Looking for an ADA whale interested in earning an additional 100 Ada per epoch for staking with my pool. I am willing to pay every epoch for the next year.
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Lets do the math …
Assuming your pool has a stake of 100k and a 0% margin.
A whale comes along and puts 1.9m into that pool.
(2*740 - 340) * 0.95 + 100 => 1183 ADA
If instead, that whale delegates to a pool with 48.1m …
(50*740 - 340) * 0.038 => 1393 ADA
The whale would lose 15% when choosing your pool. To break even, you would have to offer 310 ADA and there would still be no advantage for the whale. It is cost per block that matters in calculations like this.
The cost per block with a saturated pool is extremely low
340 / (64 * 740) => 0.72%
To be attractive to delegators you would probably want to come close to that and/or alternatively have a very good story that compensates for the loss.
I believe we’re going to see a significant change in the math when pledge has a greater effect. An increase in k would also raise the minimum cost per block.
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This assumes the other pool is also running at 0% margin?
but we need to start from somewhere right? no pools started with 64M staked from the beginning
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There is another option.
If you find your whale (I’m going to assume whale means minimum of 250k ADA) make them part owner of the pool. You will show higher pledge amount and be eligible for extra rewards from the pledge side. It will draw more people to the pool, since pledge is higher. Also, you can raise you pool fee to 1% (or higher) to make returns more appealing to the whale (and what ever deal you make for your 340 ADA pool fee). I read a post in this forum of pool owners doing that. It is a bit complicated, but it seems to be a good option (if you find that whale).
Another benefit is that you will be eligible for IOHK staking round.
This whole trend of everyone wanting 0% pool fees needs to stop. The cost for many people to run a pool is very high (depending on the country). Cost of a server, internet connection, hardware (or hosting fees) is significant especially for small pools. The time vale to run a pool also needs to be accounted for.
Also, 1% fee is just 1% of total reward. So, if your pool give back 5.5% adding 1% margin means it will return 5.45% . I rather have all stake pool operators be well funded at 5.45% then broke and missing blocks at 5.5% due to lack of funding.
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Of course we need to start somewhere. At the same time it is IMHO important to communicate clearly and honestly, especially with folks we want to have a trustful relationship with. I don’t know which is worse … folks who don’t do/understand the math and then recommend something to friends and family only for them to find out later that this recommendation was no good, or … folks who do/understand the maths, but don’t tell that there is a significant loss associated with what’s being offered.
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I’m relatively new to this forum. However, @Alexd1985 and @tomdx seem to be veterans of Cardano. I read many of their post and learned a lot from them. Also, I found out how little I know about some subjects 
and that showed me what I still need to learn.
So, if anybody has a good advice that can help you, it will be them. If I were you I would keep asking both of them for suggestions and ideas they have on how to improve your odds as new stake pool operator… while you got their attention. 
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@Neo_Spank Thanks for the 
My advice would be to “think long term”. Minting a block is of course not free, at the same time making huge profits (6*340=2040 p.m.) may also not be necessary. I’d charge what it actually costs and be open about it. At least this is what another (small) pool that I know of is doing.
There is “cost per block”, but there is also “effective cost per block”, which is the cost to the delegator after receiving potential benefits like the 100 ADA suggested above.
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For me the problem is the far to high fixed cost of 340. It harms the potential to grow a pool. To mitigate the issue I’m sharing the fixed income. How much is calculated every epoch with the goal to match the ROA of the biggest pools. Of course this is not cost efficient in the beginning. But I do not see any better way to grow the pool. I think this is a very fair deal for the delegators.
And as mentioned above a honest and transparent communication is the key to long term success. For that reason I educate delegators about the issue and explain how we deal with it. Details about the offer are shown here if you are interested in how it works: Best Rate Offer | VITAL Stakepool - Responsible Staking
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How viable do you believe the following approach is, and what potential challenges or benefits could arise from its implementation?
First 2 lifetime block (F2LB) has a rotating delegation of almost 2 million ADA. Great bunch of peeps there.
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