™™
In Partnership With......
Dotcomopoly and the So-Called Economic
Blackmail of Domain.Craps Winners like eBid.NET
who Try to "Color up" Their Chips to eBid.COM eRealEstate
Hello eBid.com visitor! Many will read this and be confused how they got here. Others will get pissed off. That's okay. I'm only writing this for ONE guy.
Mano a mano, me and you, Mr. Mark Wilkinson, Founder of eBid.net.
(great bio and story of struggle, trials and tribulations and triumph at: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abu/y208/m04/abu0212/s03)
Excellent Quote from Greg Holden’s article: Mark Wilkinson was repeating a variation on the Field of Dreams mantra to himself back in 1998 when he started UK-based eBid (http://www.ebid.net). He and his partner, Gary Sewell, built their site backwards: instead of the typical approach of raising and spending huge amounts of capital to gain members and establish repeat business, they had faith that first building a high-performance auction site would attract and retain customers.
Mark, if you let me I'll help you see how getting what you want and need really ain't hard.
I can help....But you must give up this victim's mentality bullshit. We as human beings are in our circumstances mostly because of the choices we make, and while you created a GREAT success of a company…and ought to be admired for it…you made a bad choice with bad information because you misunderstood the facts and you were worried that you’d somehow be working FOR Rick Schwartz instead of for yourself if you did a deal to get Rick’s eRealEstate property eBid.com.
I can’t blame ya for thinking that might happen. I felt that way myself once before deciding to partner with Rick Schwartz and lease some of his domain names to build a company.
BUT...I can help you....
First I need you to understand something, okay? Folks in your situation having made a success on www.domain.whatever and feeling blackmailed because someone else owns www.domain.com — and there are MANY— must give up this "I'll sue you" aggressive macho bullshit. People like you already tried. The courts ruled in the other guy's favor, you know the one who had your “big idea” FIRST and was simply content to wait instead of implementing it.
[[If someone else is reading this and you haven't yet tried the www.whocanisue.com lottery let me give you a hint. You WON’T win a generic .com domain case to take it from the owner who registered a Generic.com domain long before you registered Generic.net or got a trademark or whatever. It's called reverse domain name hijacking...and it's been labeled THEFT]]
If you made a CHOICE to build your business on:
Domain.net
Generic.tv
ABCD.biz
Word.co
TheProduct.com
Or “www.domain.whatever”.
And you're wanting years later to upgrade to use instead:
Domain.com
Generic.com
ABCD.com
Word.com
Product.com (truncated "the")
Etc
....then please listen closely, right alongside Mark Wilkinson and the marketing and financial staff from eBid.net reading this.
It IS possible to “trade up”.
And the deal can happen as quickly as *this month* and no one will be the wiser.
Your future customers will likely NEVER know the difference that you own the .net and lease the .com or bought it later for cash and stock.
Your current customers will be happy to hear that you've managed to grow your company enough to use the standard ".com" where 100,000 of them are already trying to find you.
You built your company's online presence on Domain.Craps, bet big on your IDEA, saved investors’ money, pinched pennies on expenses to build a great PRODUCT that people will tell other people about… and now your bet paid off?
Congrats it's successful!!
So why do you have this irritating feeling every week like you can't just be happy with your success?
It goes something like this...
- The more money you make with Domain.net, the more money you make your silent .com partner who gives you no value in return
- The more customers you get, the more your new customers increasingly cannot understand why you do not own Domain.com
- The more time marches on, the more new customers each and every time have to have their questions answered by your sales and support staff...why don't you own Domain.com?
- Emails go unread and lost
- Sensitive information of your customers ends up in a @domain.com email box never monitored except maybe once a month...just to see if yeah, your customers are increasingly STILL sending someone else their credit cards, orders, customer service inquiries and personal information through simple confusion.
Gosh that sucks!
But may I provide a little counsel as an honest broker?
None of those things are MY fault in 2013.
