EPTGosucoaching.com - temporary stasis - Page 5
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Shaithis
United States383 Posts
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Lightshows
United States58 Posts
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CagedMind
United States506 Posts
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Louder
United States2276 Posts
As for intentions etc xeris and i have both put in tons of time giving away our money and what the site made for prizes, and at bringing students to coaches. Process is definitely haeder to work out than we expected with twenty plus new inquiries per day To clear up one detail, Gosucoaching was my idea, founded built and owned by me. Incontroll was a coach who didn't agree with the.goals of the site and has moved on , nothing more | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
On September 02 2010 08:31 Manifesto7 wrote: The issue is that they still took their money though. Normally you wouldn't accept the money until the times have been arranged, instead of some vague "future date" commitment. This. As a business owner, and as someone who has been on the bad end of plenty of business dealings, I can say with confidence that any time you pay in advance for a service to be rendered at a later date, you're setting yourself up to get screwed. You never pay someone before the work is done. Not in full, at least. (And you never agree to put someone to work without a written quotation detailing costs!) On a different note, plenty of companies have fallen victim to too much workload. This is actually a common downfall for new business owners. You start out small, with minimal overhead, you see a little success, and then you're faced with this inevitable need to expand. Expanding costs money, takes time, and is really fucking stressful and hard. Companies break down in this stage every day. Some famous rich guy who's name eludes me once said that the difference between a moderately successful business person, and a super successful business person is the chance they took when their company reached that threshold. Sometimes it just doesn't pan out. Edit: And just because shit doesn't work out, doesn't mean someone is getting scammed. It's just impossible to predict with absolute certainty what's going to happen in the world of business. Starting a new company is hard. Most people try three or four times before they ever get it right. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
I would definitely agree that the model we used wasn't optimal for us, especially since none of us had any real business experience and we weren't equipped to handle such a high volume. Especially considering the fact that all of the coaches are actual gamers, the month of August was rife with LAN events and other things keeping people occupied. It was just a mess in general. We just bit off more than we could chew, basically. When I was processing some emails weeks ago, there were maybe 15-20 in the inbox... last week when I went (before the shut down) there were almost 80. I was shocked by the increase in volume, I don't think anybody could have predicted it. The whole thing is simply unfortunate. However, it won't deter us, or me, from finding ways to do events and whatnot. | ||
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monad
United States156 Posts
On September 02 2010 12:58 MrBitter wrote: This. As a business owner, and as someone who has been on the bad end of plenty of business dealings, I can say with confidence that any time you pay in advance for a service to be rendered at a later date, you're setting yourself up to get screwed. You never pay someone before the work is done. Not in full, at least. (And you never agree to put someone to work without a written quotation detailing costs!) I don't necessarily agree with this. When dealing with online lesson types of things, this is just always how it works. You always pay first and receive services later. It happened when I took online chess lessons with a grandmaster some years ago, it happened when I was learning a foreign language remotely with a native speaker who lived across the world, and I wouldn't expect it to be any different here. | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
On September 02 2010 13:48 monad wrote: I don't necessarily agree with this. When dealing with online lesson types of things, this is just always how it works. You always pay first and receive services later. It happened when I took online chess lessons with a grandmaster some years ago, it happened when I was learning a foreign language remotely with a native speaker who lived across the world, and I wouldn't expect it to be any different here. You know, as I was writing that I had this thought in the back of my head that an online medium is a different kind of market, and I might have to eat those words, but if nothing else, this point should still stand: As consumers, be leery of anyone asking for cash up front. As a business, try to operate in such a way as to guarantee your product or service. Take and verify credit card info before a lesson, and run it after. I know this kind of stuff is hard in the beginning, but it gets a lot easier after doing it just once. I wasn't trying to knock on the GosuCoaching guys at all. I totally respect what they tried to do, and have no doubt that they'll get it right eventually. | ||
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Noxie
United States2227 Posts
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Keap
United States214 Posts
