bryant 16/01/20 11:53 am I have a copy of that one. Did they send one
today declining our out contract?
sam 16/01/20 11:53 am no they didnt
sam 16/01/20 11:53 am but i was being proactive
bryant 16/01/20 11:53 am Ahh, okay.
sam 16/01/20 11:53 am i was telling jonathan in the future, we kick
these guys out
sam 16/01/20 11:53 am and do the content ourselves
sam 16/01/20 11:54 am we have alot of resources through all the ppl
on our team
sam 16/01/20 11:54 am we can always find someone to do the content
sam 16/01/20 11:54 am even if it sux :)
sam 16/01/20 11:54 am i was saying that because they said in their
email they refused to put our stuff up, and
thus breach oruagreement, we have a right to
fire them as well
sam 16/01/20 11:54 am and hire other ppl toservice the website
bryant 16/01/20 11:55 am Ah, heh - okay. I thought they rejected our
'out' offer - I was completely flabbergasted.
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am infospace sent us another termsheet
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am today
bryant 16/01/20 11:56 am Better?
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am man.. not much room to negotiate
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am getting better everytime
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am but still not what we want
sam 16/01/20 11:56 am maybe time to cut bait and go for it huh
sam 16/01/20 11:58 am getting infosapce will give us some $, time to
regroup, and $ in the bank as well
bryant 16/01/20 11:58 am With the timing maybe. Don't think any one of
us would take a deal like that seriously
except from where we're sitting right now at
this moment. It does buy us time though, and
time is the one thing we really need. Our
capacity for success and stability isn't the
issue, having the time to put it in place is.
sam 16/01/20 11:58 am its not a ton of money.. but enough to help us
buy timewhich is the most important thing
sam 16/01/20 11:58 am yup exactly
bryant 16/01/20 11:58 am Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
sam 16/01/20 11:59 am btw, fyi, jerry wont be in all week.. his
grandfather passed away
sam 16/01/20 11:59 am he's flying to ohio 2morrow
bryant 16/01/20 11:59 am Yeah I heard. Spoke with him briefly this
afternoon too. Never good to hear stuff like
that.
sam 16/01/20 11:59 am yeah i know
sam 16/01/20 12:04 pm also, before we announce the infospace deal,
i'd like to restructure all our webmaster
agreements
sam 16/01/20 12:04 pm that way we can cry we're in the poorhouse..
etc.
sam 16/01/20 12:04 pm otherwise it'll be tougher afterwards
sam 16/01/20 12:04 pm and we do want to do that because the
infospace money isnt alot and we have to give
all of it back.. so we need to conserve every
penny
sam 16/01/20 12:05 pm so me and you can work on that i think..
we'll go through the contracts, and as part of
going back to the websites we'll call them and
say this is the offer wed' like to propose to
move forward because of the ad climate
sam 16/01/20 12:05 pm what do u think
bryant 16/01/20 12:07 pm I think it will be fine. Some of them have to
see it coming. We can even think about
allowing contingencies that return the
structure to its original form if X, Y, and Z
happen. But may not even have to go to great
lengths.
bryant 16/01/20 12:07 pm Do we have a list of the biggest money holes?
sam 16/01/20 12:07 pm mpog
sam 16/01/20 12:07 pm jus kidding ha ha
sam 16/01/20 12:07 pm ill get you a list of all the sites and stuff
tomorrow
bryant 16/01/20 12:07 pm Heh, true probably.
bryant 16/01/20 12:08 pm OK, sounds good.
sam 16/01/20 12:08 pm so we can work on this project.. and im going
to work w/ dennis to try to push the infospc
fwd:.. having a $3 bil company invest in us
will give us alot of crediblity huh?
bryant 16/01/20 12:09 pm Would almost have to. Although I still think
that despite the bad press we still stand up
pretty straight on our own merits.
sam 16/01/20 12:09 pm i know.. but we want to kill all of that once
and for all and show that we've adapted
considerably.. that we're bring services to
our user base, nto banners.. and evolving w/
the net
sam 16/01/20 12:17 pm actually you know who would be a good swat
team person to work with you on
restructurings?
sam 16/01/20 12:17 pm Tim
sam 16/01/20 12:17 pm Tim & I restrucuted a few contracts already 6
weeks ago
sam 16/01/20 12:17 pm He's really good
sam 17/01/20 12:50 pm hey i m almost done with a list of webmasters
we need to renegotiate with
sam 20/01/20 11:11 am hey.. g3 briefed me on ur telecon w/ him..
everything looks good it seems.. i have a
spreadsheet from bill schmidt on more
webmaster financials as well.. maybe we can go
over it whenever u have a chance this weekend
bryant 20/01/20 11:52 pm Cool, that would be great. Lot of good info
coming together, I hope to start prioritiziing
sites and indetifying what needs to be changed
asap.
sam 21/01/20 11:17 pm hey linda/lotus msged me about helping with
the chinese websites.. and she asked if she
should talk to u about it.. im going to tell
her yes as well.
bryant 22/01/20 11:51 pm np, she ICQd me.
sam 23/01/20 1:16 pm efront is a MSP (media services provider) that
provides services and solutions to media
business through eddie (efront delivery
engine) which consists of:
-Technology Division ( Managed Ad Serving &
Mgmt, Content Mgmt & ASP, Managed hosting)
- Syndication (Careers, Directories,
Education, Tech content, Downloads, etc.)
