Abandon ship. Enough said.
The title says it all. This “tech” startup, (if you can even call it that), is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They claim to be the bees-knees in affiliate marketing and provide the best solutions for publishers (i.e. higher conversions, efficient advertising, accurate targeting, analytics, etc.). From the looks of Prosperent’s website, it would seem that the above would unequivocally true. HOWEVER, there are ongoings behind the curtains of Prosperent for which the general public is unaware. This is why you’ll soon realize that “the title says it all.”
Behind the curtains. What most individuals, (and by most that means probably everyone), don’t realize is that Prosperent is nothing more than one of those loud TV commercials that claim their customers make a sh*t ton of money using their service. Yes, you know those obnoxious commercials and advertisements that are usually scams or pyramid schemes that claim you can work from home or make “x” amount of dollars in a day or month. Prosperent’s business is similar. Truthfully, there are only a small number of individuals who make a substantial amount of money using Prosperent’s Affiliate Tools. Why you might ask? Ding, ding, ding. Two Words: Blackhat SEO.
What is blackhat SEO? Blackhat SEO can be defined as the practice of using unethical techniques to make your search rankings go up, usually involving deception. Black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing. So, why is this important again? Because, the majority of Prosperent’s revenue stems from blackhat SEO tactics and their top earning users are also individuals using these unethical means. How is Prosperent using this unethical way of earning revenue? The owners of Prosperent also own another company called Simplied SES, which is essentially a blackhat SEO company (Google it). A normal publisher (website owner) who doesn’t have a highly trafficked site has a high probability of earning just pennies with Prosperent. One user was quoted on a forums.digitalpoint.com thread saying “I knew that network was going nowhere. I also had thousands of impressions and not a single click. Adsense is way better. It is not because of the lack of products but the joke that their targeting is.” Another user on the same forum has said of Prosperent’s CEO, Brian Lovett, “”Prosperent Brian” wants to keep danging the “5 figure a month” carrot in front of people.” and “The only people making money from prosperent are the people blackhatting the system by cloaking domains and redirecting through prosperent.” Another Prosperent user sums it up nice and short, “Don’t bother with this at all. It’s a bloody waste of time.” Moreover, everytime Google updates its algorithms, it’s like putting a knife in the back of blackhat SEO companies. Some of Google’s algorithm changes are to prevent individuals from using these unethical tactics to deceive search engines. When Google makes an update, companies like Prosperent, whose backbone is blackhat SEO, have to find a way to adapt, or cease to exist. Google’s algorithms are reportedly scheduled for another update in early 2013.
So why would a company need to use the above mentioned tactics to earn revenue if indeed their business was legitimately successful? Well, you’re probably already thinking it, so let’s just re-iterate the point. THEY CAN’T BE SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT IT! If Prosperent’s service was truly worth anything then they wouldn’t need the unethical padding to cushion their pretentious, egocentric a**es. Let’s move along.
Business prowess? Prosperent’s management are amateurs at best when it comes to business, hence the reason why they seem to be taking the company in reverse. It’s been said that management makes product decisions not based on any type of data analysis, but on what they personally like. How can this be a good strategy? Are they so high on themselves that they never paused and thought, “What if a customer prefers something different than my own personal taste?” How can a company be successful without analyzing the market or analyzing its customer base? How can a company create something if they don’t even know the market desires or even needs it? It’s been three years since Prosperent’s inception, how could the company still be operational? Well, as we’ve already seen, a bulk of credit can be given to blackhat SEO.
Continuing, Prosperent has also been mentioned in two local news articles recently regarding their plans to leave Colorado Springs and relocate the company to Denver, Boulder, or Austin, Texas. Is this necessary for the company to grow like they say? Prosperent has repeatedly used their location (Colorado Springs) as a scapegoat for their inability to grow the company. They cite culture, lack of programmers, and lack of VC’s (venture capitalists) in Colorado Springs as some of their reasons for relocating. So let’s break down each one of these and see if it’s a legitimate reason to relocate.
