On DomainingTips, I frequently say things people don’t want to hear. I run this blog so that I can share my honest opinions about matters I consider important and love the fact that I get to make the rules. I’m not here to tell people what they want to hear, I want to tell people what I think they should hear. Today’s post won’t represent an exception.
Everyone already covered the Adam Dicker drama from the “what Adam Dicker did” perspective, so there’s little point in me investing time/energy to say things like “he made promises he didn’t keep”, “he lied to people” and so on. Yes he did, this horse has been beaten to death. You already know everything you need to know about what Adam Dicker did wrong.
Today, I’ll talk about what a lot of the people he owes money to did wrong because in my opinion, the most important lesson of all this drama is being overlooked.
In any industry, people come and go.
Some will prove to be trustworthy, others… not so much.
The main mistake a lot of those who worked with Adam Dicker made, in my opinion at least, is blindly believing someone just because he was perceived as an authority figure.
They conveniently ignored the “if something seems too good to be true, it most likely is” adage and believed promises which were obviously unrealistic. Some were beginners, fair enough but even as a beginner or should I say especially as a beginner, arming yourself with a healthy dose of common sense is paramount.
Stay far away from developers who promise you the world.
Stay far away from those who put “get rich quick”-ish offers on the table.
… or to put it differently, control your greed.
People want all sorts of things.
To lose weight.
To make money.
To be happy.
… but if possible, they want an *easy* solution.
Let’s forget about Adam Dicker for a moment.
Let’s assume John Smith is a popular figure in the domaining world.
If he writes a book about making a decent living through hard work, x people will buy it.
If he writes a book about getting rich quick, x*x*x*x people will buy it.
The same principle is valid when it comes to the other things people want.
Tell people how to lose weight by working hard and being disciplined and you’ll have a hard time finding followers. Promise them a Hollywood-level physique by next month and without hard work/discipline and they’ll buy whatever it is you’re selling with both hands. Shut up and take my money.
This, my friends, is the most important lesson which needs to be learned: the fact that if you let your desire to *insert goal here* quickly take over (lose weight quickly, make money quickly and so on) and blind you, people will take advantage of you.
And while those people are obviously to blame as well, I place most of the blame on you.
As should you.
If you were burned by someone, please don’t make the mistake of adopting a “victim” mentality and absolving yourself of any and all responsibility. You’re just deluding yourself if you do. By all means, do whatever you can to get your money back, take legal action if you can. But acknowledge your guilt in all of this, don’t conveniently overlook the most important aspect of this entire situation.
Whenever something goes wrong, start by asking yourself what you could have done differently.
Admit you were wrong or you will never learn the lessons which make the difference between getting on the right path and swimming in a sea of self-deceit by rationalizing away anything which would place even some of the responsibility on your shoulders.
I know I’m not telling people what they want to hear but c’est la vie.
I don’t run DomainingTips to be popular, I blog so that I can write about the things I consider meaningful. Some people will appreciate my approach, others won’t, this is something I have no control over.
October 28th, 2015 at 12:01 pm
Well maybe if these facts weren’t glorified on the domain sherpa show, most newbies would have never even known.
To be called Developer of the year, I have yet to see any 2015 ground breaking work, Rick Latona was making mini sites years ago, free hosting for like they said, lol
October 28th, 2015 at 12:07 pm
@Mike: if the developer of the year tells you something that’s too good to be true, don’t believe him. If the developer of the century tells you something that seems fishy, do your own due diligence. If the developer of the millennium is feeding you bs, run.
October 28th, 2015 at 12:11 pm
@Mike, you’re missing the point, Mate.
Don’t take a victim mentality is what Andrei is saying. When you saying things like “he was glorified” and “he was award winning” you’re falling right into the trap. Do your own review of his work. Ask your next developer for examples sites s/he has developed. Call his/her references and ask if they did it on time, within budget, and have a scope similar to what you’re getting quoted.
Stop being one of the herd. Just because a company gets funded and is featured on TechCrunch doesn’t mean your startup will be funded too. Just because someone was on a tv show doesn’t mean they’re an expert.
Sherpa is part entertainment, part education. They don’t verify everything said on the show, and you should treat it all as entertainment until you do your own homework.
Stop being greedy and start doing the hard work. If you find someone you think is not telling you the truth (the signs are all there), tell them to bugger off.
October 28th, 2015 at 12:19 pm
He was chosen by his peers in the domaining community as developer of the year, 2 weeks later niche websites goes offline, the development company of the year, all that tells me is this industry is filled with bullshit, and fat cats.
I read this entire namepros page, Frank Schilling said he was owed money, he got paid right away.
There is a guy on there who bought a web development package for a car sales/rental site, copyscape reported back 90 plus percent of that content was taken off bankrate.com.
He filed a PP dispute, Adam Dicker refuses to give this kid back $xxx, and actually spends time refuting the dispute.
Read it for yourself on namepros, like seriously $xxx for something that is so wrong to the core.
How do you sleep at night Adam?
Namescon might sell out if they have an Adam Dicker dunk tank
October 28th, 2015 at 12:32 pm
I have noticed in my short time in the domaining industry, there are a lot of “fools” out there. They are guillible, thirsty for success and easy to oversell on anything a succesfull domainers wants them to buy. Whether it be on courses, formulas or tools that will make you money, a mediocre domain name that a domainer celebrity is unloading at flippa because non enduser wanted it. or on the latest cool new “.com killer” domain extension.