- Marketing Services ( Media Services & Media
Sales)
- Direct Marketing (Lead generation for online
and offline businesses)
- International (deploying the above
internationally)
[btw, some of the concepts we're currently
developing: we're not a media company, we
provide services and solutions to media &
other businesses .. so probably get rid of the
media from our name too :]
sam 23/01/20 1:18 pm efront is a MSP (media services provider) that
provides services and solutions to media
business through eddie (efront delivery
engine) which consists of:
-Technology Division ( Managed Ad Serving &
Mgmt, Content Mgmt & ASP, Managed hosting)
- Syndication (Careers, Directories,
Education, Tech content, Downloads, etc.)
- Marketing Services ( Media Services & Media
Sales)
- Direct Marketing (Lead generation for online
and offline businesses)
- International (deploying the above
internationally)
[btw, some of the concepts we're currently
developing: we're not a media company, we
provide services and solutions to media &
other businesses .. so probably get rid of the
media from our name too :]
sam 26/01/20 11:39 am hows the renegotiations going
sam 26/01/20 12:14 pm PA Contract:
Don't think we should accept the changes. The
problem is that they could be looking to get
us back or something. If Tim @ AAH or any of
our webmasters or whatever says something bad
about them, they could try to sue us; who
knows?
Tell them that the reality is that if we do
something illegal to them or defame them, they
can sue us anyways regardless of what the
contract says so no need to put it in there.
sam 26/01/20 1:32 pm hey just talking to alot of people right now
(outside efront.. ppl i talked to about
acquiring before.. like napigator etc.) the ad
market isHORRIBLE.. cpms are now 10 cents RON
.. best time to renegotiate:)
sam 26/01/20 11:13 pm ill send you the email for sitepowerup and
teenstatio...we terminated them.. and we just
need to clean it up
sam 27/01/20 1:54 pm Will-I must have an update on the
renegotiations. Feb. 1 is approaching fast.
What are we doing
bryant 27/01/20 1:57 pm Linda got me her Asian site feedback today.
Greg is putting criteria together. Jerry is
going to look at the cpmU concept. Once those
are in place we can rip through pretty
quickly. Babynames is being handled this
weekend, as is iswoosh presuming he gets back
to the messages I've been leaving.
bryant 27/01/20 1:57 pm ohtop is ready to go.
bryant 27/01/20 1:57 pm I've got a basic list of which sites have out
clauses that need to get removed.
bryant 27/01/20 1:57 pm What happens on 2/1?
sam 27/01/20 1:58 pm im going through a list / data collection
right now..very interesting.
btw, i just renegotiated one of the sites
(Avfind.com) we owed him 65k on his contract.
i gave him 2 options.
1. 20k and we call it even OR
2. he gets his site back, no questions asked
he chose option #1.. (we'd pay 5k next week,
and rest within a month)
thats another tactic to use
sam 27/01/20 1:59 pm february 1.. we need to get our payable for
february to at least 200k.. because we wont be
able to pay much more than that for the month
of february until we rebuild our revenues
using direct marketing (its working really
good..but they need to ramp up.. takes 2-3
months)
bryant 27/01/20 2:00 pm Is our goal to negotiate down what we owe in
back pay or is it to restructure from cpmPVs
to cpmUniques, reduce pay levels where
appripriate as well as remove unhealthy
clauses?
sam 27/01/20 2:00 pm ill email you an interesting file..
sam 27/01/20 2:05 pm ok sent an email..
btw, PA guy left msg on my voicemail.. i
deleted it.. whats up w/ him .. are they ready
to sign
bryant 27/01/20 2:05 pm Should be. Was it Mike? Contract is off to
them, they just need to sign and fax.
