Up to Morgan's scary business models

Mission

The company's mission is to make trading of collectibles and financial instruments safe for everyone. The company's pricing strategy introduces a unique element of value assurance: each investor can sleep soundly knowing that whatever price he paid for his items, the next investor will pay more. The appeal of value assurance is best illustrated by the following example: can you imagine paying $400 a share for Yahoo with the assurance that all future trades will be executed at a higher price?

The company helps investors trade the rights to Internet stocks, Beanie Babies, and other collectibles. To prevent tradables from leaving the system and thus dropping in price, the company retains physical possession at all times, but the current trader has full rights to dividends and other distributions from Internet stocks, viewing privileges for Beanie Babies, etc. Collectibles can enter the system whenever their current owner wishes them to.

Business model

The company does not charge trading fees. Instead, the company charges investment banking fees to IPO-stage Internet companies which prefer our unique value assurance to the turmoil and volatility of NASDAQ.

Tulip bulbs

The site also sells tulip bulbs with the pricing policy determined as follows:  The first tulip bulb sold on the site sells for $1.  For each additional tulip bulb sold on the site, the price goes up by $1.

Tulip bulbs have a long and glorious history in the global investment community.  Their appreciation potential was first discovered by the Dutch in the late 1600's, a period which produced countless fortunes for tulip bulb investors.  In fact many of the modern-day Amsterdam "coffee houses" which specialize in fragrant items of a different sort started out as "tulip houses", and used the profits on their tulip investments to develop other areas of their business.  We feel that this growth strategy can be applied to many of today's small businesses. By synergizing the appreciation potential of tulip bulbs with the marketing potential of the Internet, we feel we have developed a product whose appeal to the modern investor is virtually unbounded.

We feel that once the investment community fully grasps the fact that tulip bulb investing is not just a growth strategy but a value strategy as well, sophisticated investors will shift their primary asset base from Internet stocks to tulip bulbs in short order.  We have carefully positioned our company to benefit from this trend, and we anticipate a smooth and attractive profit stream once this shift materializes.

And to you, the original investors supplying the funds in our IPO, we would like to make one additional point:  your investment in our company contains a built-in hedge, for if the expected shift from Internet stocks to tulip bulbs does not materialize, the company's association with the Internet will still guarantee at least a modest return on your investment.  We feel that this gives our IPO a risk/reward profile so favorable that to not include it in your IPO portfolio would be sheer madness.

Company Name

Unfortunately upupup.com is taken, but we are happy to report that as of Christmas 1999, musicalchairs.com is not in use.

morgannprice@yahoo.com (and anonymous co-author)

:-)