There are domainers who work hard and figure out what works, there are domainers who dont get it and probably never will, there are those who dont commit the time and work necessary to succeed, and there are domainers who notice they can make money selling crap to lazy or clueless domainers.
People need to take the responsibility for their own poor judgement, learn from it and perform due diligence before investing enough money or time to disrupt their lives.
October 28th, 2015 at 9:54 pm
You can say that people should have done due diligence, but many people probably did just that and, finding all the praise heaped upon him by others, took that as a sign that he was trustworthy and good at what he does.
The danger here is victim blaming. Dicker knew full well that he was not delivering. Sometimes he delivered absolutely nothing and sometimes he delivered very sub-par template sites with copied content. He was aware because people were asking for refunds for up to a year. They’re still asking now, and he’s still ducking and diving, so he clearly feels no remorse. nichewebsites.com has popped back online, so it’s business as usual.
October 29th, 2015 at 3:35 am
About your point that
“The main mistake a lot of those who worked with Adam Dicker made, in my opinion at least, is blindly believing someone just because he was perceived as an authority figure.”
They paid what they thought was a competent web developer for sites. Those were not delivered – or were delivered with stolen copyright content.
Before buying they saw nichewebsites.com showing a portfolio and testimonials and no public criticism so just how would they know the guy would not deliver? How exactly were they supposed to know he was not 100%?
October 29th, 2015 at 1:10 pm
You pay one fee for spun content and another for original content, which is completely normal.
What I noticed on namepros is that the websites he built were just plain bad ideas from the start. The best web developer in the world can’t make a great website out of a bad idea.
October 29th, 2015 at 7:06 pm
You can’t blame the victim’s on their due diligence in this case imo… if it was a simple “get rich quick scheme” hidden behind a landing page/1 off video promo then your post is 100% valid you need to verify every claim made.
But imagine the results you would have found carrying out due diliegence on adam/nichewebsites/dcg before all this came out… there was barely anything negative or concerning anyone could have found….. his website had a portfolio of the few decent sites made, his company was award winning “developer of the year”, other renowned figures in the industry had given testimonials to his work, he was a real person verified through review and sherpa videos, he had been in the industry for a long time, ran a forum that had alot of content (even if not so recent), used to work for GoDaddy…. anyone who would have carried out due diligence against adam/nichewebsites prior to this news breaking I don’t believe would have caused any concern as he has delivered a few good sites to real people in the past who would have verified everything
October 29th, 2015 at 10:53 pm
@Mike: “Namescon might sell out if they have an Adam Dicker dunk tank”
He may want to think twice about entering the USA from this point forward… if even one of those screwed by him, in the USA, has reported their issue with the authorities, and referred them to the namepros site, I’d think they’d want to have a little chat with him when he crosses the border.
@Rod: I agree with almost everything you say. But not entirely with “People need to take the responsibility for their own poor judgement, learn from it and perform due diligence before investing enough money or time to disrupt their lives.” leads me to believe that he was a known fraudster to not be trusted, and that this information was at the top of searches. Remember, he knows how to scrub bad online reputation.
So when a parent of a family very young children decide to hire him to so something that they A) dont have the time to do, B) dont have the expertise to do, C) he claims all over the place that he can do better than the average Joe –why shouldnt they believe him? Especially when general searches reveal nothing bad about him. Other not-so-nice things that may have popped up probably paled in comparison to all of the “good” reputation he splattered around. How can you tell if its a disgruntled customer who went post-crazy and hit some of the popular sites with his story, but the rest is all good stuff that he made sure rose to the top?
Yes, I am a firm believer in taking responsibility for one’s own actions but at some point things are not 100% in our control. At some point *trust* *integrity* *experience* *notoriety* etc, have to come into the mix.
October 29th, 2015 at 11:11 pm
This is an ignorant post you made here. You shouldn’t make an authority post if your not an authority and obviously don’t know the whole story. Is Frank Schilling a newbie? Some that have be ripped off were far from newbies.
Find some new material dude.
October 30th, 2015 at 8:52 am
Excuse Me:
That’s like paying for College (Authority Figures that you believe will provide you with what you paid for)) and then having the teacher sleep in class….Are you kidding me with this.
October 30th, 2015 at 5:32 pm
Are you serious? You’re saying the people who take advantage of us are partially to blame BUT most of the blame lands on us?!
Put it this way.
I hired a contractor to build me a home with certain specifics such as a double-car garage, porch, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Still with me?
He goes on and on about how gorgeous this 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, double-car garage house is going to look. And it will be done within 60 days by a specific date.
That date comes and goes. You’re a nice guy though so you wait another month. You drive by and see a horrible looking shack of a garage. No house yet. You ask what’s up. He goes on and on about how it’s going to be amazing and he’ll even setup renters who will be paying a monthly income to you. He just needs another 30 days. Great!
Then another couple months goes by. You go there again and see not much has changed.
This goes on and on for over 1 year now. By now, you’ve asked for a refund for months. You’re asking this because the house consists of a garage large enough to fit a moped + 1 small bedroom and a sink. That’s it.
He says he’s done. So I’m the one to blame here for getting screwed over like this? This contractor wrote down on paper very specific things that he would build by a certain time, failed to live up to most, if not all of those things.
Can’t believe this. Yes, of course I’M the bloody victim here. And NO I’m not the one to blame for lying and stealing (selling specific services, receiving that money and not delivering IS essentially stealing).
October 30th, 2015 at 8:43 pm
Why would you hire a contractor without checking out previous clients? Do your homework, ask for references. Set milestones for payments. If he doesn’t live up to your standards fire him and find someone else.