Expecting it back tomorrow.
sam 27/01/20 2:06 pm yep.. i figured you're taking care of it.
fyi, i also sent yout he new org chart we
introduced to all the employees yesterday
(well in the office).. w/ the new division..
you're part of corporate development, formerly
acquisition.. i asked bill to interface with
you for any contractual and acq. related
matters as well.. so we can try to focus on
revenue stuff :)
bryant 27/01/20 2:08 pm Sounds good. I think once the cpmU stuff is
in place we have a real opportunity to cut $
down. Plus with the distinct possibility that
some expensive sites might bail - that helps
as well. Re: 2/1 - even ones we do after that
we'll grandfather back to a 2/1 effective
date. I'll check on the legality of that, but
it shouldn't present an issue.
sam 27/01/20 2:10 pm okay no problem. btw, i think best thing is
to do is renegotiate the length as well.
going forward, i'd like to get lump sum cash
contracts.. much cleaner and we have full
control. most of the sites we own outright,
we have people run it for 200--500/month (i
dont know how you spend 4k :) i get 10 sites
we own outright run for 200$/month and they
run good:)
bryant 27/01/20 2:10 pm Heh, Babynames walks and that's an extra $16k
free a month, and we only lose 6MM PVs and
just over 500k uniques. Can replace that
easily with smaller cheaper sites in the same
market.
bryant 27/01/20 2:11 pm 36 -> 18? 24? 12?
sam 27/01/20 2:12 pm yes i agree.. with cash only deals..they work
really good from deployment standpoint as
well. the way i structured these in the past
were like this:
* 25k cash
* 30 day due diligence, then 5k
* 30 day where they redesign it to our
standards, move it over and 10k
* 30 days warranty support 10k
and we're done!
sam 27/01/20 2:12 pm pretty smart huh:) we only say.. 25k upfront
cash
sam 27/01/20 2:12 pm in the contract we outline how this is broken
down
bryant 27/01/20 2:12 pm Any recurring money after that?
sam 27/01/20 2:12 pm and if they come back, we just say this is to
protect ourselves and make sure its moved over
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm no ..ZERO
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm i have like 5 sits like this..theyre great
bryant 27/01/20 2:13 pm Wow, how do they support their staff? Or
don't they have any?
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm just consultants.. pay them 200 to 500 a
month.. i have alot of kids work for us
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm i have access to 50 kids
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm h.s. kids everywhere
bryant 27/01/20 2:13 pm Ahh, okay.
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm i can get as many
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm better than working in mcdonadlsl
sam 27/01/20 2:13 pm and they'll do anything we say.. in terms of
design, etc
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm and most of the sites are easy to maintain
once they have the traffic
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm no stocks, nothing
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm of course, you probably cant do it with sites
like themeworld etc.,
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm but those are few and far between
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm most sites that have 5k to 25k visitors a day
you can do that
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm which is majority of our sites
sam 27/01/20 2:14 pm pretty neat huh? that makes life easier for
everyone..and gives us a huge cashcow
long-term..
bryant 27/01/20 2:15 pm Actually, themeworld I think is a one man
show. Static content sites that would really
work for (cheats, pics, etc.). It's dynamic
content sites that it would be harder to work.
sam 27/01/20 2:15 pm actually funny thing is that
sam 27/01/20 2:15 pm the sites i did those deals for ARE dynamic
sites
bryant 27/01/20 2:15 pm No kidding.
sam 27/01/20 2:15 pm bytecenter.com totally CGI
sam 27/01/20 2:15 pm avfind.com.. i did the site renegotiation
today.. and got a perl programmer kid
(200/month) whos going to take it over
sam 27/01/20 2:16 pm gldev.com is same way.. mysql
skinz.org.. is owned by us 100% .. different
people running it.. we pay each guy 500/month
sam 27/01/20 2:16 pm you get the idea
sam 27/01/20 2:16 pm i can find resources to run sites.. thats
never a problem
sam 27/01/20 2:18 pm the spreadsheet is interesting
bryant 27/01/20 2:22 pm Good lord - we pay indianmasala 10k a month?
bryant 27/01/20 2:22 pm Always hard to remember what the market
allowed this time last year. =)
sam 27/01/20 2:22 pm i think so.. brian did the deal..
sam 27/01/20 2:22 pm only 2-3 months ago
sam 27/01/20 2:23 pm we need to reduce that
sam 27/01/20 2:23 pm this was kinda building up.. remember i sent
that email out 3 months ago concerning how cpm
rates are falling etc. and dont pay more than
1 cpm on most sites :)
sam 27/01/20 2:24 pm out in the trenches, you kind of start to get
an idea.. its okay though..
most of the sites.. we either renegotiate, or
give back the sites
sam 27/01/20 2:24 pm i thnk the best way to increase our margins is
to reduce the length of the term
bryant 27/01/20 2:24 pm Certainly.
sam 27/01/20 2:24 pm upfront cash (3 month).. or one year
(themeworld type of sites)
bryant 27/01/20 2:25 pm So you've been taking a % of the total cash
value from the original contract? How are you
determining how much cash they're given?
