RSchneider
Elio Addict
Delusional come from the people that you surround yourself with. Paul had a bunch of yes men that seen the potential and were ready to jump on board. Plus you needed to remember the time. We were going through big gas prices for a second time, we still remember the financial crisis. GM was bailed out and plants were closing. The US looked like a grim place. To top it off, "crowdfunding" was the next big thing. It was the answer to institutional investors. Real people put there money into things they needed and believed in. Then you had social media. Get lots of followers and likes, that was like money in the bank. 300K followers is what you pay the bills with. Right?
Guess what, there were not enough followers to fund a project like this ($28M raised by reservations when $531M was actually needed). Then the institutional investors seen that the numbers were way off and walked away. So got to the point that people decided to not look into the data but go with faith. As we are seeing, faith only goes so far.
Paul fell into the trap of child actor or rock star syndrome. Thought it would go on forever and then found the cold hard reality that it doesn't. Telling people that the markets are broken and then other companies are getting $700M from investors, just adds insult to injury. Everyone can tell you that you are great and your idea is the best but they are on the ride in hopes you can keep it going. When it doesn't they bail. My guess is that Pauls phone rarely rings, barely any text messages. When he does get them, it's his built debt calling to see when it's getting paid. The EM Facebook page is just deleting comments from past reservation holders (which is an insult to them) is hurting the Elio support structure. I think people would rather see closure instead of censorship. Then they can move on and throw money at the next big thing in transportation.
