Avid Amiri from Internet Enterprises

[benitez17]

Avid,

You've moved from a definitive statement that no one could provide a site like the one you tried to sell CET for less than $50k to vague references to value propositions that you offer and average valuations by BizBuySell.

As I said before, you could offer useful services, or you might not, but your claim that no one can create a site like that for less than you is absurd.

Also, if the average sales multiple is 3x, then it is safe to assume that a number of sites sell for below that multiple. I would hope to point other buyers in the direction of those sites.

Lastly, CET has no real way to really know if she should be comfortable with what you are offering or not, because she has no experience to fall back on. I would not recommend that anyone new to the business spend that much on their first site, regardless of what services came along with it, unless losing that money would have no impact on their overall financial health.

[lam251]

I have known Avid personally and professionally for a few years. My experience with him began with the purchase of one of his sites. I bought it from Avid and it has grown substantially, actually way beyond what I expected when I first bought it. I have no intention of referencing the site here because I don’t want my domain connected to the pages of misleading commentary this forum has unloaded. If the administrator of this forum wants the URL he can email me and I will give it to him privately via email so you can legitimize my site. Point is, Im pretty exasperated what Ive read on this forum. Not because the commentary is almost all negative but because it is mostly all wrong. Take your administrators assessment of the solar website. He says it has no function other than to collect visitors through it pages and steer them to leads. The site sells products. In fact I have ordered a solar cell phone charger myself from the site for the last time I went camping in Northern CA. Your assessment of Avid business model is also way off. His sites aren’t little template sites. His sites are sites with top rankings and cash flow at the time of sale sold on the basis of an industry multiple based on recent sold comparables. I know because I went through the whole process with him. If he offered a site to CET based on some other valuation then it sounds like it was because she asked him for a specific site build out for a category she wanted to move into.

You guys all seem smart and it sounds like your hearts are in the right place. I just don’t think you guys really did enough analysis before jumping into your conclusion and throwing them online. Avid is a straight shooter. He also cares about his sites and his buyers. Before I bought a site from him I even called the buyer of the first site he ever sold behind his back just to see what she had to say. It was a potty training website and the buyer said she was happy with her purchase even 5 years after she had bought it and was still getting support from Avid!

You people all know what you have written here is damaging to his business. If you are not directly telling people he is crooked than everything you say is in the context of his business being a scam. You say his companys are “overpriced” , that he is overcharging people and that he taking people for rides. If you guys, can take some of the biggest webstores online and still piss all over them then I would be amazed to see what you classify as a good store. You guys classify yourself as “sharks” in your statements in how you assess things. I don’t think that is true. Sharks are usually precise and calculated. I think based on what Ive read you all are just exert poor judgment and cavalier about what you distribute.

Have any of you guys done consulting for multi million dollar ecommerce firms? I know Avid has. Have any of you sold your stores to giants like Hay Needle whose acquisitions people are experts and are pretty good judges of what is a legit site? Avid has. My point - Avid has a credible industry records with recognized ecom players. I don’t even know who any of you guys are! I don’t know if any of you have ever built you own site, owned one, ranked for anything. I mean, at least post some of your own accomplishments so we know who you all are and what your credentials are. I am sure if you gave Avid a chance to review some of your sites he could find a million ways to judge though too. (Although I doubt he would have the discourtesy to you to just overtly publish his results online.)
If you don’t know have all the facts you shouldn’t start throwing stones.

By the way, Avid told me this morning about this forum but told me not take time out of my day and not to diginify it with a response. Im doing it anyway.

Well I said what I have to say. For any of you that have responses I will take these off line. I have no interest in a public debate and have said my piece. Your admin has my email address.

[petertdavis]

Oh. I don't consider alexjn a member of the forum yet. He just showed up when he found out we were talking about you. Like we tripped a Google Alert or something. I thought you were talking about PeterDavis saying "You're just begging to be taken for a ride." in regards to CET's approach. My bad.

Don't drag me into this! My comment had nothing to do with Avid. What I wrote to CET was generic advice, suggesting that an inexperienced person should seek out the advice of more experience people before spending $50k on a site. I've posted time and again that too much of what gets posted here on Clinton's forum is garbage because we almost never have enough facts to make an informed statement one way or another on anything. Here, we have dozens of posts ranting on some guy without the original poster ever having disclosed the url of the site, and everyone is jumping on board saying the guy is a fraudster, and you have zero facts to back you up. My comment doesn't suggest anything one way or the other about Avid. It suggests that I believe CET could benefit from an advisor, or mentor. In fact, from what I've read in this thread about Avid, it would seem that the sites he sells are much more than just a domain and shopping cart, and it's sounding like stuff I would be interested in buying. But, I still think CET could benefit from an experienced, neutral third-party opinion.

[tvanslooten]

And yet you continue to visit here? I'll admit some of the stuff in here is a little over the top but I wouldn't say that too much of what is posted here is garbage. Ouch.

Travis

I've posted time and again that too much of what gets posted here on Clinton's forum is garbage

[Clinton]

tvanslooten, don't worry about peter. I've known him for several years and he says these things, but he's always there to help out if things get sticky around here When he says garbage, he's talking about people asking for advice (especially valuation/DD) without disclosing their URLs.

lam251, welcome to experienced-people. You can always drop me a PM with any details you wish to share with me in confidence though, I'll admit, it would make a credibility difference if readers could see a site that's become a success.

[ClaytonL]

My comment had nothing to do with Avid. What I wrote to CET was generic advice, suggesting that an inexperienced person should seek out the advice of more experience people before spending $50k on a site.

Yea, that was kind of my point. Please re-read that post in context with the rest of my comments.

[signic]

Pardon me for making an offtopic post.

But I couldn't help notice that the font used by Avid and his client is different than regular font of the other posters. Is there a reason why that is?

[Clinton]

The different font is not based on user age or number of posts or anything like that.

It happens when someone types their post up in another program and cuts and pastes from there. The default font in that program gets carried over to the post. People sometimes do that when creating a long post to avoid the problem in some forums where their login times outs before they can save their work.

You can also manually choose a different font when creating a post.

[signic]

The different font is not based on user age or number of posts or anything like that.

It happens when someone types their post up in another program and cuts and pastes from there. The default font in that program gets carried over to the post. People sometimes do that when creating a long post to avoid the problem in some forums where their login times outs before they can save their work.

You can also manually choose a different font when creating a post.

Ah, thanks, that makes it much clearer. Well, nothing to say on my part here.. continue on with what you were doing

[Clinton]

I've just deleted a post above for violating rule 3. The poster is welcome to repost what he had to say if he makes it a compliant post.

I normally delete a few such posts every week. Just a reminder for new users: One way we keep spammers out is by requiring the first few posts from any new user to be high quality ones. Users who can't achieve that find their post count stuck at zero and all zero-post accounts get periodically deleted. We've found this an effective way of getting rid of spammers most of whom are incapable of jumping that barrier. Unfortunately, it also gets rids of the one in a thousand genuine users who just hasn't gotten around to making a few good posts. It's the price we pay.

As a new user your best bet to ensure your first few posts pass muster is to read our Guide To Making Non Fluff Posts.