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For Sale

Mike

Well-Known Member
***EDIT***

This thread has been running in a closed, private forum for several days and many of the forum members involved feel it is best to open this discussion up to all members.



This one may come as a shock to some of you, whilst others are already aware.

I am placing the T-Bucket Forums up for sale. There are a lot of reasons for this decision, not the least of which is the fact that I am simply tired. I've been bashing code for as long as I care to do. There have been some very special changes in my life and I am wanting to spend more time enjoying those blessings.

I don't want anyone to dash to the donations page, because I don't want to extend any of my obligations to anyone. But I've been caught up in a financial crunch. The site grew to a point where I could no longer operate it on an inexpensive hosting plan and we moved to an excellent VPS host about a year ago. We were getting regular donations and we had 4 forum sponsors that were allowing us to keep growing and adding new features. Since the first of the year, we have lost two of our sponsors, donations have dropped to nearly zero and I'm still sitting atop a closet full of t-shirts. I had a contract to display the eBay Shopping Ads set up on one of my Scottish forums. Traffic on that forum has really fallen off and as a result, I lost the advertising contract. Which means I cannot display those ads on this site either. It was poor planning on my part, but there's no sense crying over spilled milk.

The forums are very healthy in terms of growth and offer a good opportunity for someone to step in with their own advertising contracts and start moving forward again.

I have included a couple of graphs to show what growth has been like, since January 2007. The graph on the left shows the number of unique visits per month, which has grown from 252 to 9,472 in that time period.

In the same period of time, the total hit count has climbed from 9,953 to 2,340,502.

The sale of the forum will include:

Transfer of the owned vBulletin forum software license
Transfer of the GARS license
Transfer of the vBSEO license
Transfer of the domain name - tbucketeers.com
Transfer of the entire database
Transfer of all forum and script files

The vBPicGallery license is one that requires renewal each year. The current license has expired, but all of those files and images will be transferred to the new owner as well. In order to upgrade to the latest version of the gallery software, the annual fee would need to be paid.

As of this morning, Google Analytics indicates a total of 9,894 organic visits from a total of 4,792 search engine keywords. Search engine traffic is a very healthy 46.03% of the site's total traffic.

Google currently has assigned the site a Page Rank of 3, for those that are concerned with that metric. It has been my experience that some of our better traffic months have occured when we were at PR0, so I tend to ignore the number entirely.

The site has been appraised at $6,540 U.S. Dollars. I will take the best offer over $2,500. As you can see, the site is a solid investment.

I am making this available to members of this site first, before considering offers from outside parties. I would like to see the site end up with someone that appreciates what this community represents, rather than selling it to someone that is interested in nothing more than profit potential.

Please understand that if an buyer cannot be found, I will be forced to simply close the site down. That would pain me, as I've invested a considerable amount of time and money here. But I am at a point where I can no longer afford to keep the site operational, beyond 30 June 2009.

Further details will be made available upon request, via Private Message.
 
Please let me repeat that I do not want anyone to submit any future donations. By hook or by crook, I intend to be out of here by the end of June and I do not want to have anyone making donations to a site that will, at best, be sold to a new owner.

Fred, I will be returning the generous donation you recently made. I am appreciative of your good will, please know that.
 
Well it has been a fun and exciting sight extremely well managed .
I wish you the best and maybe we will get lucky and someone will pick it up.
You have done such an outstanding job here that it will be hard for anyone to make it run as smooth as you have .
You will be missed !
 
mike...so very sorry to see this. time changes priorities sometimes and no one can fault you for that. thanks for all you have done. it is my sincere hope you will continue to be a participant here. i certainly hope someone steps up for the sake of the forum. it would be such a shame to see it fall away.

once again ...thanks mike and best of luck in all your ventures!!!

Ron
 
Dang! I wish there was a little more wealth around my house. With two kids heading off to college I'm fighting to buy the next part.
Good luck to you Mike. I'm sure someone will see the intellectual investment potential of what you have started and continue it.
 
I'm going to through some stuff out there...... so do not take offence. It's just my thoughts.

I guess the idea of making it a user owned forum can be raised. Elections for officers and maybe some kind of small dues structure like the NTBA does. There are a lot of talented people on this forum. I know we could divvy up the work to make it easy for everyone.

So far, Mike has worn the hat of all these jobs, but we could split them up to make it easier. Ideas for officers:

1. Morality (this person sets the rules for what can and can't be discussed or shown, could also be acting dictator/king of the forum)
2. Treasurer (keeps track of money and pays the bills)
3. Sales (attracts quality advertising clients to the site to generate extra income)
4. Technology (keeps the server happy and does the updates for the forum software)
5. Marketing (finds ways to grow the forum's popularity and it's user base)
6. Complaints (this person is the one you ask questions if something is going wrong, or if a dispute needs to be resolved between members)
7. Moderators (finds and trains individuals to help moderate the forum)
8. ???? I'm sure I'm missing at least five more or so.

