this company will be significantly bigger and break even at the end of next year. Again, all of this is modeled extensively in financial forecasts, which were made by me (economics degree) and checked with dozens of professionals, as well as passing due diligence by investors, including a bank.
Our pitch deck obviously includes past financials, but cannot be shared without NDA because it contains information I’m not allowed to share. I can share an anonymised version, but prefer to hop on a call with serious investors to show the actual contractors (since the contract is of demonstrably high value).
BOAS pivoted 2.5 years ago, and I do acknowledge I ran a sustainable marketplace before that (for 1.5 years, parttime next to a fulltime job with zero funding), which was a terribly bad idea. I think it’s fair to say that BOAS should be judged on the past 2.5 years, and I don’t think our numbers offset to the investment received are bad, but I do agree they are not great either. I argue that with the contract, they will be significantly better.
Our investors include economic ones, and they include a bank. Obviously you’re going to get philanthropic/foundation funding if you donate 90% of profits, since you can’t go to for profit investors, so the ‘non-economic investors’ isn’t completely true.
Of course, BOAS would have surely died without investors, similar to our for-profit competition, who have raised and burnt (far) more money. We’re trying to scale up fashion resale, which is very hard (I would argue impossible) to do without funding. Is there a problem to me asking for investment vs. my for-profit competition asking for investment?
We are not a recycling company. We are a clothing resale company. We agree recycling is a terrible business with high failure rates, although you should be aware of the EPR and ESPR regulations in the EU currently and quickly changing the recycling game for the better.
“If BOAS isn’t giving to your preferred cause areas, it obviously makes more sense to donate there directly. If Global Health is your preferred cause area, you should simply, donate there directly and/or invest money and give away returns.” Investors can invest X% in BOAS and we can return the multiple of that investment in future donations to preferred cause areas (e.g. X% of the profits), as the post clearly states. We disagree on investing to give being more effective than PFG (see top of this comment for people to make up their own minds).
Ill reply to a few points. If there is one you feel is very strong you want me to address, let me know. Again, I want to say that I think you clearly have great intentions with BOAS and PFG.
I do share monthly KPI’s in our investor newsletter
Yes, I meant that usually a pitch like this would have this if numbers were great. I do have some of the investor updates you sent me and I wouldn’t disclose them without permission but I had them in mind.
I think you should just post 2025 revenue/gross profit/net profit to date. I guess a thing I have seen somewhat persistently is some rather large “expectations of growth” that are called conservative but frankly, aren’t at all. From the OP,
10-year cumulative: €10M+ to EA causes + 195,000 tCO₂e avoided
From one €232k grant.
This type of thing is often presented as “happening” when it’s more like you hope it to happen.
People can make up their own minds on benefits for PFG’s existing or not. I can only anecdotally share that I have had many benefits of being a PFG.
I worry that this is going to come off a bit too negative but, I agree. Many people who wouldn’t invest in this under normal circumstances are going to because it feels like a good cause and aren’t looking at it as rigorously.
I don’t feel very strong about any of your points, I just want our business and numbers reflected accurately. To your points:
Brad wrote the post, he didn’t have clear access to my numbers. Again, the pitch has the numbers, and happy to have Brad add them to the post (but don’t think it matters since I posted them in the comments).
2025 actuals Jan-Sep: 324K/-177K. Important to note than in retail Q4 usually amounts to 30-45% of yearly revenue instead of 25%. I won’t see such strong revenue growth because we lack funding, but the 450K quoted earlier is likely too conservative. Flat extrapolation would put us at 440K, and I have bigger stores, Q4 holiday season and some B2B deals just closed.
You are absolutely right that startups and non-profits present things as happening. I also agree it’s put too optimistic. Our financial models use market standard discounted cash flows to account for risks, and this remains a high-EV case.
In our latest bridge round (estimated 2025 financials in 2024, but closed april 2025) we raised 100K instead of the required 200K and we’re ending at 440-500K instead of the promised 580K revenue for 2025. I’m not sure how we would have performed with the actually needed capital, but currently we’re making 4-5 euro’s of revenue for each euro burned, so it seems realistic that my forecast was realistic.
