Rick P. Network owner who sold to Verticalscope & Internet Brands @ForuMediaInc

Rick P is well known for his ForumMedia network, find out why here!

  1. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    Read the rest of the resource here.
    http://admin-talk.com/resources/7/
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 6, 2016
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  2. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    This is quite an awesome article. I feel like I need to do something with my forum licenses now.
     
  3. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    A BIG thank you to @WEfail for allowing Admin-Talk to interview him. :)
     
  4. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    Thanks Brandon, it was fun. Excuse any typos, there was a lot written late in the evening over the course of a couple nights.

    Thanks again and glad to be here!
     
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  5. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    Great interview, and thanks for answering the questions that were asked!;)
     
  6. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    License(s)!? What are you doing, man! Get er to work!

    As for the interview: Lots of valuable information in here! Thanks for giving us a lot of information! Thanks for taking 5 minutes or even an hour of your time to tell us all of this! :thumbsup:

    :weluvxf:
     
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  7. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    I think I have a total of 3 unused licenses. 2 vBulletin, 1 Xenforo.
     
  8. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    uh huh, and whatcha doing to turn those into profit?
     
  9. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    I don't quite know, yet.
     
  10. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    Then why'd you buy those licenses with no plan of action?
     
  11. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    At the time they were being used. vBulletin turned to XenForo. Second vBulletin was bought before the switch to vBulletin in thought of setting up a network. Network didn't work. Second XenForo to bring back the network with dirty pictures. Fell through.
     
  12. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    Oh, sorry for being tough on ya. :(

    If at first it doesn't work, try again. Different site, different niche. I had this same kind of thread recently.... http://forums.mp1st.com/threads/wanna-know-more-about-mp1st.2470/
     
  13. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    Nah, you need to be tough. I understand. I am trying to get my main forum off the ground...again.
     
  14. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    Thing is, like I said at MP1st: My network had many failures before getting to where it is now.

    Let me show you what happened:

    I wanted to capture the Modern Warfare 2 marketplace - so the first site I bought was mwarfaretwo - my idea was to make this the MW2 hub of two other MW2 sites called MW2Forums, and MW2Boards. Ientry did something similar. In fact, I was inspired by iEntry in the first place - COD4Boards was a very popular COD4 forum. It's still going strong after all these years, and even moved to vB4.

    Both forums were on a splashpage until I was able to get ahold of capital... MW2Forums was on xenForo, and MW2Boards was on vB4 and was heavily marketed through an opportunity. I marketed the site on a popular Black Ops forum, and it fell on it's face. A few months later, a COD4Boards member recognized me through MW2F/B. I had a plan B waiting in wings: CODForums was acquired a month later. :) I ran the site as an administrator for 2 years before buying the site, so it was an easier acquisition than most. Took me a year's worth of back and forth negotiation, it took me 12 hours to get everything all sorted out, I even stayed up until the very next morning. By the end of the day, I felt great. I concluded one of the biggest acquisitions I've ever done.

    I tried to acquire a Medal of Honor site because I wanted to take over the FPS arena in some way, shape or form. That too, fell on it's face: The guy sold the site to another person, when in fact - I deposited $100 into his name. His remedy was advertising on that same Black Ops forum, with MW2Boards. I have Electronic Arts in my backyard, so it would've been easy for me to get sponsorships, contests, and whatnot.

    I acquired a few Battlefield 3 forum domains but few problems: Which domain was going to be the parent domain? Which one am I supposed to market heavily? Turns out the Twitter and Facebook vanity names were taken. I let the domains sit, and die off. [****][****][****][****] it.

    So, as you can see....Plenty of failures before success.

    Successful sites are so far: MVC3Forum (bought from the same guy that screwed me over on the MOH domain), MW3Blog (also same guy as MVC3Forum/MOHF), CODForums, CODNet, and more recently MetalGearFans. I'm on track to success regardless of how slow things are. :)
     
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  15. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    I agree. You just need to know when to quit and start new.
     
  16. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    HAH. I wish that took even 1 hour. I proofed it a few times (still see errors) and had someone else check it to make sure I was playing nice. Paragraphs added, some removed. I have way more than an hour.
     
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  17. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    Whatever the length, thanks! :) :thumbsup:
     
  18. GasMan320

    GasMan320 Regular Member

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    This was a great read, thanks for sharing Rick. :)
     
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  19. petertdavis

    petertdavis Old Timer

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    Verticalscope is on a big buying binge right now it seems. I've heard of several other big buys that they've just done.
     
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  20. WEfail

    WEfail Regular Member

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    Speculating here...

    I am sure they (verticalscope) have a ton of capital still from the sale of Modified Magazine to PriMedia (who in turned flipped them...). Though I am not sure Jesse is still involved with the company Rob is still there.

    They may also be using government grants to acquire new sites to employe Canadians.
     

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