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Backyard Brains Opens Up the Books

Finances are on our collective minds as we all hurry to send in our taxes to the IRS this week, therefore we think this is a great time to announce somefinancialnews of our own. Starting with this year’s tax filing, we are making Backyard Brains open books, meaning that all employees (both of us) and the public are free to pour over our finances in detail and see how much money we take in, and where the money goes.We have set up a page on our website to allows you to see how we are doing on a day-to-day basis: http://finance.backyardbrains.com

Our finances to date

Above is our total revenue since we started taking sales. In 2010 we took in $25,000 in sales of SpikerBoxes (and another $3,850 in grants/awards). Where did this money go? Were we good stewards of our new-found wealth? Or did we give cash bankruptcy bonuses to our top execs? It’s up to you to judge. Below you will find the top 10 expenses for all of 2010. Note that a majority of our expenses were directly related to the procurement and distribution of our SpikerBoxes.

Top Vendors of 2010
Vendor Name Amount Spent Why?
DigiKey $5,557.38 SpikerBox Components
FedEx $2,242.08 Shipping and Printing
K & F Electronics $1,617.56 PCB Foundry
Delta Airlines $1,417.00 Flights to SfN
Doubletree Hotels $1,035.82 San Diego is Expensive…
Alex W. $600.00 iPhone Code Monkey
Society for Neuroscience $515.00 Pay it forward.
Radio Shack $350.39 No, not cell phones. Real Parts.
Newark $346.55 More Parts
IX Web Hosting $273.41 Our web server

We did have an expensive trip to San Diego for SfN, but fortunately this was graciously covered by the Anuradha Rao Memorial Travel Award and SFN Next Generation Award. A clever reader may be wondering where our payroll expenses are on this report. It’s not there, because in 2010 we had no payroll. One of our owners (Tim) was reimbursed for personal loans made to the business in 2010, but it wasn’t until this year that he actually started to earn the extravagant full-time salary of $1,500 a month!

We look forward to growing our business in 2011 and offering more products and experiments to feed your hungry brain (RoboRoach available now, and some opto thing-a-ma-genetic-jig may be on the horizon). Stay tuned, and don’t forget to check in on us from time-to-time to see how we are doing. Our minds recollect an old lolcatz cartoon


1 Comment »

  1. I am a Faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD. I wish I could be there today to lend my surppot. We must all be vocal in our surppot of this cause, for a cause it is. Too long have we few struggled with developing medical treatments while retaining our humanity, while some would have us demonized for it. I am an animal lover, in all forms, but I do recognize that the need for medical treatments throughout the animal kingdom is essential to counter widespread diseases in our time. Cholera, measles, mumps, anthrax, antibacterials, and many more, could not have been treated or developed were it not for animal research. If you are anywhere near UCLA, and can make it, show your surppot!

    Comment by Rafael — 2012-May-20 @ 16:28

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