PixelBucks And Partnerships - Be Warned !
 

Well here's a story of a lesson to be learnt, in the hope that other people dont fall into the same trap as we did...

Partnerships with big companies sound so promising, the potential of working with an established company, and what they can bring to a smaller company seems just too good to be true... but guess what it probably is !

The idea of a mutially beneficial partnership in truth is unlikely, instead of people thinking let's make me and my partner rich, it usually means how can I fuck them over and take the money myself... Partnerships simply dont work, people get greedy and lie to do what they can to keep the money for themselves...

I guess when you travel 6000 miles to meet them when you do the deal, for them to totally blank you and say about 6 words to ya, you should know something isnt right... It's funny that now they joke about that proffessional attitude they showed, and play it off to do with how you looked lol... like what as that got to do with it, maybe we wasnt gangsta enough for them lol...

There is soo much that went on during the 18 months of absolute madness... however I hope no one is still promoting the sites concerned within PixelBucks... to my knowledge (well so the so called partners have told us) they are not promoting/pushing the sites anymore, I believe the billing as gone for the sites... certainly to my knowledge they dont even have the CCBill tours in place anymore... I know a fair few affiliates have contacted me about monies outstanding to them... but all financial management rests with the so called partners (I keep saying so called partners due to my absolute disbelief as to how they did business)

I thought they would of made an announcement about the situation with the sites/program... but I guess again that would be way too professional of them...

Anyways will this turn into a popcorn drama... maybe, but that's not my goal... my goal is to just warn smaller companies out there, that the empty promises of big companies in my opinion do not work out... even if they are shouting big numbers at you, in the long run they have no commitment to your program, it's just a quick way of making money for them and their bro mates (hey it wouldnt be a drama thread without me mentioning the bro's !)

pixelbucks is dead ?

Yes...
 

Yes to my knowledge it has been for some time... alas we have been pretty powerless to do anything about it... full control was put into the hands of the partners, we in effect just shot the content and scheduled the sites...

Alas even though we held up our side of the partnership it appears they didnt give a flying fuck about their end... and let it run into the ground... we did have warning signs like a total lack of communication from the partners... and then crazy shit like when they let one of the primary domain names run out and get snapped by a PPC company, real proffessional hey !

I dont understand why they didn't make an official statement about this, or send out a email to affiliates at least... but I guess like most of these bro companies they just dont give a shit... they are laughing it off at the moment, saying they are coming up with the next way to make money... I guess they know that most people will still work with them regardless... sad world hey !

If you have links/traffic going into the sites I would seriously reconsider them... chances are you aint going to see any checks anytime soon ! :disgust

what's about
jessicacute.com
jessicacutie.com

just wondering

they didnt like your clothes...?

Let me explain...
 

OK let me explain... when we did the deal they made certain demands, they wanted control over certain things (even though it was a 50/50 partnership) they wanted control for example of the domains, and even though we didnt really see why they had to be in their registra we finally agreed...

However we did keep control of the content... to be fair it's the only "power" we did keep, they asked us for all the model ID's model releases and 2257's... but my gut feeling, yes even way back then... made me believe we should keep management of these to ourselves... so to this day they do not have control of the content...

Anyways when the shit hit the fan, which was about 6-7 months ago... and they obviously were not doign anything about it, letting the sites basically die... we made a move to get some of the stuff back... we managed to persuad them to give us for example the BrookLittle.com domain name back... but alas that was it.

Now the deal is dead, and they are just leaving the sites to rot we spoke about taking it all back, but to do this they want all the money they invested returned... which is a total joke, the idea you buy a share in a company, totally fuck the company over and run it into the ground, then say you'll give it back for your original investment lol...

So we're obviously not going to do that, we still own 50% of the company but dont see that we'll get anything out of them... so I guess it's time to just sever ties... We are going to explore some legal avenues... but when your 6000 miles away and only a small company it's not really easy to take them on...

So we are reproducing the domains within our new program... more really as bonus sites in our new network in the hope it bolsters things a bit, and doesnt result in being a total loss. We believe we created good sites with good models, shot good content... and produced a top noth program... so yeah we might have lost the original program but I aint just going to bend over and be fucked in the ass by these guys...