A new member can join for a free limited trial membership, hopefully long enough to get them hooked, then they need to cough up to keep their membership. Limit their trial membership to simple things, but closed to the classifieds. That would weed out the ones that join just to sell their crap.

I bet if everyone donated $5 or $10 bucks a year for a basic subscription/membership, it would cover the basic hosting fees and such, and everyone can afford that amount. Extra forum features could be offered for larger donations. There might even be something left over to host some small events.

To make forum membership more attractive, we could offer a better photo hosting service. I always thought the one offered here was not good enough for me. You could lock down the photo hosting to only on the site. That would lower bandwidth costs for those that want to link without permission.

If something like this is doable, then a simple fund drive to buy the site from Mike would be needed to get him taken care of.

Just some things to think about.

David
 
sounds complicated...think i'll stick to building cars.......

Ron
 
RexRod said:
I'm going to through some stuff out there...... so do not take offence. It's just my thoughts.

I guess the idea of making it a user owned forum can be raised. Elections for officers and maybe some kind of small dues structure like the NTBA does. There are a lot of talented people on this forum. I know we could divvy up the work to make it easy for everyone.

So far, Mike has worn the hat of all these jobs, but we could split them up to make it easier. Ideas for officers:

1. Morality (this person sets the rules for what can and can't be discussed or shown, could also be acting dictator/king of the forum)
2. Treasurer (keeps track of money and pays the bills)
3. Sales (attracts quality advertising clients to the site to generate extra income)
4. Technology (keeps the server happy and does the updates for the forum software)
5. Marketing (finds ways to grow the forum's popularity and it's user base)
6. Complaints (this person is the one you ask questions if something is going wrong, or if a dispute needs to be resolved between members)
7. Moderators (finds and trains individuals to help moderate the forum)
8. ???? I'm sure I'm missing at least five more or so.

A new member can join for a free limited trial membership, hopefully long enough to get them hooked, then they need to cough up to keep their membership. Limit their trial membership to simple things, but closed to the classifieds. That would weed out the ones that join just to sell their crap.

I bet if everyone donated $5 or $10 bucks a year for a basic subscription/membership, it would cover the basic hosting fees and such, and everyone can afford that amount. Extra forum features could be offered for larger donations. There might even be something left over to host some small events.

To make forum membership more attractive, we could offer a better photo hosting service. I always thought the one offered here was not good enough for me. You could lock down the photo hosting to only on the site. That would lower bandwidth costs for those that want to link without permission.

If something like this is doable, then a simple fund drive to buy the site from Mike would be needed to get him taken care of.

Just some things to think about.

David

I could be interested in this venture but some questions need to be asked and answered before a commitment could be made. This is an important forum for all of us and it would be a shame for it to go by the wayside. But to enter into an enterprise such as this we would have to do due diligence.

1. If 250 of us were to pony up $10 apiece we could buy the forum from Mike. But then we would have to sustain it until it came time to collect the yearly dues. What are the current monthly operating costs? How much income does the forum receive from the current advertisers? What is the average amount Mike currently recieves each month from contributors?

2. How many contributors do we currently have on the forum? If you look at the postings there are a lot of freeloaders (non-contributors) posting on a daily basis. Will they want to invest? I have been unemployed for over a year and a half but I have been able to come up with a little money for the forum from time to time. It irks me that the guys that have the money to build a car don't have the money or inclination to donate to the forum. This is a real sore spot with me.

3. Do we have any members with sales and marketing or IT experience? I think Mike will confirm that these can become a full time job.

3a. Will these people be committed to the forum? It's like any club. Everyone goes into it with big ideas and good intentions but sooner or later the "volunteers" may start to leave and the operation of the forum will end up being the responsibility of one or two devoted members to keep things going.

4. I think we would need redundancy in all of the key positions so that there isn't a loss of continuity during vacations, personal downtime, etc. As the old adage says, "Too may cooks spoil the broth" but we have to have enough cooks to ensure the meal gets served.

I would certainly like to get involved in this but I have very little knowledge of the key responsibilities (item 3) of keeping a forum going. Right now I have a lot of time on my hands but it's winter. I don't know how much time I will have to devote in the future as the good weather starts, my Social Security checks start coming and I get started on my build.


I am tentatively "in" but I need more information on how things will work.
 
If we had 25 investors @ $100 each to start the new club. Then elect a pres and other officers. The initial 25 could be the founding fathers, so to speak. More or less start a new T Bucket club.
 
der Spieler said:
I could be interested in this venture but some questions need to be asked and answered before a commitment could be made. This is an important forum for all of us and it would be a shame for it to go by the wayside. But to enter into an enterprise such as this we would have to do due diligence.

