I am not sure of what you are asking, I can give you a personal resume if you want, and tell more about me if that's what you are asking about..? I know I am new here and all that, but it does not mean my idea is good and will work well. I understand people have trust issues with ventures which offer you high return of interest and I will try to answer all questions which you ask me. I am not sure what else I can do for my credibility at this moment.
Site is coming up as soon. Have a few problems to solve with it but hopefully in 1 week or so.
Site will contain just short general info and a login page where member can log in, see some pictures of the goods and check their accounts.
My observations:
So you wrote the OP to make it sound like your group of traders have been around and doing this for a while
...We are a group of traders who operates mostly in Europe and Asia and we have been doing this 10+ years.
We are dealing with a wide range of products as valuable stones, spices(saffron, vanilla,etc),(green, white) tea and coffee, etc.
We already have a group of customers even though we are always looking for new customers to work with.
...We need these funds for 3 purposes, which are 1. we are expanding. 2. We want lower prices from our suppliers so we are increasing our stock and getting better wholesale prices. 3 we want to use bitcoin both as a payment method for our customers and for transferring money through some trouble some countries(like India).
Your list of 3 reasons for needing the funds strengthens this fact. Especially you #2 reason which implies you already have a supply, you just want to expand it to get better rates.
So we (as potential investors) see red flags when you state you are building a website yet somehow you have a supply, wholesaler relationships and customers established. How do you sell your products now? Brick & mortar, newspaper, eBay, Craigslist, word of mouth? If it is by an e commerce site then link that here. Tell us how you do business currently.
We see red flags when it's starting to sound so hard to provide more company details such as identity. Post wholesaler companies, post customers, post invoices... Something.
We see red flags when in your own words you worry about federal involvement like what happened to pirateat40 or GLBSE. By stating this yourself you are linking your business model to those 2 recent failures. I would advise you not to do that if you want to be viewed as legitimate. Plus, why would you fear any heat from the higher powers? You are a trading company in tea and stones. Why the anxiety?
This job is nothing I am trying to do over internet except for something smaller here on bitcointalk if somebody wants something. Ofc I could but I have not tried.
For my part this is all about connections and networks we have built up during the years. Sometimes people tip us off about restaurants and coffeeshops for spices etc. and jeweliers for selling stones. Sometimes we get these connections from other traders. Same goes with buyers. Also I ask around in bigger cities I visit. Good quality rare stones are easy to sell and make a nice profit from.
This is how my plan looks like right now(and most times quite similar modus operandi)
In about 1 week I will arrive to Goa in India for staying there for a while and meet my supplier for sapphires and also look for some crystals and pearls if he found all I asked for. I already have 150ct of blue sapphires between 2-8ct from Cambodia, but I need some more of Kashmir sapphires too. My stone supplier is from Srinagar, Kashmir where he cuts the stones before coming to south India to sell them, a Russian stone trader gave me this contact for a year ago and I am extremely happy for that, ofc I gave something back to the russki. Right after that I will go to Bombays masjid district to see my spice guy and coffee/tea supplier, to buy mainly saffron and white tea, which are both very exclusive and expensive. 2-3 kg of white tea for Europe and Thailand and about 1 kg saffron. Everything else tea/coffee/spice is just for keeping my customers happy, not so much profit on the other products. Then back to Goa for sending some of the products to Europe and Thailand and to start preparing to go to Indonesia and sell of the stones to my buyer there who knows half Jakarta and is always short on stones.. After this I celebrate and start prepping for the next trip.
This is the way it looks for us who are in these sort of businesses..
We are not a registered company, at least not for now. If this goes well we might register and continue the same thing but then with lower dividends because of taxes and other fees.
I would normally not be afraid of higher powers, but now if that I am offering bonds to you, I am a afraid mostly because of I don't know the rules, and that there have been previous problems.
I have nothing against giving my identity to my customers or even meet some of them, for as long I can be sure of my ID is not revealed to third party.
I hope I answered some of your questions.