Are we looking for sympathy in this, no cause we know in this industry you dont get sympathy, do we expect people to stop working with them, no cause we know people go where the money is, and even if it's through less scrupolus people where the stability of that money is very dodgy... as I said at worst it's me venting off, at best it might just make someone really cautious of doing a partnership !

Lol...
 

Well we're British... so he commented on my "fucked up teeth" you know you Americans love ribbing us about that... oh and also the fact I was wearing bright pink trainers lol... To be fair they were indeed fair comments... well when I say fair, I mean fair for a 9 year old at primary school...

I could get into a slanging match about how he looks... but then he would just start calling me "fat" and "bald" yes I am a easy target lol... :Oh crap

But here's the bottom line (I so want to say "Cause Stone Cold Said So !" I would rather be fat, bald, bad teeth and pink trainers, than be a lieing cheating SOB... I really do have to stop watching American TV !

I guess I work on the principle that I try and do the best by everyone, I trust people and try and help people... in the hope that it comes back in some form of Karma... I guess I am learnign fast that it just doesnt work that way...

what comes around goes around

Damm ...

I would say it was a dumb move to give them control of anything.

The "partners" sound like wankers though, so maybe it's for the best. Don't make the same mistake again and I'm sure you won't :)

I have no clue who brought your into your company wish to tell me?

do i remind it correct - traffic gigolos were your so called partners?

Was this the Traffic Gigolos people you went into partnership with?

name names...

We do all have fucked up teeth though. Its true.

As a race, we british are proud of our rotting stumps. Yanks know it only takes $$$s to get a good set of teeth. Us brits on the other hand, need to show years of dedication to neglecting our teeth, to get that stinky, rotten, pussy taste, that we as a nation love so dearly!

Pink trainers explains everything.

I've sold 3 big sologirl programs since 06...always CASH UP FRONT..the 1 time I did a partnership ( Satan's Cash) it was a fucking joke. And I think other guys on here that joined up with bigger companies, also get the short end of the stick...
Did you get ANY money from them?
Don't worry about the domain names..just come up with similar..make the sites again with all the content...and never go into a 'partnership" again in this industry...you can build and sell it...build and sell it again or keep it..you shoot good stuff, don't let this 1 setback get you down too bad...keep going:thumbsup

Answers...
 

I can only hope that's true...


Well as I said a lesson to be learnt... unfortenetly sometimes we do repeat the same mistake, we'd had a couple of smaller experiences prior which also hadnt worked out how we had hoped... I guess when big companies come knocking you hope this is the big break... same applies in all industries, but I guess there's always the danger they are just looking to make a quick buck off what you created, whats it called asset stripping lol...


read below...



Yes and Yes...



read above...



unless your Simon Cowell... mind you red necks and trailer trash would give us brits a run for our money :D



Yes I know pretty gay of me... obviously showed them what a soft touch I am and duely prompted them to fuck me over without even a wipe around :(

Hey Nina...
 

Hey Nina, first off thanks for the props on our content... I do however think this was the single biggest reason we partnered with the company, you see I believe our best skill is the creation of content and the sites we use it on... we have been very lucky with the designers we've used to create what I believe to be some pretty good sites/programs...

We work hard to find girls who are not saturated, and shoot good quality content of them... However we dont have the skills some do at marketign and promoting the product well, it's always been a beef of myn that our sites dont get more promotion and traffic... we get people pushing us singing our praises as to how well they convert, yet we still dont get the volume.

So when the partnership was offered it seemed like a great fit, to put our skills of shooting the content and their skills for making money from it... I should point out they did pay for their %, we didn't just hand them 50%... I would divolge the amount, even though it wouldnt surprise me if they came in here shouting how much it was !

I have to say it wasn't a mind blowing amount... but it was a decent investment. However it is my belief they simply viewed it as an amount of money that was easily retrievable by just simply running it into the ground and making as many cross sales off it as they could, just another vehicle to push more dodgy cross sales.

Some facts to really prove that point are as follows...

1. When we create these sites we try and bank content for future updates, this is usually between 6-12 months worth... as time went by not once was money made available (budgeted for) to do new shoots... even as we got close to having no updates they still didn't make funds available... even to the point where the girls on the sites lost interest and went off to do their own ventures, ones that directly competed with our sites... We had some girls even interested in being interactive with their sites, but due to lack of work from the sites they left us completely.