Honestly, to put it in technical terms you basically just irresponsibly inflated your unearned revenues account without any regard for your clients or employees. You should have had a system in place to prevents double-booking/time slots and time-zone conflicts, not to mention a way to actually ensure the money was being rightfully transferred from the customers to the coaches. I do appreciate your passion for the game and your vision to create this website where coaching from top players is readily available to anyone. but again, as soon as money gets thrown in the picture this turns into a business just like any other small business in America. Sorry to bring it to you but chances are you guys won't recover from this breakdown. Your brand name is pretty much tarnished. Advice? Hire someone that knows how a handle a business when you re-open. | ||
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iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
On September 02 2010 13:40 Xeris wrote:We only started getting enough revenue to host the events ourselves without paying in the final two weeks. I don't get how this makes sense. iNcontrol said Machine did $700 worth of coaching in a 3-week period alone that wasn't paid to him and he also mentioned taking $12 on every $30 of another coach. Then there's also all the money coming in from people who never even got lessons. What expenses did you have besides website design and bandwidth? I don't understand how the website design + the site's bad hosting could be more expensive than that income. How can you be taking in all that money and not have a significant surplus? | ||
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
On September 02 2010 15:50 iEchoic wrote: I don't get how this makes sense. iNcontrol said Machine did $700 worth of coaching in a 3-week period alone that wasn't paid to him and he also mentioned taking $12 on every $30 of another coach. Then there's also all the money coming in from people who never even got lessons. What expenses did you have besides website design and bandwidth? I don't understand how the website design + the site's bad hosting could be more expensive than that income. How can you be taking in all that money and not have a significant surplus? GC didn't take 12$ from every coach... it took 5$ of 30. When Louder had Future/Psyonic join he took 12$ from their 30$ He hasn't really told me why. I didn't know about it until I spoke with Future at MLG. I doubt Louder will explain the situation to me either, he has had some pretty harsh things to say on MSN the last two times he has msg'd me. It would seem he thinks I made this happen or have some axe to grind. PS: Up until the last few tourneys I had supplied the sponsorship for the gosucoaching weekly through one of my students. So what Xeris says is probably 100% true. The 5$ from each session was supposed to go towards the site, tourneys etc.. I think Louder was intending on using that to pay some of the staff that worked with him on booking as well. But again, he will be quick to point out, I don't in fact know so just take what I am saying as a bit more of an informed perspective. | ||
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iEchoic
United States1776 Posts
Definitely, I'm not trying to use your words to start an argument - even without your testimony, something doesn't add up to me, so I'm just wondering what the explanation is. I'm really curious here. I just don't get what would make a site like gosucoaching have such high expenses that you have to pay $100 a tourney out of pocket despite a large sum not being paid to Machine and a significant amount of money coming in for coaching. I know webhosting costs and I can't see it being justified based on bandwidth costs, especially for the kind of hosting that crashed like it did. What other expenses does a relatively simple site with bad hosting have? | ||
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MaestroSC
United States2073 Posts
I wish i knew pro level players to teach, cause i know i could run the other side of it haha. If you had so many emails why didnt u just select the bottom 60 and say "sorry we are full now come back later". sskkeettcchhyy is all I can say haha. Sorry, but once you accept money, or start receiving a service... You have to make sure the service is provided, and that the service provider gets paid. seriously tho 30$ is a STEAL. people would have payed more. I know but then everyone "this is not about money this is about getting people better and having tournaments" bullshit, as soon as ANY money is involved it IS about money to at least one person in the deal. | ||
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metaldragon
United States251 Posts
On September 02 2010 16:09 iEchoic wrote: Definitely, I'm not trying to use your words to start an argument - even without your testimony, something doesn't add up to me, so I'm just wondering what the explanation is. I'm really curious here. I just don't get what would make a site like gosucoaching have such high expenses that you have to pay $100 a tourney out of pocket despite a large sum not being paid to Machine and a significant amount of money coming in for coaching. I know webhosting costs and I can't see it being justified based on bandwidth costs, especially for the kind of hosting that crashed like it did. What other expenses does a relatively simple site with bad hosting have? Yeah im Thinking the Exact same thing. I'm VERY tempted to set up a proper coaching System for coaches/students. There is absolutely no reason for things to have got this bad at all.... Really seems like Alot of money was pocketed and/or very mismanaged. For one the "e-mails" going from 16 upto 80 "suddenly" Makes me Think they they where just not checked Very often at all. | ||
