I dont understand WHY should one want to visit his castle? 200eur for a room and what are the advantages? I could find tons of better places in estonia/finland for that money, is there anything special about this place except meeting Risto? Drugs for free? Bitcoin supernode course? the king is naked?!
Good questions, which show that they arise from a different worldview/mission than what the castle is for. Let me try to explain:
- When I bought the castle, I was financially in a position that I could have done anything I wanted. (If it was really expensive, I would need to wait for BTC to go up a little more of course.) I had already quit working for money some months before I bought it.
- I did not buy the castle to be a business, because A) I already quit business B) castle is a lousy business.
- I did buy it to be a meeting point for the world's crypto-enthusiasts (and later on when more such places spring up, the meeting point for the local area).
- Offering hospitality for people costs money. It is quite a no-brainer to charge for it.
- How much to charge? Currently the place is in such a condition that arranging any kind of living conditions is likely to not be financially profitable, even if we consider only the variable costs. In the other words, I lose money no matter what I offer, and also when I don't offer anything (fixed costs are running high).
- Why is that? Mainly because it is so early, the organization is not yet there, procedures are lacking, marketing is insufficient, and especially we have too few rooms. We could maintain 30 rooms for about the same effort as we now do 11. But the income would be 3 times higher, given full occupancy. But the full occupancy is not a given, and therefore it's not yet the time to build more rooms, since building rooms is also expensive, and bitcoin is in a relative bottom.
- We already did build 4 hotel rooms, which are in "premium" category. These are selling for 150-350 euros depending on the date. When thinking about the hotel room alone, even this is a steep price, and probably not value for money.
- But I think it from the mission's point of view: I want the place to produce maximum value for the whole community. This is the focus. The matter of cost to the individual members is a side-consideration. For many guests, the value received from a visit here is order(s) of magnitude higher than the cost. It is therefore irrelevant whether a room costs a hundred more.
- The main target group is people who have already become free financially because of crypto. In bitcoin terms, BTC1,000-BTC10,000 is needed. The secondary group (albeit 10 times larger in # of people) has BTC100 or more.
- Since I only have the 4 premium rooms, they are very scarce, and I want to keep at least one of them vacant at all times. Price is the way to allocate the scarce resources to the most valuable uses. Since my focus is on value, I feel no problem whatsoever to sell the rooms at very high prices if the situation so demands, in order for the right people to come together to maximize the value.
- In the future, when bitcoin price goes up, it is likely that the fiat price of rooms here continues to go up, because every 10-folding increases the target group 10-fold, but Malla cannot scale up accordingly. So the price will be used to allocate the occupancy.
- Currently complaining about mandatory high room prices is very far from truthful. A typical conference anywhere else would cost you 300 EUR for 2 nights + (300 EUR / 2) for a room for 2 for 2 nights, with a total of 450 EUR/person. In Malla, you can book a large 4 people room for 88 EUR per night (BTC0.2). For 2 nights it is 44-88 EUR/person, depending if you have it full or only as a twin.
TL;DR: Staying in Malla is already up to 80-90% cheaper than in other conferences, and if you don't comprehend it, you are probably not in our focus anyway. On the other hand, we aim to make the VIP guests' stay as valuable as possible, and intend to charge the market price for it.