Though you may revile him and feel like you've been "blackmailed"...
Fact is, none of those are Rick Schwartz's fault in 2013 either, and neither is it the fault of any other member of the 500 who bought the dot com counterpart domain name to your Domain.net, Domain.tv, Domain.co, Domain.co.uk or "domain.whatever" as people in the know call any domain extension that ain't the standard ".com"...and then went and built a business on it despite all evidence to the contrary – from the .com domain owners themselves you try to say are blackmailers no less!— that doing so was a big mistake.
Better to have come to the owner of the .com domain name you wanted as a STARTUP, because then you could have negotiated a great deal to get the eRealEstate you wanted with vision and ideas.
You simply can't blame anyone but yourself for ONE bad decision in an otherwise amazing track record of choices that has helped your company become a global leader with a bunch of non-global addresses when the only address most of them will increasingly respect and respond to as “quality” is in danger of ending up in the hands of someone else if you don’t take action immediately. :(
As Rick Schwartz would say on RicksBlog.com: "On the record for the record".
But I'm afraid that for folks like you (and I’m not saying this about you, Mark, but please understand that this is what guys like Rick Schwartz and other pioneers of eRealEstate deal with on a daily basis): after slandering them, suing them and losing, blaming them for telling you the truth 2-15 years ago that you were making a mistake you went ahead and did it your way anyway...
I'm afraid that after all that, if your company has succeeded with that .craps bet and you want the .com asset you'll need to bring your checkbook and/or stock to the table for me to work out a win-win.
That’s just one of the many kinds of deals we do with JointVentures.com, and when we do our job well, most people (including your customers on the future) never need to know how badly your marketing department AND your finance department messed up, and you can rest easy knowing that a competitive online auction business to your eBid.net isn't going to launch on eBid.com and start siphoning off your customers one by one.
My role is to help hammer out a WIN-WIN both for the owner of ABCD.com the great location for an online business to win and you the owner of ABCD.net the great business in a poor location to win as well.
If you think I've been harsh I haven't and don't see it that way. Hell, I am the guy (party D) who has convinced the guy (Party A) someone reading this (Party B) SUED to just make amends and let Party B pay Party A fairly what Party B should have paid Party B 15 years ago (and would have if you could have afforded his sales price then)… or educated yourself on the FACTS then that are still the FACTS now…and chosen to name your company differently.
In 2013 when the guy who owns the eRealEstate property you want to buy and cannot for “cash only” has been forthright and transparent and "on the record" about how your growth was going to continue making him money just from human nature...without ever hiding anything...and when you made the choices you did anyway to build your castle on a bed of sand...
You can't ask for a better deal than to start at $50,000 for first year on a domain lease plus a fair % of equity, Mark.
Rick Schwartz can help give your business the firm “.com” eRealEstate foundation it needs and deserves in an increasingly hectic, keyed-up world where even your SATISFIED eBid.net customers won’t remain customers for long if the right competing business opens up in the competing eBid.com shop that was started BEFORE yours and just never set out any goods to sell yet.
I can relieve that nagging stress and customer confusion.
But you have to help me help you, and you have to put the sword down and forget thinking someone wants to “own your business” or that you are somehow a victim.
It's time for you to just break bread with the guy who owns what you want and let me help you convince him to do a deal that works for all parties FAIRLY.
Because if you don't, I'm afraid in the next 3 years one of your competitors will make him an offer he can't refuse...leasing just the domain name...with a plan from your competing online auction firm to simply siphon off your customers.
That is NOT what Danny Welsh wants.
And it's NOT what Rick Schwartz wants (and never has).
I want JointVentures.com wins and you win, Ebid.
I want Rick Schwartz wins and you win too Mark Wilkinson.
I want your customers to win when they talk to each other and “refer a friend” to also buy from you and they end up elsewhere from simple confusion.
I want your customer service staff to win when they can stop wasting time explaining since 1999 increasingly why your global company doesn’t have a global address online.
