>I'm confident it's not a scam: the office is real, the people are real, the confidence is real. <
Those items mean nothing vis-a-vis "is it a scam".
Scams have real offices, real employees, and most of the people have real confidence. This could just be a real big scam. Hiring the less competent, (eclectic?) a religious type of mind set like that - that's suspicious to me. Very. People hire the lesser lights because they can fool them. Confidence games work like that. Appeal to a person's greed, and they convince themselves. That wil give your crew an atmosphere of confidence bordering on religious conversion. If they can't understand the kernel, they will paper it over in their own mind with what they want it to be.
And having no real beta's at this point? That one is a red flag screamer to me. That is a very big one. Why? Because that is what you would do if you were salting the money away. I am thinking now that the distance learning beta sounds like BS. Somebody check the equipment and see what it is.
All those factors you cited about the weirdness and behavior and problems - those are red flags to me. I'm moving back in the other direction now toward thinking someone is pulling a snow job here.
It would be very, very interesting to develop a picture of two things:
1. How much money has come in, versus how big is their burn rate.
2. Who actually works in the lab and puts the equipment together? Who are they? What is the equipment that they have actually produced?
The first will tell you if this is what is somtimes called a "salt mine". (Meaning, that the money is being mined and salted away.)
The second will tell you if they actually have a real product - even a real beta. If you see one or two principals, or a particular "trusted technician" putting the equipment together - that's a red flag.
This is not sounding good. This is sounding really bad. |
