personally i think paysites buying up all the big traffic sites spell trouble for anyone who isn't them.

It is a natural progression for our industry to take. I'm surprised it hasn't happened more.

I believe alot of tgps lost out on their chance to sell for big $$$ a few years ago. There are not very many tgps that are worth alot right now.

Not sure if he is a bad businessman but my experience relating to real estate is if I have more han 1 offer on a house I'm selling, I might not take the highest bidder. There are a lot of factors to consider such as contingencies and how solid the buyers finances are. He was obviously eager to sell quickly and justified in his mind that the 3k difference was acceptable to him if that meant the money was going to be delivered immediately.

On another note, I'll always keep 2-3 buyers on the hook and if all three offers are similiar, the first one to come up with the cash, wins. I never let greed get the better part of me because sometimes that greed will bite you in the ass. I say kudos to him for selling and getting what he thought was acceptable to him.

Please keep in mind, I'm just a person looking from he outside and the facts that have been presented. I'm sure there is more to it.

Regardless, good luck to all parties involved and Shap don't sweat it, you will find something else that is bigger and better. You always do :)

If you have real dollars, contact me and I'll fill you in. You can email me at akalogianis AT jsamedia.net

Totally agree with you on this Shap. The ones that are worth their salt are the ones that have been around for a number of years. The newer ones don't impress me and I wouldn't spend 2 nickels wasting my time attaining a partner account or paying for their traffic.

Shap, same thing happened to me. I was going to go as high as 45k. We agreed on the price and he was going to be paid the next morning. Then an hour later he says "Another guy offered more." Then i offered 5k more. "Sorry bro, too late, he already sent the epass."

At least the site would be ran by a good hand basing on information that i know.
But it was surely one of the fastest and strangest deals...

I don't think I ever had any personal contact with the guy, but I will say he ran one of the few bigger sites which kept its trade signup form open and actually returned traffic fairly. I can recall several owners of larger TGPs with open sign up forms who never returned traffic: others who asked you to contact them after sending traffic and then ignored you. Nor did his traffic quality ever go down the toilet like it did for several other big TGPs when they started buying crap traffic and jerking surfers around between themselves, to keep their stats up.

So I guess I should find something positive to say about the end of his business. Difficult, because I cannot tell from what has been written here which offer he accepted first. If it were Pierre's, then he handled it as badly as Shap and others are saying, but if he had already accepted the Wildcash offer, he did the right thing by seeing it through. In those circumstances he should have told Pierre he had already accepted an offer, but would get back to him if it didn't work out. Jerking Pierre around was not professional, however you cut it.

not one that i care for at all though. you really want this biz to turn into any other where only a handful of people control 95% of traffic/sales? i sure don't.

It is a natural progression for operators in a young industry to attempt to control as much of their supply/distribution-line as possible: the appeal is obvious. However it's also a tactic which rarely works and in most cases you will quickly see businesses "getting back to basics".

If you consider how very few businesses are especially successful in any given field, it is surprising that even those who do stand out often fail to appreciate the odds they beat. It isn't enough just to be good at what you do and even if you have a truly original idea, the timing must still be right. Successful people know how much flair and experience it takes to run their own businesses well, yet somehow kid themselves they can repeat their success with businesses about which they know very little.

Fair enough, it takes a degree of arrogance to be successful at anything, but too much and you had better be running your business the way Richard Branson works: hire good people and let them get on with it. Except there are very few Richard Bransons precisely because the thing most successful entrepreneurs are worst at, is letting go of the reins and trusting other people. Not only don't most of these agglomerations work, but the original business often suffers in the process.

To use Howard Schultz of Starbucks as another illustration of how few exceptions there are, the very qualities which allow entrepreneurs to make sizeable businesses from little or nothing, are what usually get in the way of them becoming successful on a corporate scale. It may be bruising to our egos and heaven knows a few million dollars a year is far more than most will ever achieve, but all except a tiny number with ambitions for very big businesses are going to be disappointed. It takes a formal corporate structure to reach those levels, one that most entrepreneurs are unlikely to understand and may well hate. Although the Wal-Marts of this world may like to talk about how it all started with one small store, their board of directors hardly reflects that nostalgia. Wal-Mart is a good example, since the only member of the Walton family still on the board was a partner in a law firm.

jayeff, this is a thread about a tgp, not a university lecture ;-)

You are on the island???
Hit me up. We will have koffie or a beer!
tel 5238190

ps
Dont visit the karting track. Much to hot here!

Wow too bad the transaction was handled this way...

But you know what they say, when one door shuts another one opens ;)

Don't get too worried Shap and Pierre you guys will be ok ;)

DH

i was so amused by the friendly banter between shap and pierre I sort of forgot what the thread was about :)

That banner is classic.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I will try to remember this thread for when I get back. Do I have a deal for one of you. May have to do a conference call so no one can say I told one before the other.

I have to wonder why people keep that high of a balance in epass that they could pay it so quickly.

no shit.

Payouts to affiliates? I presume wires take time to travel to epass, then they would need to be manually entered into the system. Better to keep plenty spare than risk missing an affiliate payout date...

Having said that let's hope that the next affiliate payout cycle for wildcash goes without a hitch. (Kidding, kidding. :winkwink: )