I want your marketing staff to see how far they can grow your company without a hole in the bottom of your company’s pockets (that so far no one has bothered to prove to you exactly how big it is…but if Rick doesn’t do it, I WILL…simply to save others from making the same mistake and then compounding it for YEARS.
I want your finance staff to come to you with a print-out of this post and a plan to reach an accommodation with Mr. Schwartz before he simply leaves the negotiating table he’s been sitting at waiting for you to come back for years.
But if within the next 12 months as I market eBid.com with Rick’s blessing and an offer comes in for a long-term 30 year domain lease of 5 year lease with option to buy for cash+equity...
1) The attorneys say Rick Schwartz is perfectly in the clear to make that deal with the new kid on the block starting one of 100s of maybe even more innovative start-up online auction website and business that will eat your lunch and grab 100,000 of your customers per year through simple customer confusion your customer support staff deals with every single day.
2) The attorneys also say Rick Schwartz is perfectly in the clear to lease that domain name and traffic, plus potential for SO MUCH MORE…to a bigger auction company than yours.
Perhaps even one I can get on the phone with the CEO just by plucking a card off my Rolodex and making a few calls.
Don't force that when we can just play nice and you admit Rick made a great investment...
In YOUR COMPANY, eBid.
Yep, that’s what I said!
Rick already made his investment in the company named “eBid” when he had your “big idea” before you did. And when you came along to buy the digital and physical online manifestation of that idea (aka eRealEstate property and “domain name”, what pitiful cash amount did you offer?)
Sign and write a check for $50,000 year 1 and it's yours on a lease starting for $4000/mo on a 5 year lease to own governed by trusted 3rd party intermediary Escrow.com.
Call me if you want the rest of the simple terms, and we’ll let your finance team work it out once we fill in the big picture with you and me and Rick on the phone.
That’s the best I can get my client Rick Schwartz to agree to, and it’s a fair deal.
We can work out the rest as we go and you can have the security of knowing your company’s future online won’t be interrupted by a messy problem we can clean up right now.
Or you can get together with your sales and marketing team to make a fair offer to buy eBid.com, one that takes into account Rick’s loss of an ever-increasing income stream without work thanks to nothing more than his having your idea FIRST and human nature…and a lot of patience.
I know you’re angry reading this…because I've been there.
I'm not a swami, I'm saying I know from your side of the table it's tough.
In 1999 you saw SOME of the value a domain owner Rick Schwartz saw for GENERIC.com but not all. Now you see a lot better, right? :)
Guess what? It’s 2013 and some folks that are about to make YOUR SAME MISTAKE see NONE of the value of a 6-8 figure domain name and are happy to spend $6-8 for GENERIC.co despite all evidence that they'll lose customers, sensitive emails, buyer data, word of mouth effectiveness, etc every day-- with a .com domain name owner like Rick Schwartz the fortunate recipient of the leaked visitors he turns into income via a simple “domain parking” webpage and typically keeps his mouth shut about the rest because if he didn't people will label him a blackmailer.
I wish he wouldn't keep his mouth shut frankly about how BIG this problem is, Mark.
If every business built on a www.domain.net or .www.domain.co knew how many emails they lose from customers and prospects each week...and the kind of sensitive info in them...maybe it would show others not to make the same mistake in a momentary lapse of otherwise good decision-making to build a great business that makes money but ignore a huge HOLE a competitor could come in and exploit.
Rick doesn't even exploit the humongous gaping holes in your business in ways that he could….ways that would have your entire company up in arms answering questions from hundreds of confused customers wondering “WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?”
He puts up a domain parking page and makes millions of nickels on eBid.com when your “eBid” company built on eBid.net and chose to go the wrong route despite FACTS plainly presented with no “hiding” what would happen.
I think maybe he's too nice.
I would shop the traffic to a competitor and post the list of daily confusion emails with your customers’ credit card information on a webpage showing your customers how stupid the executive team that was supposed to be advising the company’s founders actually were.