1) Culture: Prosperent has noted in regards to culture, that they are seeking a location with a better nightlife, restaurants, and retail shopping outlets in hopes to lure potential employees. We’re not going to delve into the dynamics of each location, feel free to Google those cities if you like. But, is relocating a company to have greater accessibility to restaurants, retail outlets, and clubs really a wise business decision? Does that show an astounding level of business acumen? It seems like something only an amateur entrepreneur would pursue, like one who has an affinity towards dreams of a grandiose lifestyle rather than focusing on making a great product.
2) Lack of Programmers: Prosperent has mentioned that another reason that they are unable to grow their company is because there are not enough programmers (mainly PHP) in Colorado Springs. This ties in to #1 above. A reason Prosperent believes there is a lack of programmers is because of the culture of Colorado Springs. They feel that Colorado Springs has nothing to offer programmers, so they think what’s the incentive for programmers to move to Colorado Springs? If Prosperent had done the proper research they would realize that Colorado Springs is bustling with companies that are hiring programmers/software engineers/developers that are coding in Java/C++/C#/Javascript/PHP/Python/MySQL/HTML/XML. So is there really a lack of programmers in Colorado Springs?
3) Venture Capitalists: What is Venture Capital? Venture Capital can be described as financial capital provided to early stage startup companies and usually involves a high level of risk since the company is a “startup”. VC’s make their money by owning equity in the company once investing. One firm, Colorado based Access Venture Partners has invested more than $100 million in 50 Colorado tech startups over its 13-year history, according to an article recently published by the Colorado Springs Business Journal. There are individuals at work trying to supply funding to startups in the southern part of Colorado but Prosperent seems to just dismiss that fact. It appears as if Prosperent thinks that by relocating to a city with a greater venture capitalist presence, that the VC’s will be knocking at their doorstep.
So why does Prosperent feel the need to relocate? If Prosperent was truly providing an extraordinary service, wouldn’t the VC’s flock to them at their current location? Wouldn’t the programmers already be knocking at their doorstep for the opportunity of employment.
This might be the problem that Prosperent has not yet realized. Maybe they don’t offer anything extraordinary, not to their customers, VC’s, or potential employees (programmers). If Prosperent’s services/products were so great and they had so much to offer, they wouldn’t need to make up excuses like “relocating to be near better restaurants”. Let’s take a look at a startup located which is located in a small town (New Hope, Pennyslvania) of 2,200 residents. The CEO of this startup is quoted from an article when discussing his company’s efforts to secure a Series A round of funding from a small town. “Suddenly, our location was no longer a factor. Now we had VCs coming to New Hope and even offering to do board meetings out here.” A company in town of 2220 can find funding, but a company (Prosperent) in a city of 600,000+ (including the metropolitan area) can not? This brings us to the next point. We already can see that Prosperent is lacking on the business end, but in what other key area is the company lacking? Drum roll….Innovation.
Innovation? What’s that?
The latest release from Prosperent is a “deals popup”. First of all, who actually likes popups? Did the company do any market research to see if internet users actually prefer popups? When was the last time someone said “oh, I really enjoyed that popup appearing on my screen.” It seems like management is more focused on re-inventing the wheel and attempting to mimic the success of others than actually becoming truly innovative.
In conclusion, everything you probably hate about websites (popups, ads, etc.), Prosperent is trying to create more of it. If you’re a venture capitalist looking for a startup to invest in, you have one guarantee: risk. Blackhat SEO isn’t longterm, so depending on the type of investment you wish to make, well, you decide. A company can’t hide its source of revenue forever. For Prosperent, that time ends now.
So remember, not every sailor can command a ship, and this ship (Prosperent) might as well have farmers at the helm.
Advice? ABANDON SHIP. This company seems to be sinking and sinking fast.
Startups that Suck 