History of bb.com: Live video chat Friday 5-30-08 with the DeLuca brothers

[G o a t b o y]

colˇleague (klg)
n.
A fellow member of a profession, staff, or academic faculty; an associate. See Synonyms at partner.

Would that make Bob a rodent as well? Or can colleagues be of different species? 

[affy]

his story is pretty amazing

very motivating for young entrepreneurs.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time though.  He posted this a while back on bb.com

PTII

PTIII

PT IV

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=7224141&page=2

even though this thread derailed horribly

Ryan just posted PT V

so here it is for those interested

How Bodybuilding.com Started - Part 5.

Starting a business is risky.

You could lose all of your money (and more depending on how much debt you use to get started). You could lose your house. You could lose your reputation. You could lose your self-esteem. You could lose your family. Starting a business usually leads to financial strain, extreme stress, and spending more time working than being with your family.

You could even get into legal trouble and end up in jail. It might not even be due to something you personally did, but as the business owner, you are responsible for what your employees do while working for you.

I knew this was a possibility, but I didn't really think that hard about it until the police broke into our offices with shotguns, bulletproof vests, and killer attack wolverines (well, that's what those German Shepherds looked like at the time).

I had no idea what was going on. Did we do something wrong? Were they in the wrong building? As they secured the building and gathered all of our employees into one room, I could only hear the deafening roar of my heart beating inside my skull.

A man dressed in a business suit walked in once they felt that it was safe, and walked right out to our warehouse. They started looking at the products on our shelves. When they came across the Cytodyne Xenadrine, the stopped, and pulled a few bottles down and started inspecting them. They appeared to have found what they were looking for, and then proceeded to take the rest of the Xenadrine inventory off of the shelves and into the main office area.

It was counterfeit Xenadrine, and they thought we were the ones making it and distributing it. A company had knocked off their extremely popular product by putting similar ingredients in a bottle, and then putting a fake Xenadrine label on it.

It was immediately obvious to them after seeing our operation that we were not the ones responsible for creating the counterfeit product. We were a victim of it as well. Nobody was going to jail and nobody was going to be led away in handcuffs.

At the time, we had many product distributors contacting us each day, trying to get us to become a customer and buy products from them to sell to our customers. The company that was selling the fake Xenadrine had contacted us like any other. They called and said they had extra Xenadrine stock, and we could buy it at a discounted rate. We jumped at the chance, like any company would and we stocked up. The people at Cytodyne heard about this counterfeiter, and placed an order on our site to see if it was us. When they received one of the knock off products, they contacted the authorities and organized the raid.

After I learned what they were there for, I started to relax. "See, it wasn't us. We can prove it by telling you who we bought it from. We are just a small company, with great values, trying to do what is right and trying to grow our business."

They admitted that we were not at fault, but what happened next taught me a valuable lesson.

Cytodyne had obviously spent a lot of money on legal fees trying to stop the counterfeiting. They knew we were not responsible for it, but they had to recoup their costs. They still sued us. We were a small company, trying to make ends meet, with employees and families to take care of, but they didn't care. They said we had to pay them $10,000 or the lawsuit would continue. After months of fighting (without lawyers on our side, we were too small to afford them), we finally settled and paid them. It hurt. It hurt even worse since we believed we were a victim and not at fault.

We had no choice but to pay them. We were small, and they were big. We were weak, and they were powerful. At that moment, I felt what it was like to be small, vulnerable and weak. I vowed at that moment that if we ever became big and powerful as a company, we would never treat another company or person like they were not as important as we were.

I'm proud that we have consistently applied this value over the last nine years, even as we surpassed $100 million in sales. I feel we are still that small company. I know what it is like, and when I see other small companies that want to work together with us, I'm pleased when they tell me how important we made them feel. We give them a chance. We are open, honest, and we work to make the pie bigger for all of us, instead of just taking our share at the expense of others.

We also now have the option of suing others if we find them harming us in some way. Many times we have found people stealing content from our site, or illegally using our trademarks, and our lawyers will sometimes recommend that we sue them and get them shut down. That's not our style. Instead, I send them a nice e-mail asking them to discontinue their actions. To this day, we've never sued another company or individual.

Starting a business is risky, but the potential rewards outweigh the risks. Do the right thing, focus on people and values, and good things will happen.

(By the way, Cytodyne is a completely different company now with different people running it, and we love working together with them. No hard feelings.)

[michael arvilla]

Would that make Bob a rodent as well? Or can colleagues be of different species? 

 

[CQ]

Thanks for posting those Affy - great reads..

[michael arvilla]

Thanks for posting those Affy - great reads..

lol!..................you actually read them?!!?

[G o a t b o y]

Thanks for posting those Affy - great reads..

CQ....  what do you think of Bob calling his colleague 240 a rodent?

[CQ]

lol!..................you actually read them?!!?

Every last word

Seriously, good reads, I read super fast anyway [seriously], and I am an entrepreneur myself. Needless to say, the Deluca's are like a million times more successful than me, so if I can pick up a tip or two I'm on it.

CQ....  what do you think of Bob calling his colleague 240 a rodent?

