Rick Latona Hiding Reason Behind AEIOU Getting Out of Web Design
I was one of the lucky winner’s of one of Rick’s AEIOU info minisites a few months ago. I never wanted to spend the money it took to build an AEIOU minisite, only because I knew I could build one on my own for under $10. When I won, I was excited because I was getting a free minisite and I would get the chance to see the results it produced.
This minisite, until AEIOU began hiding their prices and told clients to contact them, had a face value of about $250. They also talk very highly of themselves and get clients excited to see results. I am going to leave the representative I worked with from AEIOU nameless, but he stated that I should begin getting traffic and making some money within 3 months. He even told me their was a chance that the site would be making money when I got home from my 1-month trip to Fiji this past summer.
Here were my results:
Traffic: 0 Visitors
Revenue $0.00
I decided to take a closer look at the content found on my minisite, especially considering my stats. I couldn’t begin to believe that the people who wrote these articles did more than a second of research. The content was so terrible I couldn’t believe my eyes. I might as well of had my neighbor’s 5 year old write the content. It probably would’ve been better. That’s how bad the content was.
Rick Latona states in his one of his most recent blog posts (titled: “There’s no money in web design. AEIOU is getting out of the outsourcing business.” on RickLatona.com:
The reality is there is no money in web design. It’s hard. The customers are hard to please. The margins are slim and frankly, there are bigger fish to fry.
Rick, maybe what you mean to say is that there’s no money for the customer, there’s only money for AEIOU. And the customers are hard to please? I wonder why. Maybe it’s because you talk very highly of AEIOU, and then go off building bad minisites, suggesting to customers to improve and market their minisite on their own, like you did to me. (Personally, I think AEIOU is lieing and there’s no marketing done to the site whatsoever). And you’re right, there are bigger fish to get money from. But promise me that you will build something worth their money.
That’s why I think AEIOU is shutting down their minisite production. They just aren’t working and Rick can’t admit that.
Rick, I hope you get the chance to read this and comment on this. Please note I have a high level of respect for you. You’re one of the best domainer’s in the industry. I love reading RickLatona.com. But my AEIOU experience was a complete letdown.
Great article. I agree with a lot of what you say in your post. I had AEIOU do a development for me as well and it was much of the same as you talk about. I wrote about my experiences on my blog today as well.
I know he will read it. Its like politics, you will never know the real reason since no one shares what goes on behind closed doors. Although you have a special view because of an experience. Intriguing.
Same results here from 3 other so called “developers”. They seem to be using a product called xsitepro or a clone. Templates. The developers seem to have NO experience with the revenue stream they are addressing. I had AEIOU working oin a GEO project but I pulled the plug when it was obvious they were beginners.
One guy charged me 25.00 and did the best job using XsitePro. The rest are nothing. All of them need much more development to make money.
We are set up using the full Adobe Master Collection and work to produce world class web sites. I guess I will go back to doing them the old fashionded way. Hard work but we love it.
Wow! I am very impressed by this posting of your honest opinion and evaluation of his over priced mini-sites. I admire people who call a spade a spade. Way to go! Sounds to me that what Whypark offers for free is worth more than these 250 dollar mini-sites.
AEIOU SUCKS! I agree with it all, I bought 3 bigger sites and in 2 months , NOTHING and I mean NOTHING was finished and I sent them screen shots etc of everything I needed, how simple is that and talked to them on the phone so many times I lost count……….ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE and I dont care that Latona was a Premiere domain person..SO WHAT…he didnt care about my situation and I dare him to call me and explain his indifference at any time…By the way he never did and never will because he is hiding behind excuses.
I hope his other stuff goes in the drain just like he treated me on my projects …good riddance
The problem with mini site is that the price of development is cut down to mini as they offer mini site. A web site is a web site! There is no such thing as mini site. SEO is hard. If you thing with your 5 post the site is going to rank well and stay where it is? I bet, Google thinks otherwise. Updating the site is important. The Articles got to be written with SEO in mind which is not in the capacity of domain owners.
The other problem is the overhead. How can you pay a developer 20 hrs on a mini site $20 / hr and charge the client $99?
The only solution is to setup a mini site developing firm in a developing country like Sri Lanka to take the advantage of low paid high talents.
Yes, that is where I am living now. I returned to my native country in Dec. 2005 after living 13 years in Swiss and 8 years in Canada.
In Sri Lanka, you can have an entry level developer for $220 a month. That’s 160 hrs for $220 and high end developer for $ 500 a month.
If anyone wants to establish a mini site development firm in Sri Lanka, contact me. I can help you.
Hats off to you for honesty. Rick Latona is ALL hype. You should get refunds if you did not get what was promised. Tired of people kissing ass to guys like this.
Well, you have to give it to Rick Latona. Every domainer will eventually need to think of ways on how to make money. But like any entrepreneur, not all money-making ideas will actually take off. Atleast, now we now that this kind of scheme doesn’t work!
Good post. RL’s company tries too much to run the domain business like a pawn shop. Yea, I know Rick got his big start because he was one of the first people to offer pawn loans on digital assets and took his risk doing so. I do not trust him or his company. He is a merely a high end pawn shop. Some of the domains they had in the recent NYC auction where a joke to me but that is just one’s personal opinion. They declined to list several good NYC related names I have. I was willing to go no reserve to ensure a sale with them but I guess they would rather list sercuritydevices.com for $5000 than solid “Wall Street” theme names for no reserve. WHAT?
Now in RL’s news letter back when he started, it stated: “RULES”: “Here’s the Skinny, I DO NOT appraise names, I AM NOT a appraiser. If you DO NOT include a price you want for your domain you will be ignored” — well ok fine I said, after all it is his company. He can c’mon as firm as he wants to be like a back door loan thug. It is his right to do so. About a month went by and I heard a recorded interview I think it was on webmaster.fm. The great RL stated in his own english words: ” I am one of the BEST and top people to place a value on a domain” WHAT!!! Is this not a self appraisal in a opinion considering values and numbers?
Again a while later I got the “New Digiloan Offer” by the creators of DigiPawn, by yours truly RL! We are loaning at 1%, I thought wow I got to try this! I sent the digi people (RL) a name with PROOF and SCREENSHOTS of monthly income and was told no.WHAT!!! again! I thought. This is making money! Here is the past 6 months of proof!
I sent his digi people a couple of names for his newsletter. They seemed very eager to publish them, as a matter of fact so eager they jacked up my suggested prices 3x over what I wanted. (remember now, I set my prices so I would NOT BE ignored. I did this by the RL skinny of the rules) and yet they broke their own rules and reset the prices! It was priced so high I could not get a BUYER!
Again I was contacted over and over by one of his aeiou cookie cutter website wordpress developers and simply kept telling him “How can I work with you when your company can’t even work on the level.
Sorry RL. I use to admire your business accomplishments but you have been caught in your own lies once too many. The smaller end domineers in this industry don’t need your bullshit. Also he don’t need to read articles by you about how to shit on a plane in your blog. Go take a dump in your PawnShop