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Tales Of The Industry - Anime Colony

unready wrote:

No, it's a problem with the management, which would be K. If you've ever been involved with the financial side of a business, you get to see some weird stuff, even in well-run companies. This guy was obviously trying to lower his cost of capital by delaying his payables because he had no receivables. If he had paid the writers, his corporate oversight would have shut him down faster, and he knew that.

So...is it K's fault, or is it K's superiors' fault? Now I'm confused.

I thought that it was because his sponsor hadn't been paying him and thus he was stuck in a bad situation, having no money to give to his team.

I approached this story with some trepidation, as I was one of the writers Justin managed.

He has money, because he has credit. As a business unit of SciFi, SciFi would probably cover his operating expenses, and he'd pay SciFi for covering them, etc. (At least I assume Justin and K were SciFi employees getting SciFi paychecks and not Anime Colony paychecks.)

But he eventually needs to show profit margin. If his superiors see outlay after outlay with no income, they'd know he was failing and pull the plug. By not paying the bills he had the discretion to postpone, his financials didn't look as bad to the people who reviewed them. He was waiting for some income, so he could post the expenses with the income in the same period and not look like an idiot.

It's a game some managers play with their financials, but the ones who play it lose eventually. Plus most bosses don't like it when their employees lie to them, so they lose twice.

From a cost of capital perspective, not paying his bills is like getting an interest-free loan. Most businesses would charge late fees, but the writers (probably on contract, so they weren't genuine SciFi employees) didn't charge (or get to collect) late fees.

unready wrote:

He has money, because he has credit. As a business unit of SciFi, SciFi would probably cover his operating expenses, and he'd pay SciFi for covering them, etc. (At least I assume Justin and K were SciFi employees getting SciFi paychecks and not Anime Colony paychecks.) But he eventually needs to show profit margin. If his superiors see outlay after outlay with no income, they'd know he was failing and pull the plug. By not paying the bills he had the discretion to postpone, his financials didn't look as bad to the people who reviewed them. He was waiting for some income, so he could post the expenses with the income in the same period and not look like an idiot. ... From a cost of capital perspective, not paying his bills is like getting an interest-free loan. Most businesses would charge late fees, but the writers (probably on contract, so they weren't genuine SciFi employees) didn't charge (or get to collect) late fees.

All right. I want to make sure I'm getting this right: So even if SyCoNet promised to sponsor them and never paid them a cent, the Sci Fi Channel would still cover for K as long as K paid it back and could prove that money was coming in to Anime Colony? And that he's not actually a "boss," but just a "manager"?

I want to get this straight, because I watch a lot of failing-business-type TV shows like Kitchen Nightmares, and one thing I see repeatedly in those shows is that the business owners, because money is not coming in, does not pay any of their employees....

Perhaps it needs to be spelled out by either Zac or Justin. I thought from the article that the funding for Anime Colony and its employees, was supposed to come from SyCoNet, and not the Sci-Fi channel.

Reading this story reminds me of how little I've done with my life up to this point. I'm already 20 years old and in college and I've never had a paid job before. I'd like to get a job in video games or game localization, but I haven't done much on that front yet. I guess I don't have as much passion as some other people.

Reading this story reminds me of how little I've done with my life up to this point. I'm already 20 years old and in college and I've never had a paid job before. I'd like to get a job in video games or game localization, but I haven't done much on that front yet. I guess I don't have as much passion as some other people.

Reading this story reminds me of how little I've done with my life up to this point. I'm already 20 years old and in college and I've never had a paid job before...I guess I don't have as much passion as some other people.

Kitchen Nightmares (which I have never seen, but I believe I understand the concept) is about small business who have to get their credit from a bank. They can't afford to have paychecks (or any other checks) bounce, because the bank won't let the account on which they're drawn go negative. If the businesses can't get enough credit to keep operating, they shut down. To avoid having checks bounce, they avoid writing checks. Eventually suppliers stop supplying for free, and they shut down, anyway.

K managed to get ADV Films to let us use any and all artwork from their shows on the site (so long as we remembered to include the copyright line).

Speaking from personal experience, it's best to start getting job experience while you're young. The longer you wait until you actually need to get a job, the harder it will be.

I think should watch Kitchen Nightmares since none of that generally is the reason the restaurants on the show go into decline or out of business (if they're really unlucky) They generally wind up like that because of things like poor management in every category from finances, food, inventory, pricing, etc.

rinmackie wrote:

Speaking from personal experience, it's best to start getting job experience while you're young. The longer you wait until you actually need to get a job, the harder it will be.

See, I wish someone I could count on had told me that when I was younger.