I am a fan of them both, so I shall remain neutral in this dispute

[saucetradomous]

Seems to me the only factual dispute here is the exact wording of what you said, whether it was "I can find out if you ordered from bb.com", or if you implied that you had access to customer records.  Since the original posts aren't all on the board anymore, unless 240 still has his copy saved this is destined to become a 20-page thread of "no I didn't" "yes you did". 

I recall this incident and from what I remember his wording did suggest he had access to personal information regarding bodybuilding.com's customers.  Maybe Matt C saved it with all the other shit he backed up.  Yall should check with that tulip.

[Matt C]

I recall this incident and from what I remember his wording did suggest he had access to personal information regarding bodybuilding.com's customers.  Maybe Matt C saved it with all the other shit he backed up.  Yall should check with that tulip.

Yeah, I have it saved.  I think Bob just said that on the defensive against some of 240 or Bust's musings.

BB.com broke even for the first four years of their business due to constant reinvestment back into the business plan from what I understand after speaking with some of the BB.com guys about it.  At that point (2003, just shortly before Bob joined), they were doing about 12 million per year in sales.  This year they are projecting 124 million.    I'm in the process of revamping my website in a manner where it is almost perfectly targeted to direct traffic to BB.com.  I'm trying to make it a streamlined machine for more sales for them.  Being that the USA is in a recession right now, I wonder if BB.com can continue with its forward progress.

[Tre]

Idaho - Are these guys Latter-Day Saints? 

[michael arvilla]

 
DID YOU KNOW? Lemmings are small and plump. They belong to the rodent family. Mice, rats, rabbits, and squirrels are rodents too.

Like most rodents, lemmings have lots of babies.

In the winter, lemmings dig tunnels under the snow. The lemmings use the tunnels to hide from hungry animals that want to eat them. 
 
 

[Brutal_1]

colˇleague (klg)
n.
A fellow member of a profession, staff, or academic faculty; an associate. See Synonyms at partner.

lol 

[Ron]

Dude - 240 - King of the Lemmings... you are so senstive... jeez... I am actually laughing on this one.

Ok, lets go over something. It is too much time to go and get an ip, and then try to get information on someone via bb's accounts. Get real. Bob doesnt care nor have the time or can do that. It means you need to go into an account database at bb.com's headquarters and that is not going to happen. So forget it.

1 hour and counting to ask the DeLUcas some good questions. Serious ones. 

It will be fun.

But be careful... when you log in there, your ip will be showing, and then I may need to go into their database and get your personal info!

[Matt C]

I will try to catch the program.

I would like someone to ask how much BB.com feels that Bob working so closely with the website has helped to increase sales.  The fact that he has been with them for so long would compel me to believe he has done them well.

Can I ask them if they "arranged" to have Bob Chick "win" the Master's?

Can I ask them why Bob Chick claimed to be able to access our personal info?

Can I ask them why their site chooses to affiliate with a known racist like Matt C?

Can I ask them if the reason they chose not to webcast the NY Pro is because they knew it would suck ass and all the seats would be empty?

I would encourage you to ask these questions.

Have you ever heard the expression "Lay enough rope and he will hang himself"?

Trust me, the peanut gallery pissed their credibility up the wall on this topic already and there is some serious risk of getbig being deemed even more immature and caustic if these kinds of questions are asked.  So ask them - please.

[dr.chimps]

Bob already backtracked on this back when it happened.  It was obvious to all of us that a company like bb.com would not give a "sponsored athlete" access to anything like that, we called him on it, then after a day he claimed to have never said it, but 240 saved the post and re-posted his quote.  It was hilarious! 

Yup. I remember this. It was one incident in about two weeks worth of 240 vs. Chickster heavyweight salvos.

/attrition seemed to be broken when the Chickster thought he had 240 by the IP balls and 240 swore by his child's life that he did not write the (racist) post. very ugly stuff. 

[G o a t b o y]

I would encourage you to ask these questions.

Have you ever heard the expression "Lay enough rope and he will hang himself"?

Trust me, the peanut gallery pissed their credibility up the wall on this topic already and there is some serious risk of getbig being deemed even more immature and caustic if these kinds of questions are asked.  So ask them - please.

I have no plans of even participating in this, so you need not worry.  However, shall I post a quote or two or yours that extoll the virtues of Jews and African Americans if you think I'm so far off base?

[Camel Jockey]

I have no plans of even participating in this, so you need not worry.  However, shall I post a quote or two or yours that extoll the virtues of Jews and African Americans if you think I'm so far off base?

Strawman 

[G o a t b o y]

Strawman 

 

[richardbarnet]

Idaho - Are these guys Latter-Day Saints? 

Ryan answers this question and more in the video replay, now available here:

http://www.justin.tv/bbcom/120375

 

[Special Ed]

Very cool and motivational story! Always good to read about the success of self-made men.

[Meltdown]

Special Ed once you fix the sound and talk up your show will be great.Very casual Very Good.

[dearth]

nice of you to delete my earlier post, chick.
shows that you can't handle the truth.

here it is again

simple truth:

chick claims to be able to have access to any bb.com customer's credit card info
Ryan deluca posts on getbig just to state that chicks claim is BS

[Tre]

10 minutes into the broadcast...this is good stuff.  Gotta respect these guys for coming out and giving a public face to their company.