Then and Now, Organisation
Looks like we are following the blueprint from 2004 very closely.
We still need to do things differently than others have tried and failed before us.
Phase one was about setting up a Board.
Everyone has amazing ideas about everything, no doubt. We can't seriously listen to everything and achieve any kind of productivity, so the Board selection had to be controlled.
What I believe was done wrongly back then was selecting the board by just voting by the players, and that would only benefit the guys being very vocal in the forums. It is not a bad thing per say but that is a very limited selection.
Knowing it will take some serious dedication, I chose to set a price tag to the Board post with the thought of "if anyone is willing to pay 250 Euro for that, then they must be very much caring about the future of the game". The kickstarter campaign gave only one member in Andres but soon several more followed and now we have a good group of people doing their best for the future of the game.
Internet, social media, software development has changed a lot in the past decade, and nowadays it's more about DAU ( Daily Active Users ) and in such terms we have very humble numbers like 100 DAU, where as some other not so known games have maybe thousands times that or even more, without being as great as Managersim. The Farmville era of games will eventually die and gamers will re-learn to value the unique and good games once again properly, and by that time, we have to be ready to accept new players joining Managersim.
Facebook ads work at this stage only to get 100+ likes and few new managers joining in, but as Stephen has called before the game user interface is maybe too old school and not so appealing to the newer generation where they play games differently.
Self-funding
Donations has never worked in the long run, not in the past and not now, so it's a no-go for us. What was recently introduced and was very good for us was the Patreon sponsorship.
Another interesting fact, the free money for getting a copy of the magazine while giving $15 to the game was not so well received and used, which is amazing. Not willing to pay anything I can understand (for different reasons) but to not signup and receive a free copy WHILE earning some money for our cause is puzzling to me.
Small scale development
We are not near funding anyone part-time but we could perhaps achieve that when we have an app for the game, working with the game worlds, with IAP ( in app purchases ) to buff up some economy into this project. In 2017 the first priority would have to be producing a new app for the game, to attract more new users, making the game world more populated and perhaps opening few more game worlds.