Light at the end of the tunnel…

Ok – time to break my silence on what’s been going on, but please don’t hold your breath for a full explanation (although what’s below should suffice) – that will come in time! This note is basically to say that Revenews is not a rudderless ship and I will give you all a brief history of time…

Quick background for those readers who don’t know me:

I founded and was CEO of a company called Clicks2Customers in 2003 – a major Paid Search Marketing company which really did well (got up to about $10m in annual affiliate commissions) running paid search through affiliates (not Adsense arbitrage – but more like direct linking cost of sales commissions). It specializes in long tail SEM with multi-million keyword databases.

Quick history of incuBeta

After about a year of operation, in 2004, we decided to create an umbrella structure, called incuBeta, which owned Clicks2Customers, and setup other companies such as Traffic Synergy (which was spun out of the group eventually), invested in businesses such as Quirk (eMarketing agency) and developed some interesting technologies, such as SynthaSite (more about this in a second).

We also raised $3.7m in funding for incuBeta in early 2007, after various smaller rounds of investment. Clicks2Customers won numerous awards from Commission Junction (including Global Vision in 2006) and Linkshare (Best New Affiliate in 2007) and also picked up Top Technology Company in South Africa in 2006…

So, it’s been about a year since incuBeta purchased a majority stake in Revenews. This move was partially opportunistic, and partially strategic. The original reason was that we would support the business of Clicks2Customers by driving thought leadership within the affiliate market – especially with the uninformed.

Unfortunately, quite soon after this deal was done, the company decided to change direction and become a direct agency, and not an affiliate – given the pressures from merchants of not direct linking to their websites. This obviously nullified the original interest in Revenews for incuBeta.

Where did I go?

In addition to that change, I also decided that I needed a change of pace, as after four years slogging at what is ultimately a services business – I wanted something more technology focused (given my technology background), and so I decided to focus my interests on SynthaSite, an emerging technology within the group, as full time CEO, and with that, began a journey that would eventually become a partial exit from the group.

Given the various rounds of investment and the subsequent dilutions I became a smaller part of the incuBeta picture anyway, so the change made sense to me. Shortly after I turned my interests to SynthaSite, we raised $5m in funding for this business, which meant that it needed to stand on it’s own two feet as a separate company from the incuBeta group.

So, in short, incuBeta is finalizing a process of unbundling, where various shareholders are assisting in the unbundling process – where the umbrella company, incuBeta, will eventually become unnecessary – and companies in the group will all become standalone.

I have opted to obviously take the SynthaSite, Quirk & Revenews.com stakes and will remain a minority shareholder in Clicks2Customers for the near term. The other businesses, such as African Dream Holidays are being/and have been spun out directly to other shareholders.

So where to from here for Revenews:

Upfront, I need to thank Sam & Wayne for the great job that they have done, bringing Revenews to this point. In particular Sam, who really turned this into a thriving community. This also heralds an end to Sam & Wayne’s input at a business level, and I’m tasked with taking this community to the next level. Sam & Wayne have negotiated with me to exit their interests in Revenews, and we’re finalizing a plan around it – which should be in place next month.

I have been approached by a number of folk looking to purchase or partner with Revenews, and I’m considering my options at this stage. Luckily, everyone in the community is very supportive and contributive, so given the work that Sam has done, it’s pretty much on auto-pilot – you define what we become. That said, I do realize that Revenews needs some direction and leadership – so I’m thinking about those needs and trying to figure out what needs to happen next.

The bottom line is that things are happening – I’m on it! More details to follow next month – please let me just get through the paperwork!! Some of you already know what’s up – but this is all I can really confirm for now – sorry!