I don’t want people to invest in BOAS without looking at it rigurously, because even with very large discounts (higher than market discount rates), BOAS has a higher EV than donating to give (feel free to adjust the mistakes in Patrick Grubans EV model, discount even more, add continuing values (or not if you somehow argue that you shouldn’t do that), and check for yourself). I’m still missing good economic points on why this couldn’t be an interesting but risky investment for future donations.
I will park this discussion from my end, I’ve made my points (people can dismiss them, more than fine with that) and I have funding to raise for a PFG, which is hard enough with accurate data and portrayals of our company. I encourage everyone to request our actual numbers, contracts and letters of intent, and our different financial models (base, worst, minimum funding cases), and come and jump on a call with me. I wish you and EAIF had done the same before dismissing it.
Thanks for following BOAS, and I hope to prove you wrong in the future.
Hi Marcus,
I appreciate you taking the time to write out a critique. I had to clarify and rectify some of what you wrote below.
But first, I’m not going to go into your take on PFG’s not having a disadvantage, because a lot has been written on it, and a lot of data has been referenced there. For that I refer to the research on foundation-owned businesses, the success of Rolex, Bosch, Patagonia, Humanitix, ThankYou and other PFG’s, the talks of the PFG conference, and the reasoning for their success in the TEDx talks of Alex Amouyel, Brad West, myself and the writing of Peter Singer and The School for Moral Ambition on these subjects. You can also read my writing, as well as that of @Brad West🔸 on this forum about it. People can make up their own minds on benefits for PFG’s existing or not. I can only anecdotally share that I have had many benefits of being a PFG (I have written on that already), and only one clear disadvantage (the one that might kill this business): the lack of access to funding. Your comment reinforces that system, although you do it with the best intentions (wanting people to donate directly or ETG, which I believe perpetuates suboptimal systems). What I can say with certainty is that we would have not gotten the contract that is likely to make our company much larger and profitable next year (the 3.4M/KG per year textile resale streams).
What is important is that the data and critique on my company is accurate. I’m sure it’s unintentional, but there are some things that I need to clarify and rectify:
I do share monthly KPI’s in our investor newsletter (the one you’re getting), including the ones you mention. Any investor has full and transparent access to past performance and predicted performance. Anyone on here can request and get them immediately (vin@boas.co). Sharing monthly’s here is going to be messy without tables. So sharing FY and estimate of this year here for 2023, 2024 and 2025 (expected). 2023 Revenue/Net Profit 30K/-47K. 2024 225K/-151K. 2025 450K/-170K. This post was written by Brad West, with my approval, and focuses on future performance. There was never any intention to hide past performance, nor do I think it’s as bad as you say:
Granted to you, we still burn 1 euro for each 3 euro’s we make, but this is quickly declining (we burnt 5 more euro’s per revenue euro 2 years ago), and our revenue has doubled in a year where focus wasn’t on revenue growth (see below). I can share current costs and new contract costs, which cuts our biggest cost center (resale fashion buying) in half, so I can substantiate revenue increases and cost decreases with contracts and data. Please note that in the last 6 months our company burnt less than 50K and I expect our Q4 to be close to or break-even, and our two store are net profitable, so the burn is mostly going to overhead and the building of the hub.
This year was a bridge year, we built robotics (in a separate company because BOAS didn’t get the necessary investment for it because it’s a PFG, but I did manage to pledge 90% of my shares to the BOAS foundation, currently valued by signed investors 1M, and most of that value is thanks to BOAS) and AI for faster and higher margin resale with BOAS, and we were securing large contracts (which we succeeded in). With the new contract (can be shared under NDA) we have access to 4-6x more clothing at half the price I’m currently paying. Considering our stores are net profitable (again, happy to share numbers with investors) at the current 2X higher price, we have made it somewhat credible that this company will be significantly bigger and break even at the end of next year. Again, all of this is modeled extensively in financial forecasts, which were made by me (economics degree) and checked with dozens of professionals, as well as passing due diligence by investors, including a bank.
Our pitch deck obviously includes past financials, but cannot be shared without NDA because it contains information I’m not allowed to share. I can share an anonymised version, but prefer to hop on a call with serious investors to show the actual contractors (since the contract is of demonstrably high value).
