Be aware of NorthStar Ventures AKA NorthStar ThinkTank. They prey on entrepreneurs that are desperate to be more successful. They will just take your money and run. Northstar Ventures asked me to do work for them; I am an ethical entrepreneur myself and they contracted my company to provide paid search management for their firm.
They were trying to promote a news letter for entrepreneurs that charged a monthly fee. It was a horrible product so of course no one purchased it. We concluded their search campaign after two months and did not charge a dime for our time. Again, I mentioned that we are an ethical-minded firm.
Several months later, we received a signed proposal from a company that we had never heard of. It was an exact replica of our 9 page paid search management proposal, other than the fees, which were 10 times more expensive than what we charge. Apparently Northstar has now entered the search business: http://northstarsearch.net/index.html
It boasts that they are 'The most trusted pay per click provider in the industry'. This from a company that has just started the business in 2008 and isn't even capable of writing their own proposal.in fact the website I mentioned above is full of direct plagiarism from my original proposal. It says 'Our level with Yahoo is called Diamond Ambassador'. That's a flat out lie. They don't even know what that means, these words were lifted directly from my proposal. I spend $1 million a month with Yahoo, Northstar just started.
I cannot attest to anything else that they do. But this one example shows that they are total crooks, willing to steal other people's work. There is no original thinking here; this company is led by a liar named Jeff Chavez (read his response to me below). If you are ever contacted my a person named Mark Corinth, claiming that he knows anything about search marketing. Know that he is the internal employee who spearheaded the plagiarism. Mark is the person that Jeff refers to in his response to me. Here are the direct words of a CEO who steals from his customers and suppliers.
Les,
Wow.
I had no knowledge of this and we will stop using that agreement immediately.
Now, let me explain how this happened:
We have a team of 15 business coaches here in our office.in the last 8 months we have hired 3 guys who jus happen to have a deep background in SEO and PPC.in November, they came to me and said that they are getting several inquiries from our existing clients about SEO and PPC, and that we should offer those services since we have the expertise in-house. I gave the go-ahead and they created a little division within Northstar called Northstar Search. I paid so little attention to it, for example, that I didn't even bother to cancel my project with you or bring it in-house, it just wasn't a focus.
Later, they asked if they could start building a database and selling directly to other clients, which I approved. Since then we have a very small client pool and it has not made much progress.
I never looked at any proposals or agreements, contracts or such because we have marketing or legal counsel who drafts everything for us and frankly, I just assumed that our marketing manager or controller would have taken any agreement drafting to them.
I have a file on our P-Drive called "PPC Projects".in that file are all of my documents, spreadsheets, etc. That have anything to do with our past internal PPC attempts. That is where I saved everything that you sent to me. At one point I had one of the PPC managers ask me questions about our agreement with you but I thought nothing of it at the time. Now, it is clear to me that is why he asked those questionshe made his own decision to use your proposal/agreement as our boiler-plate, and simply moved forward. I called him this morning and he verified this, he apologized profusely and said that he meant to tell me but never got around to it. Which is a lame excuse. But is also a lame excuse for me to have not watched more closely over this.
Les, I sincerely, sincerely apologize. The proposal will be deleted and your documents deleted immediately. I would not have approved this, there is no need to use another proposal or agreement when my team can draft something quickly.
I am very sorry, Les.
Sincerely,
Jeff
Visit the Northstar Thinktank Blog:
Www.northstarthinktank. Typepad.com
Jeff Chavez
CEO
Northstar Ventures
8701 N. Mopac Expressway
Suite 455
Austin, TX 78759
512-225-8950
www.northstarventures.com
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