2. When the sites lost their exsisting cross sale sponsors, they did nothing to replace them and left the sites for over 6 months to just die. There was no plan B for the sites, no attempt to rescue them or create any revenue... they had done what they set out to achieve rapped the sites for a year, sold a shed load of cross sales and now dont give a shit about the sites, their partners, nor their affiliates...

This was all very frustrating for us sitting there not being able to do anything...

They've got quite a rep for being shady fuckers.

all links on back up.

Hey Roald...
 

Not sure what you mean mate... ? I like you guys, you help to promote all our stuff... so I wouldnt want you sending your traffic to dead sites... I know they changed the CCbill links/tours for some reason...

they made fun of your teeth and clothes? how mature. great business ethics

It means that all links are offline for now, don't want to send to dead sites either since we still used the ccbill links ;)

Sorry...
 

Sorry I couldnt bring this news to you sooner, I cant believe the lack of communication we have had out of them, and more so the lack of respect they have shown for affiliates...

We have obviously had a ongoing dialouge going to try and save the partnership, little did I know what a absolute waste of time that was... if I had of known I would of brought peoples attention to this earlier... :(

I do take responsibility for not saying anything sooner, I am sorry but I had to try and resolve the long term issue and try and save our business :(

Yep...
 

Yeah they have a lot of class.... NATTTTTT ! But I will try and refrain from going down the same road... I have a very defined opinion of what they are about... but I will stick to the business facts...

sorry to hear about your problems:2 cents:

Thanks...
 

Thanks FUBAR... maybe you'll have your camera handy if we ever meet up with our ex partners at a show... lol, that should make for a interesting time :winkwink:

wow, so you are closed now and/or rebuilding your stuff/brand?
heh you should see my teeth and/or clothes.

Well...
 

Well they have control over the domains... but we have the content, and yes will be doing something with it... we already launched a new program on our own, consisting of sites featuring girls with natural big boobies ;)

We have something else planned with a more adult theme to them... and will include some entity consisting of the old content... at least that way we dont get totally mugged off...

What's the new program/site?

Not Live...
 

Not Live Yet... we start work on it in the new year... it will be a combination of the old stuff alone with some new sites we've shot... Will probably go live around Febuary time with about 6-8 sites on launch... and grow to around 10-12 within the first couple months :thumbsup

So true, anyone that thinks brits have the worst teeth has never stepped foot into the Appalachian mountains

Lol...
 

What really made me laugh (sadly) is the fact he was reduced to hitting me with insults... I was waiting for him to call me FAT ! Then he would of really hurt my feelings, it was almost like saying "Yeah I dont have any excuses business wise, so I will just call you names !" :upsidedow

Shamless
 

Shamless bump in an effort to make sure everyone as seen this tread... If you have PixelBucks links up I would pull them now... to my knowledge they dont even have billing... :Oh crap

I guess if I got it wrong the "ex partners" will come and correct me in this thread... :disgust :mad: :321GFY

I had a similar problem with a few idiots on this forum. A few popular guys on this forum started a program called AdultLabel.com a while back, in which I agreed to send them a bunch of content that I had shot for my company exclusively. The content I sent them cost me a lot of money.

There was some link to the person that owned PayCounter.com.

Their part of the deal was that they would promote the site through the "thousands and thousands of affiliates" they had access to, via the PayCounter.com database. As you could probably imagine, I never saw a single check.

They said the site never made sales. I asked to see the CCBill stats, and they said "we'll call CCBill and have them make you a login". I asked repeatedly, over the course of many months. Never was the request honored. I never saw any stats that either confirmed or denied the sales that supposedly never occured.

Years went by, and the program is now gone.

I'm still pretty fucking pissed off about that incident. There are some strong arguments against partnering with anyone.

All I know is that I have had a paysite for many years, and for quite a while it had sat idle and it made hundreds of sales. To the idiots that started AdultLabel.com, I believe they thought the sales were insignificant and not worthy of being shared.

Pretty shitty way to be treated.

I know its been a while ago and I agree that Krome should have given you access to ccbill and all but I do know the site (and program in general) never really generated any sales. I asked Krome (who had the main account info) to take care of you numerous times since he was the one responsible for that.

