Some people had a bit of a dilemma during ESL: '' Should I go out, or stay home and watch Dota?''. Help us make this happen and in a year or two you won't be having that dilemma. You will be doing both ;)
Hello there guys before you read this, one thing you should know. I would really like to do this with my own money, investing with other people's money gives u restraint and higher sense of responsibility. The thing is I have no money to invest in this, but really think that it could get big, any kind of donation would be great, thanks to anyone in advance, even if u just read this or take a look or whatever, cool to know i got someones attention. Enjoy!
MY TEAM
My team consists of 5 people. My brother who is senior year of architecture, he will be handling all of the designs, both interior and exterior. The other one is my friend Stefan Stancic who is styding economics also senior year. He will have no part in the business deals, making of contracts or anything like that. His purpose will be to be the economic manager once the cafe is open. I have Pavle Petrovic, stated him as a marketing manager he is an enthusiast, who will be spamming social networks, and anything he can get his hands on. And I have an IT manager who is also my friend. Wont mention his name since he didnt acceot the role in the team on Indiegogo. He is a junior software developer at Microsoft, and he will be handling the internet page, and everything technology related when the cafe is open. I will be handling the business stuff. I've been taught about these things by my father, who back in the days used to run a pretty sucesfull trading company. Business is not something you learn in schools and I can't guarante I will be good at this, but got noone better than myself, and atleast my team trust in me.
WHY DID WE START THIS?!
The first and main reason for opening a Dota cafe and making it worldwide would be promotion of Dota 2 as a game:
- Encourage more people to try it, which will result in more people playing it since it's a great game
- Make people see that Dota isn't a waste of time, it has a lot of money involved in it, that will just keep on growing
- One day maybe parents will encourage their kids to play Dota (We don't want kids to skip school or anything, just equivalent with some other afterschool activities)
- Increase the number of professional Dota players, professional tournaments, amateur tournaments (to give chance to new players), etc.
- Increase the number of Dota streamers, and promote less known players!
In the end guys, all sports, games, activities started small and not that significant, the only difference here is that with today's technology and internet things can be promoted a lot faster, so instead of 20-30 years that it took for some games/sports to become world known, we could do the same thing to Dota in maybe 1-2 years. This cafe is one of the ways to do so, so guys if u really like this game support my campaign.
THE BIG IDEA!
So in the perfect scenario where we raise all the money we need maybe even more then our goal, this is what we hope to create:
- Open it abroad, that would include finding a business partner in the US preferably, since it's the place I think Dota is more popular than any other country. If you have enough money to invest you can get anyone's attention!
- Buy/rent a large premises with a huge garden. So we would have a place where we can realize all of our ideas. We hope to have tables with Dota maps painted or in any way presented on them. A hall of fame, where we would put pictures of world renown dota players, most succesfull ones, so that people who dont play Dota can remember their faces, hear what tournaments they won, etc. Create a noob's corner (not to offend someone, just to put people who dont know about dota and are willing to learn, meaning they didnt come just for a drink, in the same place and hold like a 5-10 minute speech about the basics of the game, so they can be encouraged to try it out). My brother allready started making clay dota artifacts which we will start posting on the campaign soon. The first thing he will try to make is a Pudge's hook. It will hang on the wall with artifacts somewhere in the cafe, where people can look at it, maybe in some cases even be allowed to carry some of them. Have cosplay costumes for our employees, they probably wont be wearing them every day, maybe for some major events or something similar, but we will think more about that. Have more than one bar where people can order drinks (call one secret shop, one base, one side shop, or have 2 of each like in the game, depends of the size of the cafe). Buy a few really good computers/laptops so we can stream with cameras online what is happening in the cafe, when we make an event. Also buy a few really modern TV's we will discuss which TV's would be the best for this, which would give us the best possible picture. We would stream Dota every day, whole day. Buy tickets for all Dota events and stream them in the cafe non stop. Also we will have days when we will stream some funny dota videos, or something like that, we still havent decided on what kind of events exactly we will be hosting. We know that we will try to encourage nearby internet cafes to be hosts of some amateur dota tournaments, that we will sponsor, etc.
- The ultimate goal is this: My team manages a few dota cafes maybe 1 in Serbia, 2-3 in US/Britain, and then as we start getting big, we start selling the name to interested people. We offer them the name, our ideas for 25% of their profit and they take the name and open something similar that we would rate if it's good enough to be a Dota cafe. Something like Hard rock cafe (same concept). Sign contracts make deals, etc.
- Ofcourse buying sofas, chairs, bars, getting liquor licenses, employing an english speaking staff and everything else that goes with the opening of any cafe is mandatory.
BUSINESS PLAN
- 30000$ This amount of money is not sufficient to pay for or buy a premises that my team and I talked about (300 square meters atleast with a pretty big garden). With this kind of money we have 2 options. To open a cafe that would bring some income, set up some online commercials and it will be like a working funding campaign. The second option is to set up a site about our cafe, use the money for promotion and rerun the campaign in an attempt to raise a lot more money than the first time.
- 50000$ Can probably be used to open a descent cafe in Belgrade, Serbia. And still use some money for online commercialism
- 100000$ Would be a sufficient amount of money to open a fully set up Dota cafe in Belgrade, Serbia. Create a site and continue the promotion online.
- 200000$ (Goal) We chose this amount to be the goal. With this money I can contact people abroad (English speaking countries first) for some negotiations about opening it in Britain, America. The point is no serious businessman will even talk to you if u haven't got atleast 150000$
- Everything above this is a dream in which we can probably acomplish all of the ideas that were mentioned, and even more.
- If we raise less than 30000$ we will use the option 2 of the 30000$ plan just with a lot less budget to work with, it will be hard but we will try to manage, if we are unable to do anything we will just sponsor a few tournaments and give it up!
- Every amount of money thats like higher than these 4 goals will be the same concept, just with a little more budget thus helping us to pull it off easier. We will not waste any money, nor use for ourselves, all of the funding we receive is going towards promoting Dota as a game.
FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T PLAY DOTA!!!
Dota (Defense of the ancients) is computer game. It's played 5 against 5 people who compete to destroy the enemy's main structure (the ancient). The game starts with both teams picking their heroes, out of a 100+ heroes pool. Every man should try to make their hero stronger, thus helping their teammates achieve the ultimate goal and win the game (destroy the enemy team's ancient). You improve your hero by buying items and gaining levels. It is a team game the point is to be a team player, help others and not just try to win it by yourself (impossible in 99% of cases). This game requires a lot of skill, but the most important thing is tactics and teamwork. In the begining it's hard to understand the game it's very complex and hard, but allways fun to play even if you have no idea what you are doing. That's it for the intro, download Steam and then download Dota, try it!!!
Dota is also the leading game in the world when it comes to tournament prizes. This year's prize pool on the world championship (The international) was over 10 million dollars. It's a game that's getting more and more support every day. Help me promote it even more, even if u just start playing and dont support me I'll be happy i brought more people to play this amazing game.
WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TO OFFER YOU!
Both my team and myself are very sad that at the moment, we can't offer you guys anything in return for your good will of funding our project. We haven't even taken any serious steps since the idea hasn't begun to spread as much as we would like it to. We hope that you can understand our plan and what we are trying to accomplish. If you have any suggestions, ideas any kind of help would be appreciated. We hope that one day if we are fully operational in more than 1 country, and have allready spread through the entire world we can in some way make it up to the people that believed in this, and by funding us helped us accomplish it, by then all we can say is: Thank you!
