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Karupted Charles · 11-05-2005, 01:45 PM

17.Discuss your online shopping company. How much did you take from venture capital? Ever pay it back?
After I left being a broker and just after I started selling websites a friend of mine from the brokerage industry approached me about the next big idea. We wanted to sell a turn key template that would allow small to medium sized retail or out of home stores to sell products on the Internet. The package included a stand alone store that was linked from a giant webmall. The idea was with the mall it made getting traffic easier as other companies would also be pushing people to the site and you had a better chance then doing it on your own. The idea actually worked and did well. We were funded by a Venture Capital company and hired more staff. At the end we had about 45 reps selling these sites. Unfortuanlty though we had become profitable in a very short time frame the timing was off. The company that funded us had also invested in over 100 other web startups. The story from them was several of them blew up big time and they did not even have the money to handle the commitments they made to the other because they owed more then they had invested. I was told they were not going to fund our paycheck account and that I had to let everyone go just before Christmas. The operation had taken a few 100k to get up and running but it all went into computers staff and promotional material so we didn't really take them for anything and no we didn't have to pay it back. If they had just let it run a bit longer I can pretty much guarantee I would not be here today. It was my need to have money for Christmas that made me look into working with some people that had been clients that also did adult products. Timing is everything and I believe everything happens for a reason. All my failures are what put me were I needed to be for my successes.

11-05-2005, 01:45 PM
Karupted Charles Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: MI Posts: 1,662	17.Discuss your online shopping company. How much did you take from venture capital? Ever pay it back? After I left being a broker and just after I started selling websites a friend of mine from the brokerage industry approached me about the next big idea. We wanted to sell a turn key template that would allow small to medium sized retail or out of home stores to sell products on the Internet. The package included a stand alone store that was linked from a giant webmall. The idea was with the mall it made getting traffic easier as other companies would also be pushing people to the site and you had a better chance then doing it on your own. The idea actually worked and did well. We were funded by a Venture Capital company and hired more staff. At the end we had about 45 reps selling these sites. Unfortuanlty though we had become profitable in a very short time frame the timing was off. The company that funded us had also invested in over 100 other web startups. The story from them was several of them blew up big time and they did not even have the money to handle the commitments they made to the other because they owed more then they had invested. I was told they were not going to fund our paycheck account and that I had to let everyone go just before Christmas. The operation had taken a few 100k to get up and running but it all went into computers staff and promotional material so we didn't really take them for anything and no we didn't have to pay it back. If they had just let it run a bit longer I can pretty much guarantee I would not be here today. It was my need to have money for Christmas that made me look into working with some people that had been clients that also did adult products. Timing is everything and I believe everything happens for a reason. All my failures are what put me were I needed to be for my successes. __________________ TPF 2010 "They are eating our sausages!"