I was doing the design work for it, KC (paycounter) took care of hosting and Krome was the one setting it all together.

Haven't spoken to KC in ages (like 5 years now I think) and last time I spoke with Krome about AL he send me some sweet death threats.

So yeah I do see where you are coming from but I really can not help you out with it. The design work was my job and everything else was done by Krome.

Just to note, this was all pre FreeOnes.

Drop me an email if you have more questions roald @t freeones .com

Hey...
 

I dont doubt I wasnt the first... and even though I made the post in the hope to try and guard against other people falling into the same trap, I know there will be others... The real irony is it will probably be with the same people that fucked us over... the partners are already laughing at us, telling us they're coming up with the next big way to make big money... :mad:

When you fight hard to make sales, and you here what some of these mega companies turn over each month/quarter you just wonder if it's worth the effort... and when you get offered a golden egg it's hard to turn it down... I just guess when you scratch the surface of that egg you soon realise that it's not golden inside ! far from it !

We have not got along that well in the past but its still sucks to see shit like this happen

Thanks Dude...
 

Hey Mike... thanks :) Yeah sucks to be us lol... It's funny really, sure you remember when we was out at the Phoenix Forum... it took you introducing us to our partners for us to even get to see them, how fucked up was that lol... The fact they knew we had flown 6000 miles to meet up with them, they knew we was in Phoenix... yet they made no effort...

Even when you introduced us to them, they barely said a word and didn't even look me in the eye...

As I said I should of took that as a huge red flag... I guess in some ways I did, but just hoped things would work themselves out, nieve on my part lol !

And I know they wont comment, I remember them getting slated in a thread once before... and me stupidly saying what good people they were (well I did actually think that at one stage !) and them saying how they dont get involved in threads, not cause they think it's unproffessional, just that they think the thread dies and people forget what's said... and again they are properly right, people will still do business with them alas...

And hey Mike, we've butter heads a few times over various things... but I dont have any real beef with you... you've always seemed cool even if a bit geeky :winkwink:

so they Bought pixel bucks from you?

are you still a "partner", i don't really get it...

Ok...
 

They bought 50% of the company, the idea was we did what we was good at and shot the content, processed the content, and scheduled it into the sites... whilst they did what they were supposidly good at and market the sites, uterlizing their existing contacts and affiliates to bring in the money...

Alas we upheld our side... they didn't uphold their's :(

Who's the partners, spill out all the names or the "big company".

Lol...
 

Stop speed reading, they are mentioned several times above :winkwink:

It's the mighty Traffic Gigolos... and the King Pimp himself Justin Embry.

I have to say I am surprised he hasnt hit up some of his minion to come in here and sing their praises...

Bullet Points...
 

Someone asked me for Bullet Points... or Cliff Notes :winkwink:

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 :thumbsup

this sucks.

they looked great sites.

www.pixelbucks.com

site seems to still be up.

I know you said you were looking at legal avenues earlier.

I'd be asking them what you could do with respect to the point about the content still being used when you say you retained all rights to the content and the point that you hold the 2257 stuff on it.

Yep...
 

Yeah I know, they say they aint pushing or promoting the sites so god knows why they would still leave them up... especially when they dont have the Model ID's and 2257...

They really bugges us for a while to get these, I felt it was a case if they did we would definetly be fucked over, so told them they didnt need them and we would act as the record keepers !

They pulled down the CCBill tours with no real explaination, except that affiliates should migrate to Nats... to my knowledge they lost a lot of banking accounts... so I aint even sure if there is billing in place. I checked the CCBill stats and there certainly doesnt seem any sales going through them... so they basically appear to have just run it into the ground...

Maybe they are just giving the sites away somehow... or bonus sites to their other programs... I dont really know, but will get to the bottom of it...

Yep...
 

I guess this is something we're going to have to take some advice on... we've never had to deal with anything like this before, and hope never to have to again...

I dont intend to let a company who totally fucked us over benefit from our content, especially when they are holding the domain names (of which rightfully we own 50% of to)

We intend to re create the sites on a new program we're going to launch in the new year, so hopefully we can at least make something from the hard work and money we put in over 2 years ago... :thumbsup