Someone asked me for Bullet Points... or Cliff Notes
1. I know Justin as he buys content from my
www.TrashyContent.com site, and the fact he buys content off me...
2. I show him a new program I have been working on creating for the last 18 months, he say's he want's to buy it off me ! I tell him that's not possible as we've spent a ton of money and time on it. So he ask's to buy a 50% stake in it for $$$... we agree as we believe it's a good match, with our skills at shooting content and creating sites, matched with their connections and ability to market the sites.
3. Looking back on things I believe their investment was just a way to get another vehicle to rape cross sales on... the way they demanded total control of the domain names and how they were in charge of the accounts I guess we got what we deservd... we smelt a rat but as the small company in the deal felt we had to give in to these demands.
4. We fly to Pheonix supposidly to meet our partners, they barely speak to us whilst we're out there... there was supposidly a contract to sign, but when we're out there Vinh tells us it hasnt been wrote up... They now joke that the reason they didn't speak to us is due to how we looked, WTF ! Turns into a name calling joke for them, like a bunch of 9 year olds.
5. It then takes months for the program to go live, even though the sites and content are there... A good 5 months go bye without any progress... all this time we're not earning a penny !
6. Finally the site goes live, but due to their "cross sale" model we run at a minus for the first quarter... finally we start to see some money to start to come in and we end the first year of trading (which really was about 4 months) the end of year financials show about $40k of profit, not mind blowing but it looked liked we were finally seeing some results, nearly a year after the deal was done...
7. We then get told it was an accounting error and the $40k was from one of their other programs... and infact we'd barely broke even ! We asked several times to see accounts so we could get an accountant in the UK to review the accounts... but never did we get any, the girl working in their accounts department said she needed to get permission from the partners, which never was granted, and then she suddenly didn't work for the company.
8. They somehow manage to let one of the key domain names expire and get snapped up by a PPC company ! They say this is no issue and they will just register the .org or .net... like that's good business practice, to my knowledge the site as never gone live under a new name !
9. They never at any stage make money available for new shoots... we have banked content for the sites updates, and no matter how clear we made it this was fast running out, they never showed any interest to get new content shot... I guess you dont need new content, updating sites, interactive models when your just rapping the site and selling cross sales !
10. We then get told the company buying the cross sales have frozen all monies due to them, thousands and thousands of dollars, including about $90k owed to PixelBucks... They tell us it's due to other companies bad conversions on cross sales and nothing to do with them or our sales...
11. We then get told the cross sales are gone completely... I would guess this was about April 2010... that due to new Visa regulations there wouldnt be any new ones... yet we still see them on their other two programs.
12. We speak to the company who was buying the cross sales (I wont bring this company into this thread I am afraid, we're speaking to them about what went on and hoping we can do some work with them in some way) but they tell us the money to PixelBucks was only suspended because of the association to the other two programs our partners run, and the unrealiability of them sales, I have two words for you "CHAT TRAFFIC"
13. We continuelly try and speak to the partners, get totally ignored, when there is communication promises get made, and of course quickly broken ! Months pass with the sites down, no cross sales, no billing, no ccbill tours... no plan to get them making money again... We lose girls workign for us based on their inability to communicate and get the sites making money... well at least money we was ever going to see.
14. Of all the ridiculous excuses for the lack of communication had to be the real cherry when we got told the partner was in prison ! So obviously a little hard for him to communicate with us... We also get told they have had to lay every one off, this includes the women in accounts I mentioned, Vinh who was like their right hand man, even our partners dad and sisters who he had working for them !
15. Finally in around October 2010 when we realise things are dead, that they have done nothing in 6 months to save the sites/program, 6 months of not making money and seeing the sites run into the ground we call it a day... However they seem to think that means we're just walking away from our 50% of the company, they even have a dig telling us to take them to court, that their lawyers will battle the case... knowing very well there is no way we are big enough to take them on.
16. Via my attempted communications with them they start to make real proffessional comments about my appearance (not that it bothers me, just think it sums them up !) they even dig at whilst we're whinning they are off coming up with the next big way to make money !
17. We own 50% of the sites/program... that includes the domain names, but we'll never get them back. Mind you they have no Model ID's, Model Rleeases, Or 2257 Documentation !
So yeah not sure that qualifies as cliff notes, thing I pretty much covered it all, but sure I missed one of two chesnuts in this ridiculous drama...
If you have any last questions on what happened let me know as I intend to let this thread die now... just thought it would make good reading whilst watching a bit of Football !
We'll do something with the content... so it's not a total loss, hopefully soem of you guys will give us a push when that's up and running next year... hopefully some people like to work with genuin people
