vBSEO.com Transition - An Open Letter to Juan Muriente, vBSEO CEO

I have taken the time to translate the email screenshot in the first post to give everyone the spanish and english side of it.

Translation is now in the first post thanks to @ILIA-VBSEO
http://admin-talk.com/threads/vbseo-com-transition-an-open-letter-to-juan-muriente-vbseo-ceo.43693

All words are spelled as they were in the email.

 

Hi Steve, thanks for translating. I updated the post with a revised translation:
http://admin-talk.com/threads/vbseo-com-transition-an-open-letter-to-juan-muriente-vbseo-ceo.43693/

 

No problem, was hoping you would add to the main post for everyone.

 

Isn't he your brother? Why not just call him? If you don't know his phone number, surely you can call your mom and she can relay a message to him somehow?

If I was trying to say something to my sister, posting a letter on a random forum that she's not part of probably isn't the best way to get ahold of her.

This is a perfect example of why no one should ever partner with anyone for anything. lol

 

Shawn, this has been a long time in the making. Both of us already called our mami and refused to share our legos anymore. In seriousness, we've had family advice and it didn't result in anything. If it isn't abundantly clear, Juan does what Juan wants to do.

Partnerships are very challenging, and people are too quick to enter them during the enthusiasm and euphoria of starting a new business together. When we are that happy, we rarely start thinking ahead to all the potential scenarios and conflict that might arise in the future.

I am very confident that both Juan and I agree that we would never enter a partnership with each other again.

However, we already did, and it's time to resolve what's left of those efforts.

 

Which is fine... just not anywhere remotely close to the right way to do it (emailing all customers, make a YouTube video and writing messages to your brother on a public forum he's not even part of). All kind of silly to me. And honestly, calling your mom about it probably would have been a much better route.

 

Shawn, as I said, the calling our mom part was done a long time ago, although I'm not sure how that escapes the "silly" label either.

If you knew the history behind the scenes, you might be less scrutinizing.

The concept of an "open letter" or video appeal and public communication is very common, even if not common in the forum world.

Although not specifically relevant to you, as a non-vBSEO user, there are customers that are now aware of the true status of the company, and they were not before.

I don't know if you think it's ok for a business's CEO and lead developer to jump ship to Topify and not tell anyone for a year, but it's not the way I do business.

 

Well, I can't think of any company that I am a customer of that I'd feel any of that stuff would be appropriate.

Say for example someone was a VP at AT&T 4 years ago, but was pushed out and has had nothing to do with their day to day operations in the last 4 years. They send out a mass mailing to AT&T customers letting them know that the current CEO doesn't care about them or expanding out their LTE network as they promised before and they call for the CEO to step down and hand over control of AT&T to that VP that was pushed out so many years ago.

Or maybe a VP of Apple that was pushed out 4 years ago is calling for Tim Cook to step down and be put in power because iPod development has been stagnant the last few years.

There is no difference what-so-ever... it's a silly thing to do, silly thing to ask for and at the end of the day it just kind of makes you look like someone trying whatever they can to get control of a company (regardless if that may or not be the case).

Maybe Dick Cheney should make a YouTube video letting citizens know he cares more about them than Obama does, and he should be put in power since he was pushed out 4 years ago.

 

Oh, also... do you want to buy the rights to all the optimization/SEO stuff I built for our site when it was on vBulletin 4? You could take it, clean it up and start a vBSEO competitor.

 

Maybe I missed it, but why didn't you file a legal action sometime during the last few years? Seems to me if you were actually a partner, this wouldn't be too hard. As a partner wouldn't you have been receiving profit sharing the last few years?

 

Hey Shawn, would you recommend that the VP of AT&T call a conference with his/her and the CEO's moms?

You treated it like a micro business that should be resolved on a very personal family basis, and now you're trying to compare it to a Fortune 100.

Pushing out a co-owner would never happen at the top tier of corporate America. There is always enough money that they go straight to high end lawyers to resolve it.

If you wanted to draw a comparison to a huge company, you might have selected Facebook and the messiness that they started out with regarding ownership.

If it makes you feel better, I think it's silly too. It's silly that it had to get to this point at all.

 

I don't know what you have, Shawn, not that I'm in any position to start making acquisitions right now.

I'm also not interested in trying to compete with my own company.

 

Well like I said, I can't think of a single company/entity that I'm a customer of that I'd want to be pulled into their personal ownership dispute by them emailing me about it. lol

 

I have all the stuff I made that made it so we never needed vBSEO.

 

You didn't miss it. Not pursuing legal action was a combination of factors that included hesitation due to family, and lack of funds to pursue it.

We sat at the table with our lawyer and came near to some terms. Later I attempted mediation and he wouldn't participate.

There was "profit sharing" for awhile after my departure that came with big promises, and was later discontinued.

 

We'll never know if you were right about that or not.

 

You weren't a vBSEO customer, so it would depend on a context that isn't relevant to you right now.

I'm sure that you'd appreciate a "going out of business sale" if you were a customer, unless it was coming from the mall or your local furniture store.

 

That's why I said I couldn't think of any company that I've ever been a customer of where I would want to be sucked into their business disputes. While I'm not a vBSEO customer, I can say with absolute certainty that I would not have wanted details about personal disputes between the owners sent to me.

 

Ok Shawn, there are actual customers that didn't appreciate it too.

It's just information. You shouldn't feel forced to participate.

 

Well I'm glad she did say something, because if not we could have lost are money...