But I'm honest, even if I’m brutal.
Sometimes, the “truth hurts”, pal.
I admire your drive, Mark.
You just picked a bad vehicle, and the further and faster you drive it you can’t get the past mistake out of the rearview window because it keeps getting closer and closer to a BIGGER future mistake we can still avoid...right here, right now.
Don’t let the vehicle you chose and put your blood, sweat and guts into designing and building from the ground up turn out to be a “lemon” when it’s so easy to fix it with one phone call and you control your own destiny with a simple lease-to-own deal and no worries it might turn into having a boss or bullshit theft attempt of your company.
I love that movie Field of Dreams, too, so I’m glad we share that inspiration.
You and your partner and staff “built it” and they came…and rightly so!...but it ain’t anyone’s responsibility but your own that many are showing up at the wrong ball-field.
If you want a competing team to show up for practice and thrill the fans coming out of the corn field…don’t respond.
Rick will I guess then decide the timing of when he starts giving away your customers to a competing firm smart enough to realize the advantage you weren’t.
Ball’s in your court, Mark.
Will you call ME and make the deal?
Or shall I call THEM on my Rolodex that would happily help me reach the CEO at a competing company happy to pay to eat your company’s lunch?
Let me know if you want to come to the table and deal via email to admin@jointventures.com and they’ll send you my cell # so we can talk, CE to CE.O
I think at first we’ll leave Rick out of it. I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to talk to you yet, after some of the things your company has done and sa including the “Fucking Jew” comments.
If you let me, I’ll fix the problem and create a win-win for everyone.
That’s what I do.
But please don’t dally.
Rick gave me a few months to try to bring the parties to the table.
So the clock’s ticking, and if the music stops and one day you look up and someone else is in your rightful chair…
Don’t say I didn’t try to save you.
Make the right choice TODAY.
Pick up the RED phone, and demand your marketing and finance people give you answers of how you all can can turn this obstacle into an advantage...
And I bet they wil come through for you if you simply trust the team you’ve built to help fix this mess before it’s simply TOO LATE.
Talk soon,
Danny Welsh
JointVentures.com
P.S. Confused and looking for auction site eBid the existing company?
Despite millions of website visitors who have come to eBid.com to bid, buy and sell online, there is no online auction business here…YET.
Unless you came here hoping to start a company or are aready in the online auction space, you may be trying to reach our business past and future partner, ebid.net.
So let us help you find what you’re looking for
(since through no fault of your own you got lost)!
Great Britain, English: http://uk.ebid.net/
Ireland, English: http://ie.ebid.net/
United States, English: http://us.ebid.net/
Canada, English: http://ca.ebid.net/
Australia, English: http://au.ebid.net/
New Zealand, http://nz.ebid.net/
India, http://in.ebid.net/
South Africa, http://za.ebid.net/
Deutschland/Germany, German/English: http://de.ebid.net/
Osterreich/Austria, German/English: http://at.ebid.net/
Danmark/Denmark, http://dk.ebid.net/
Belgique/Belgium, http://nl.ebid.net/
Nederland/Netherlands, http://ne.ebid.net
Sverige/Sweden, http://se.ebid.net/
Norge/Norway, http://no.ebid.net/
Espaňa/Spain, Spanish/English: http://es.ebid.net/
Portugal, Portuguese/Spanish/English: http://pt.ebid.net/
France, http://fr.ebid.net/
Italia/Italy, http://it.ebid.net/
Brasil/Brazil, Portuguese/Spanish/English: http://br.ebid.net
Singapore, http://sg.ebid.net
Malaysia, http://my.ebid.net/
Hong Kong, http://hk.ebid.net/
GLOBAL, English: www.eBid.com (bookmark it, it’s the only website you’ll ever need to remember or tell your friends worldwide about when your online auction choice gives you a great shopping experience, everything you were looking for and GREAT customer service)
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