We are writing on behalf of the users of Uniteddogs.com and Unitedcats.com (UDC) that we understand has been one of
We are aware from an article in an Estonian newspaper that the site is up for sale and the site's founder, Mr. Ragnar Sass, no longer controls the site's future as it is in the hands of a group of investors. Mr. Sass or any of the previous administrative staff are not aware that we are sending this letter.
For a long time no one made us aware that our beloved site might shut down. We believe this is unacceptable business procedure, considering that many users have purchased champion memberships, points, etc. However, more importantly is the viability of this unique network for lovers of cats and dogs. There has been total silence from anyone connected with the site and the site's Community Manager was even forbidden to communicate to us the great difficulty the site was in.
Since the launch of the Estonian version of UDC four years ago, users have been meeting and getting to know people all over the world through their pets. Unlike other sites for pet owners, UDC encourages pet owners to interact with each other regarding all aspects of their pets' care, including the death of a pet and adoption of a new one. Many people on the site have disabilities. Some are housebound and alone except for their pets. Some run shelters and some are busy professionals whose pets provide love, continuity and a sense of reality away from their hectic business lives. There simply is no other site to compare to this one (and we have investigated almost all the other pet sites available), partly because of our own emotional and creative involvement with each other and the site itself. It is one of those deeply human things, even though it is about animals, that should be preserved and not reduced to rubble simply because it isn’t lining someone’s pockets deeply enough.
We are asking for an explanation as to why we were not told the site was in trouble. It is very likely some of us could have helped. It was not only pointless to try to deceive us, it was and remains unethical.We would appreciate being kept informed about this situation. For example, why did UDC stop selling advertising? Surely this would have helped keep it solvent as the pet food industry is big business and with all the site's users, the companies had a ready-made niche-audience for their products as well as free advertising from the testimonies of pet owners themselves.
We would also like to know why the site cannot be sold back to its founders or to another interested party.
We would like to know what is being done to keep the site alive. The site had about 350,000 users. Often over 150 would be logged in at one time just on one language site! That is not a failing site. Why then was financial support withdrawn? There are petitions to keep the site alive currently being signed with large numbers of signatures.
Our main concern as loyal users is how our beloved UDC can be saved. If it could be saved by being purchased, we plead with any interested party to look into that possibility. If there is something that we as users can do, tell us.
On behalf of UDC users:
Dr. Marketa J Zvelebil (UK
Marsha Samaya Whelan (Canada
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (
2 comments:
Dear Marketa,
Please let me give comments on some facts, that can be really easily proven officially.
First of all UDC have raised money not OVER 1 Million EUR, but LESS than 1 Million USD. Euro is much stronger that dollar - it makes about 20 % difference (1 Euro = 1.2287 U.S. dollars)
Legends about high salaries are totally false. Independent consultants have agreed that our salaries were below average compared to same positions in Estonia in other companies. Former team members, who have already found new jobs, also got much higher salaries than they had in UDC. Our most talented founder - creative director - had 4 different offers immediately, including from Skype.
In March 2010 financial auditor also inspected United Dogs & Cats as part of the annual company review and did not find any mistakes or problems.
In addition founders were working free for this project more than 1.5 years, before they quited their previous jobs and focused only to UDC.
Servers costs were not a penny more, than it should be for such big traffic. In the high season we had more than 20 million page-views per months. And I believe all users have seen what has happened with the site speed during last weeks when server costs were taken down together with servers capability to support the traffic.
In April the team offered to buy out UDC but they refused - today they have smaller offers on the table.
These are some of the facts. I am sorry, but I can't describe other official facts as this is not allowed by legal contract.
Regards,
Ragnar
We have a reply from Raivo Hein:
Dear Marketa,
Thanks for a letter. To be very concrete, as you know, all business is about money. Mr Ragnar Sass as CEO failed to bring company profitable. He spent over 1 Mio EUR investors money without any result. What you think, how eager investors are after this to finance more?
Your described 150 users is not per country but total number. This is marginal number, total cliks per day is smthng 5000. I hope you understand, that no advertisers want spend their money to nothing on this number of click. Our other sites (classifieds etc we have) here in Estonia bring over 100000 unic users per day, this is about milions of cliks.
Ragnar spent money to huge stuff with salaries big even in our region comparing to big countries. As startup, he hired over 10 employees with fancy names (like creative director etc). His desicions about everyday business and UDC strategy were quit unprofessional manner. He bought services sometimes 10 times higher price (ie server costs etc).
Finalizing, UDC have zero money, huge amount of depts (including state tax office), zero employees and without office.
Good news is that we still able to hold server online and tomorrow we meet one possible new investor who wants to buy business.
Thanks
Raivo
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