thanks for your questions. The annual dividend is the amount (usually in pence) that is to be paid out in the year. The yield is that amount divided by the share price, so as the share price fluctuates every day, the yield will change accordingly. Therefore, the moment you buy the, you’re locking in the % yield at that exact time.

The dividend cover is how many times the dividend can be covered by the company’s income (net earnings). So if there’s a dividend cover of 2, that means the company could pay the dividend twice before they ran out of money. A dividend cover of 2 or more is considered safe, although I look to shares with a 1.5 or above. In America, they use a similar ratio, but it’s called ‘payout ratio’. A payout ratio of 50% is the same as the dividend cover of 2, it means they’re paying out 50% of their net earnings as a dividend. So the lower the payout ratio the better, but the higher the dividend cover the better,

Cheers

Thank you

Claire

I really appreciate you stopping by! And most of all, thanks for your informative answer to NMW’s concerns. Investing in any startup is inherently a risky business – there are so many unknowns, and maybe even more ‘unknown unknowns’. I think it’s both wonderful to see, and a good sign of your business brain that you are anticipating and engaging with all of the concerns that NMW has about this area of monetisation.

So often, we see tales of startups going from boom to bust – hence the ca. 50%+ failure rate. But you are absolutely grabbing the bull by the horns, and I totally expect success to come of that kind of attitude!

CHEERS

However, billboards do not always work — think fantasy/medieval games. A modern day billboard would just feel cringeworthy. Ditto if you had say a soft-drink branded armour. Cringe factor = over 9000.

The business model is easy to copy, yep. Although keep in mind to build a scalable platform does take some effort, as does designing plugins so they’re actually easy to integrate.

We have patents pending and earlyvangelists. It’s a start. Interestingly, Paul Graham — founder of Y Combinator — says that startups who are expected to be killed by a larger competitor’s pending product launch tend to do well; Dropbox was apparently one of them.

Also, we already have prototypes for NON mobile/social games. Check out this screenshot https://giftgaming.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/giftgaming-alpha-testing-begins/

We plan to attack the Desktop and Web market. Competing in mobile alone is a bit foolish and narrow-sighted, plus we’re massively underfunded in what is a very competitive space (mobile ads). But Desktop and Web in-game ads seem to be a bit more neglected, leaving it more vulnerable to be attacked by us.

Finally with giftgaming, the beauty is that you don’t see any ads unless you want a free powerup/coins. Personally, I’d take the free powerup. But it’s your call. A gift is never mandatory to be opened, though I daresay curiosity can get the better of us…

I hope my essay has earnt me a small investment

Kind regards,
Nick

—
Nick Hatter
CEO
giftgaming

I absolutely agree with you. It is extremely risky, but then my portfolio is very conservative to say the least, so a minuscule investment into a startup wouldn’t irk me. The overwhelming majority is in ultra-safe inflation-linked certificates, if I don’t count our pensions.

Cheers

Thanks for stopping by, as always