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

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Read the rest of the resource here.
http://admin-talk.com/resources/7/​

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

 

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

 

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!

 

Great interview, and thanks for answering the questions that were asked!

 

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!

 

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

 

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

 

I don't quite know, yet.

 

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

 

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.

 

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/

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Whatever the length, thanks!

 

This was a great read, thanks for sharing Rick.

 

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

 

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.