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MaestroSC
United States2073 Posts
On September 02 2010 16:21 metaldragon wrote: Yeah im Thinking the Exact same thing. I'm VERY tempted to set up a proper coaching System for coaches/students. There is absolutely no reason for things to have got this bad at all.... Really seems like Alot of money was pocketed and/or very mismanaged. For one the "e-mails" going from 16 upto 80 "suddenly" Makes me Think they they where just not checked Very often at all. what he said haha... need a business partner? hahaha jk kinda ; ) | ||
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monad
United States156 Posts
On September 02 2010 16:18 mnofstl007 wrote: People only paid 30$ for a lesson...what a STEAL... was the lesson 30 mins and a basic tutorial? Actually it was an hour, with 1 on 1 analysis of your gameplay. The rate gets cheaper if you purchase in bulk (for example purchasing 2 hours up front is less than $30 / hr). When I did it for 2 hours, we worked exclusively on my TvP on Stepps of War. I was shown a couple solid builds for those maps, and practiced them against an AI with the coach observing. He would point out things during the game like "you don't have any SCVs producing, you have an idle worker, buildings aren't hotekeyed, buildings aren't rallied", things like that. I normally average around 40 APM and I thought I just need more practice to make my fingers faster. When I was doing everything the coach was telling me, while watching the replay I was at 80 consistently. That alone was a huge eye opener. It felt really intense while I was doing all this multitasking too. After I practiced those builds a couple time against AIs, I played 2 matches against the coach, where he doesn't hold anything back and you try to use the builds just learned against him. First time I got stomped, second time I did fairly well and only lost in the macro game. I feel much more confident about my TvP after that session, especially on that map. Afterwords I fired up a custom game with a friend of mine who completely stomps me every single time I've ever played him, and I beat the shit out of him, hands down. It's well worth the money, I'm not gonna lie. Some people can't understand why you'd spend money on a game, but I was sold even before I bought the lesson, and even moreso after. | ||
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PROJECTILE
United States226 Posts
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
On September 02 2010 16:09 iEchoic wrote: Definitely, I'm not trying to use your words to start an argument - even without your testimony, something doesn't add up to me, so I'm just wondering what the explanation is. I'm really curious here. I just don't get what would make a site like gosucoaching have such high expenses that you have to pay $100 a tourney out of pocket despite a large sum not being paid to Machine and a significant amount of money coming in for coaching. I know webhosting costs and I can't see it being justified based on bandwidth costs, especially for the kind of hosting that crashed like it did. What other expenses does a relatively simple site with bad hosting have? I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say, but how it worked was that coaches were paid from Louder's paypal, and the rest was kept for expenses and hosting the events. However, due to the complaints and disputes filed with paypal however, they froze his account and took the money that was in it. Louder didn't pocket anything, even if he had wanted to (he didn't) - paypal gg'd him. | ||
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Binominal
30 Posts
On September 02 2010 16:39 monad wrote: Actually it was an hour, with 1 on 1 analysis of your gameplay. The rate gets cheaper if you purchase in bulk (for example purchasing 2 hours up front is less than $30 / hr). When I did it for 2 hours, we worked exclusively on my TvP on Stepps of War. I was shown a couple solid builds for those maps, and practiced them against an AI with the coach observing. He would point out things during the game like "you don't have any SCVs producing, you have an idle worker, buildings aren't hotekeyed, buildings aren't rallied", things like that. I normally average around 40 APM and I thought I just need more practice to make my fingers faster. When I was doing everything the coach was telling me, while watching the replay I was at 80 consistently. That alone was a huge eye opener. It felt really intense while I was doing all this multitasking too. After I practiced those builds a couple time against AIs, I played 2 matches against the coach, where he doesn't hold anything back and you try to use the builds just learned against him. First time I got stomped, second time I did fairly well and only lost in the macro game. I feel much more confident about my TvP after that session, especially on that map. Afterwords I fired up a custom game with a friend of mine who completely stomps me every single time I've ever played him, and I beat the shit out of him, hands down. It's well worth the money, I'm not gonna lie. Some people can't understand why you'd spend money on a game, but I was sold even before I bought the lesson, and even moreso after. Sorry, but do you really need to pay money for this. There's alot of tutorials on the internet, starting from Day9 and ending with commentators like Husky and HD. Trump for example explains how to review your replays here: . As for build orders just check out Liquidpedia and try out things that feel comfortable with you. | ||
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