I totally agree, and I can't imagine anyone not.

1. If 250 of us were to pony up $10 apiece we could buy the forum from Mike. But then we would have to sustain it until it came time to collect the yearly dues. What are the current monthly operating costs? How much income does the forum receive from the current advertisers? What is the average amount Mike currently recieves each month from contributors?
Mike would have to give us a total accounting of the financials for us to determine whether we want to take on the responsibility of running this forum. I don't know what it costs to run T-Bucketeers, but I do know that another forum I contribute to is about five times the size of this one, and it costs us about $1500 per year to keep it going. Most of that cost is in hosting fees. We chose to use a dedicated server that we remotely administrate ourselves in what they call a Co-Location facility. The hosting company is in Canada.

2. How many contributors do we currently have on the forum? If you look at the postings there are a lot of freeloaders (non-contributors) posting on a daily basis. Will they want to invest? I have been unemployed for over a year and a half but I have been able to come up with a little money for the forum from time to time. It irks me that the guys that have the money to build a car don't have the money or inclination to donate to the forum. This is a real sore spot with me.
You bring up a good point. There are a lot of ways this thing could be steered. The forum could become smaller, with only a tight knit group of dedicated members, or keep it something like it is with some small piddly dues that everyone could afford to be members. That way everyone is vested.


3. Do we have any members with sales and marketing or IT experience? I think Mike will confirm that these can become a full time job.
I bet we do. I know Mike works way too hard for us, for what he gets in retern. Hence my idea to share the load.

3a. Will these people be committed to the forum? It's like any club. Everyone goes into it with big ideas and good intentions but sooner or later the "volunteers" may start to leave and the operation of the forum will end up being the responsibility of one or two devoted members to keep things going.

4. I think we would need redundancy in all of the key positions so that there isn't a loss of continuity during vacations, personal downtime, etc. As the old adage says, "Too may cooks spoil the broth" but we have to have enough cooks to ensure the meal gets served.
Your idea of redundancy is great! I didn't think of that.

I would certainly like to get involved in this but I have very little knowledge of the key responsibilities (item 3) of keeping a forum going. Right now I have a lot of time on my hands but it's winter. I don't know how much time I will have to devote in the future as the good weather starts, my Social Security checks start coming and I get started on my build.
I am tentatively "in" but I need more information on how things will work.
You bring up fantastic concerns to me. Nobody, including myself would want to be stuck holding the bag if others don't want to play anymore. I say everybody keep thinking, and say anything that comes to mind. The only way we'll be able to decide if this is a direction the group wants to take is to talk it out.

David

P.S. Youngster For President! :laff: :rofl: :D :D

And tfeverfread For Vis President! :D :D :D :D
 
RPM said:
If we had 25 investors @ $100 each to start the new club. Then elect a pres and other officers. The initial 25 could be the founding fathers, so to speak. More or less start a new T Bucket club.

I like that idea. But just to be clear, I personally would want to invest as a gift. Founding father, or some other recognition would be good enough for me. Otherwise, to try and manage ownership of this thing among members I think would be a nightmare. It would be important to have some kind of EULA (end user license agreement) that has to be agreed upon at the time of joining that would spell this out. That way no one person could suddenly claim ownership of the forum. Bylaws could manage the ones that do run it. Maybe a non-profit legal entity could be formed that has ultimate ownership of licenses and domain names, but run/managed by the officers. I'm not sure how something like that could be defined.

Any lawyers out there?

David
 
Have "shares" like a stock. If 25 are needed to fund this, then each guy has 4 shares (easier to figure 100%).
These people are "the board" and the odd number always renders a majority on any decision.
Shares are sold back to the board and nobody can own more than 4 shares.
Have a $15 a year subscription (better than most magazines) for full access.
Limit access to freebie members.

Just some random thoughts
 
thanks for the concideration but i would respectfully decline any and all notions of being an officer. i would pledge my support to anyone who would take it upon them selves to keep this forum up and running.

Ron
 
Ron, Would you consider being the Grand Poobah?

Youngster for Grand Poobah
 
I could also see myself as an investor and i also agree to limited access to non-contributors [classifieds]. It seems to me that someone with a huge amount of computer knowledge and time is needed to maintain this forum.

I hope it works out, I love it here!
 
I could be an investor but my computer skillzz suck,, This by far is the best T sight but that has been because of the way Mike has ran it ,, I just hope we can figure something out .
 
The biggest hurdle for any INVESTOR to overcome is the feeling of an OWNER. There are differences of opinion on any number of subjects here and if you want to start DICTATING it will fail. This is what I see as some resistance to a user/owner site. Everyone has to subscribe to the don't break it policy, this site works great so don't break it.
 

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