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BlueGlass Shake Out From My Sources And Perspective

Posted: 22 Apr 2013 06:48 AM PDT

Please remember this is my blog (usually about how awesome I am) and not a news site. These are my opinions based on sources and news I have been fed. I respect everyone that has reached out to me and, as always, will protect their identities and will not publish details they explicitly asked me not to. I have drawn my own conclusions from these conversations as a whole.

Immediately after writing about my reaction to the surprising video about BlueGlass being broke – I started getting messages from many people involved or who are very close to the company that would not state anything “on the record” of fear of legal repercussions. I suspect sometime in the near future someone will post the whole inside story anonymously.

BTW that Patrick guy who made that video seems like a total dipshit. When I made my first post his only comment was about how I must have paid people to make bots to retweet my post. Bots do retweet my posts. I guess he doesn’t understand when you have a popular feed and followers with a verified account that shit happens. But really thats your only comment on the epic drama bomb you just landed on the industry? And by the way nice dumbass video… Really? Thats all you could come out with is stating 3 times the company was broke and you had tons of debt? From what I was told he went rouge and made that video and others were not pleased… He isn’t even with the company that went under and supposedly knows VERY little about the actual shape of the company. Anyway I digress.. I feel like the SNL news skit that keeps saying REALLY?

CMO and the founder of BlueGlass – Chris Winfield came out with his official statement here. If you are looking for some nitty gritty details or how the company went broke you wont find any. Chris is taking a lot of heat and came out with a very high level professional statement.

Disclaimer – On a side note I have personally known Chris Winfield for many years. I love the guy personally and have a lot of respect for him. He has spoken at my Elite Retreat event. I have never done business with him except for refer him a few clients over the years and they did not have any complaints.

Richard Zwicky the CEO of the company has gone silent but will probably come out with a similar statement about how he is sad the company went down but to hire their employees.

Just a blanket disclaimer cause after I read this I thought people could take away that I don’t personally like others involved. I will say that I have a ton of respect for all of the people that came to form this company. Their reputation in the industry speaks for itself. Again I have not formed a company with any of these guys and have never even had direct business deals with them but personally I consider them all very close friends. Just because they took a big shot and merge all their shit together… and failed doesn’t take away from how amazing their skillset is. Hell I am still learning, at times some very expensive, lessons on how to run a company and I can’t tell you how depressed I have been about this since the news came out.

Supposedly both Richard and Chris resigned a few weeks before the doors were closed but they are still listed on the BlueGlass site as CEO and CMO.

I doubt either of these guys will make a “Sorry we are broke and we have tons of debt” video.

I can tell you from everyone I have had correspondence with they all say the same thing about the employees. That they are really great at their jobs.

Some outside the company industry folks have rallied for the former BlueGlass employees listing their names and why you should hire them.

Props to Adrian on that.

All of the founders and higher ups in the company will be fine. They were fine before BlueGlass running their own thriving businesses and they will be fine after. Sure they will probably take a reputation hit but at the end of the day people know.

To the lower end, non well known people who worked at BlueGlass I would just say this:

Adversity is opportunity. I had always wanted to start my own company but it wasn’t until I was released from my last job in 2005 that I was “forced” into giving it a real go. A couple months later I was making more in a month then I was in 3-4 years working former “day jobs”. This could be the best thing that ever happen to you.

ADD Sidenote – I was just talking with a girl the other day that I had to let go in 2008. Because of the experience working with my company she was able to land a job at Yahoo then moved on to a couple other jobs and now has a really awesome, high paying position with a fortune 500 company. She thanked me and said if she had not had the experience in affiliate marketing, seo, pay-per-click and other internet marketing stuff that she learned she would never have had such a successful career.

If I could get a message across to each former BlueGlass employee out of work – You have worked with the best guys in the industry. Don’t underestimate the value you bring to a company (or starting your own). You have worked with people who know “how shit works” and in a slimy industry like SEO you have a massive leg up.

So who are the losers in this:

Upper level employees that personally guaranteed their credit. Which supposedly the debt is in the high six figure range. Some could be forced into bankruptcy which is unfortunate but it happens. This is total speculation based on anonymous sources.
People who paid for the conference next month that is never going to happen. I know there are people “trying to help save it” but its not going to happen. I tried to offer assistance but it seems that all the money has been spent that was collected and expenses for the conference have not been supposedly paid. I could see a get together for people who have already made travel obligations but the conference that was sold is not going to happen.

Will we ever know the real truth?

There are a lot of truth seekers out there that will pursue this. Its big news after all. Its the first huge internet marketing company that went bust. The general consensus is that people will never know the real truth on how bad the financials were mismanaged.

But I disagree:

From my experience with all of our lawsuits all of the initial complaints will be public documents. While many people are under a non disclosure, when you file a lawsuit your allegations in the complaint do not fall under that non disclosure so that is when you will get a play by play of what happened.

I wouldn’t look for any coverage on any major site in the industry.. Like searchengineland.com. BlueGlass and the people involved have fed them TONS of money in sponsorships of their events and they don’t want to piss them off as they go on to new companies. Probably same with SEOMOZ even though they are not really a credited Internet Marketing News site.

I know most bloggers will chomp at the bit to make big news posting some huge libel writeup that “pulls back the curtain” on what happen inside BlueGlass. And it will bring a ton of traffic and they will get their 15 minutes. But I am not going to do that. It doesn’t mean we can’t have private conversations and from that I will post my own opinions based on multiple sources.

For real news from a true journalist about the subject on an actual news site I would keep a eye on the Tampa Bay Business Journal that has had almost news as it breaks. Fair and balanced write-ups from Chris Wilkerson there.

In closing – I hope this works out and everyone can personally get a long after… but unfortunately from what I am hearing there is no hope of that.

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