sam 27/01/20 2:25 pm as low as i can get them :)
sam 27/01/20 2:26 pm depends on their needs.. economic hardship,
etc. :)
sam 27/01/20 2:26 pm i basically say original contract doesnt mean
squat
bryant 27/01/20 2:26 pm Using Megagames as an example, we pay them 30k
over 36 months - that's $1.08M before you
consider equity 'value' etc.
sam 27/01/20 2:26 pm make Xyz with us.. or make 10 cent cpm out
there in the market
bryant 27/01/20 2:26 pm I see. So it's less about the old deal than
it is a new.
bryant 27/01/20 2:26 pm I gotchya.
sam 27/01/20 2:27 pm and better to do just cash payment
sam 27/01/20 2:27 pm than going from 3 year to 1 year
sam 27/01/20 2:27 pm because if u do that, they'll know you're
trying to reduce the payments
bryant 27/01/20 2:27 pm Right.
bryant 27/01/20 2:27 pm Can we afford to pay out such large lumps to
people all at once?
sam 27/01/20 2:28 pm and the excuse to use is that.. we're having
hard time deploying campaigns etc. we have 3
options really..
1. you take the site back (ill hve to talk it
internally)
2. we renegotiate the contract based on
uniques, etc.
3. we make a reasonable cash payment and call
it even
sam 27/01/20 2:28 pm well, structure it so that the cash isnt all
at once
sam 27/01/20 2:29 pm (some now, some for warranty support,
etc...and drag it out over 3 months)
sam 27/01/20 2:29 pm and not make it so large.. like avfind.com ..
made it from 75k to 20k
bryant 27/01/20 2:29 pm Was 75k the total he would have made over the
term of his agreement?
sam 27/01/20 2:30 pm his term was expriing feb 28, 2001
we hadnt paid him since oct. 2000.. he was
getting basically 15k/month..
sam 27/01/20 2:30 pm (3 cpm.. yikes)
sam 27/01/20 2:30 pm he agreed to the new stuf.. i just have to
send it to him and make sure he doesnt change
his mind.. nice site too.. and decent traffic
AND we can put a srunner link next to each
song :)
sam 27/01/20 2:31 pm did u see the spreadsheet i gave u
bryant 27/01/20 2:31 pm I see. I'm just trying to apply the model to
sites that have very large amounts that will
build up over the next few years. Megagames
for example is over #$1MM. Even if we brought
that down to $150k that would be $20k more a
month than we pay him now ($30k).
bryant 27/01/20 2:31 pm Yeah, I'm looking it over now.
sam 27/01/20 2:31 pm yeah..megagames would be hard to do.. i'd
leave him till last i think
sam 27/01/20 2:32 pm until he relly gets in a jam $ wise
sam 27/01/20 2:32 pm he was already
sam 27/01/20 2:32 pm at some point in the future, we might be able
to take the site for 2 payments of 50k a
piece.. that sounds bad i know :)
sam 27/01/20 2:32 pm or at least reduce it
sam 27/01/20 2:32 pm personally, i'd skip that site for now
bryant 27/01/20 2:33 pm OK I see, so there is a sweet spot for this
process. Sites closer to term on their
agreements in a cash bind so anxious and
willing to get a sum of cash in the short term
instead of more in the long.
bryant 27/01/20 2:33 pm And obviously we position "more in the long"
to be more like "questions about any in the
long".
sam 27/01/20 2:33 pm yeah.. somethingawful.. the site isnt a site
without him.. so we need to keep him
sam 27/01/20 2:33 pm we should get him for 4k/month flat or
something
sam 27/01/20 2:34 pm have u talked to him about renegotiation
sam 27/01/20 2:34 pm yeah questions about any in the long :)
bryant 27/01/20 2:34 pm I've planted the seeds but haven't really gone
in depth yet.
sam 27/01/20 2:34 pm and we never talk about suing them or screwing
them.. worst case, they get their site back..
we threaten them with giving their sites back
sam 27/01/20 2:34 pm thats not so bad is it:)
sam 27/01/20 2:34 pm of course, if they want us to keep it thats
fine too
sam 27/01/20 2:35 pm they have to get in line like the rest of our
webmasters to collect
bryant 27/01/20 2:35 pm Not at all. It never is when the choice is in
their hands.
bryant 27/01/20 2:35 pm We're telling them what we need to do in order
to get them money, and saying we understand if
that doesn't work for them and being kind
enough to ignore the ownership agreement.
sam 27/01/20 2:35 pm just looking at some of the contracts, etc. in
terms of lump sum payments, we'd put them #1
on the priority list to get paid
bryant 27/01/20 2:35 pm At least that's the approach.