BOAS pivoted 2.5 years ago, and I do acknowledge I ran a sustainable marketplace before that (for 1.5 years, parttime next to a fulltime job with zero funding), which was a terribly bad idea. I think it’s fair to say that BOAS should be judged on the past 2.5 years, and I don’t think our numbers offset to the investment received are bad, but I do agree they are not great either. I argue that with the contract, they will be significantly better.
Our investors include economic ones, and they include a bank. Obviously you’re going to get philanthropic/foundation funding if you donate 90% of profits, since you can’t go to for profit investors, so the ‘non-economic investors’ isn’t completely true.
Of course, BOAS would have surely died without investors, similar to our for-profit competition, who have raised and burnt (far) more money. We’re trying to scale up fashion resale, which is very hard (I would argue impossible) to do without funding. Is there a problem to me asking for investment vs. my for-profit competition asking for investment?
We are not a recycling company. We are a clothing resale company. We agree recycling is a terrible business with high failure rates, although you should be aware of the EPR and ESPR regulations in the EU currently and quickly changing the recycling game for the better.
“If BOAS isn’t giving to your preferred cause areas, it obviously makes more sense to donate there directly. If Global Health is your preferred cause area, you should simply, donate there directly and/or invest money and give away returns.” Investors can invest X% in BOAS and we can return the multiple of that investment in future donations to preferred cause areas (e.g. X% of the profits), as the post clearly states. We disagree on investing to give being more effective than PFG (see top of this comment for people to make up their own minds).
Ill reply to a few points. If there is one you feel is very strong you want me to address, let me know. Again, I want to say that I think you clearly have great intentions with BOAS and PFG.
Yes, I meant that usually a pitch like this would have this if numbers were great. I do have some of the investor updates you sent me and I wouldn’t disclose them without permission but I had them in mind.
I think you should just post 2025 revenue/gross profit/net profit to date. I guess a thing I have seen somewhat persistently is some rather large “expectations of growth” that are called conservative but frankly, aren’t at all. From the OP,
This type of thing is often presented as “happening” when it’s more like you hope it to happen.
I worry that this is going to come off a bit too negative but, I agree. Many people who wouldn’t invest in this under normal circumstances are going to because it feels like a good cause and aren’t looking at it as rigorously.
I don’t feel very strong about any of your points, I just want our business and numbers reflected accurately. To your points:
Brad wrote the post, he didn’t have clear access to my numbers. Again, the pitch has the numbers, and happy to have Brad add them to the post (but don’t think it matters since I posted them in the comments).
2025 actuals Jan-Sep: 324K/-177K. Important to note than in retail Q4 usually amounts to 30-45% of yearly revenue instead of 25%. I won’t see such strong revenue growth because we lack funding, but the 450K quoted earlier is likely too conservative. Flat extrapolation would put us at 440K, and I have bigger stores, Q4 holiday season and some B2B deals just closed.
You are absolutely right that startups and non-profits present things as happening. I also agree it’s put too optimistic. Our financial models use market standard discounted cash flows to account for risks, and this remains a high-EV case.
In our latest bridge round (estimated 2025 financials in 2024, but closed april 2025) we raised 100K instead of the required 200K and we’re ending at 440-500K instead of the promised 580K revenue for 2025. I’m not sure how we would have performed with the actually needed capital, but currently we’re making 4-5 euro’s of revenue for each euro burned, so it seems realistic that my forecast was realistic.
I don’t want people to invest in BOAS without looking at it rigurously, because even with very large discounts (higher than market discount rates), BOAS has a higher EV than donating to give (feel free to adjust the mistakes in Patrick Grubans EV model, discount even more, add continuing values (or not if you somehow argue that you shouldn’t do that), and check for yourself). I’m still missing good economic points on why this couldn’t be an interesting but risky investment for future donations.
I will park this discussion from my end, I’ve made my points (people can dismiss them, more than fine with that) and I have funding to raise for a PFG, which is hard enough with accurate data and portrayals of our company. I encourage everyone to request our actual numbers, contracts and letters of intent, and our different financial models (base, worst, minimum funding cases), and come and jump on a call with me. I wish you and EAIF had done the same before dismissing it.
Thanks for following BOAS, and I hope to prove you wrong in the future.