This interview is provided by: www.ptcscrutiny.com
Admin of NeoBux.
1. Firstly, it would be nice to know your name. However, if you would like to keep it private, then I have no issues with it.
My name is Fernando although 99% of the people I deal with on a
daily basis call me "Admin”. Many of the ones that don’t know me from
the remaining 1% actually use an imaginary surname to mention me
although I’m not sure why.
2. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did the idea of opening NeoBux spring up?
I’m just the kind of person you happen to bump into everyday
and I don’t really like to get adjectives to describe myself as I prefer
the honesty of those who know me. NeoBux was created as a
"proof-of-concept” to replace the old and deprecated PTC model with
something that actually worked.
3. Lets begin with your Hot-Dog stand. Is it true that you own one or it is just a joke that has been taken seriously by a few?
It’s quite easy. If you find a hot-dog stand that allows you to
get extra toppings on your hot-dog for free only by exchanging
NeoPoints, you’ll have your answer.
4. Besides obvious financial gain, what inspired you to open a PTC site?
Self financial gain was never and still isn’t in the top 10 of
NeoBux’s priorities. It didn’t start out that way and even today we
still share most of our profit with our users / advertisers being it
with prizes and / or price reductions (either permanent or during a
promotional period). The inspiration, or should I say "the need to
create something better” came from using a site which pretended to be a
PTC and failed to pay me. Since I wasn’t the only one, I decided that
something had to be done to prove that a true business can and will be
successful. So yes, a simple $10 debt started it all.
5. Managing a site like Neobux must be a grueling task. How
do you do it ? Do you delegate tasks to the right people giving them
authority to make certain decisions or do you like to micro-manage your
team? What type of leader are you?
The core is my own responsibility from the development of the
application to the management of the entire site’s structure. We have
IT, marketing, and financial consultants (besides many others in
different fields) who give us a helping hand to always make the best
possible decisions. All remaining areas are handled by others such as
moderators for the forum, personnel for support, etc. Nothing out of the
ordinary goes on behind the scenes, everything is just normal business…
for those that think we do throw a party in the office every now and
then, sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t. I’m the kind of leader that
has a visionary approach and therefore I love a similar return from
those that work by my side.
6. What is your previous experience with a PTC?
As a member it’s almost null. The only experience I had, as
explained above, was not being paid after using a site for less than 1
month. As an Administrator, and only referring to the PTC area, this is
my first venture.
7. Is your PTC site your main source of income?
No, as it would go against the philosophy on which NeoBux was
built. NeoBux is mainly an income source for its users and I am always
the one that comes last in the list but still I have nothing to complain
for. That’s the beauty of it and that priceless course will remain
untouched.
8. What according to you has been your biggest success to date?
I could get you a huge list that would answer that question. I
don’t actually have a top 10 of achievements and successes because, in
my perspective, every single aspect contributes to a perfectly polished
final product. All of those accomplishments can be simply resumed in 4
major points that define what NeoBux is and what granted it its
successful position today: Professional, Innovative, Caring, and
Serious.
9. Let’s flip the previous question, what has been the biggest mistake you wish you had never made?
Letting NeoBux conduct itself to such an exponential growth in a
short amount of time. Although it’s not exactly a mistake (quite the
opposite), it has its drawbacks. Being absolutely professional,
responsible, and offering quality services all around the clock is a
hard and demanding task. Sometimes I feel that it would be much easier
to work for a less successful project but in the end I love what I do
and that keeps me going.
10. Which forums and blogs do you visit regularly to see what others are saying about your site?
Absolutely none. Did that in our first months of existence as a
support backup but soon realized what really goes on there and it
obviously goes against the nature of our model due to many easily seen
factors. Our users’ opinion is always valued and they do contact us
often with suggestions, ideas, or simply to say they love us… yes,
support work is indeed not all about support.
11. What do you think makes NeoBux stand out from all other PTCs?
Not only we don’t compete with anyone, we actually help many
site in every way we can. The few PTCs that someone with knowledge can
actually classify as such are all great in their own way and really
complement our model by the fact that they offer many small things that
aren’t based on our business methodology. This complementary help is
great so that users and advertisers can have the best of all worlds in a
single package (if you combine everything together, obviously). We’ll
never take any site as a competitor because, as I referred above, it
would be great to have more sites like ours. That is the whole point of
creating a "proof-of-concept”: Creating something new, that works, and
that others can use the same way. I thought it would take only a few
months for that to happen but, more than 3 years after, I’m still
waiting for someone to help us entirely. When that day comes, the last
part of the concept will finally be completed. Wish there were more like
us, though… that would make me very happy indeed.
Basically we don’t stand out as we take a much larger approach
to the core model. Every good standing PTC excels in their own grounds
which is absolutely great. In short we stand out for being something
different.
12. You managed to sustain a full ‘bux’ site for close to 3
years whereas all other sites which tried to copy, couldn’t last for
more than 6 months. What do you think is the reason behind the success
of NeoBux ?
The main reason is basically being fair and always using a
business model pointed towards users instead of ourselves. Those that
you’ve mentioned cannot be compared to us as they’re totally different
internally. Regarding the erroneous "bux” part when referring to NeoBux:
People call many things by different names especially when they can’t
understand the true concept. When you see a Sports Car and if you
understand the true concept of it, you’ll know that a Sports Car is
based on an actual car but has many tweaks and additions that make it
even better. You wouldn’t call it a bike, would you? NeoBux doesn’t
differ from that as it’s a PTC underneath with lots of tweaks and
additions. The so called "Bux” model is what people refer to the failed
attempts to mimic us and that model has many variables which don’t exist
in our DNA thus our continued success and their eminent short life. If
we had just one of those variables we wouldn’t be NeoBux and, most
importantly, we wouldn’t be here today. Since people usually separate us
from that illegal part, a denotation had to be found and that was it.
The only "Bux” part we have is actually in our name. Our success is
simply due to the fact that we stick to business always with a caring
human touch.
13. You made a bold decision to make changes, which did not
go down well with members (especially Standard members). Apart from
attracting more advertisers what made you take this decision?
NeoBux has always been a PTC website. We never changed our
business model, but we did changes (and we will continue to do so) which
are welcomed improvements/additions for our users and advertisers. Not
only makes advertisers get more for less but users also. It’s a simple
concept that not only increased both sides of our site’s usage but also
dropped cheaters almost entirely as an added bonus. My biggest concern
is that those kind of people don’t stop and having left us they ended up
somewhere else and hopefully they can deal with them as we did all
those years. So yes, cheaters complained, also a few members who
misunderstood the advantages at first did complain but, in the end,
everyone else confirmed that the visionary changes were indeed the best
that could have happened. More success for advertisers, more profit for
our users, a huge drop in false registrations, a slight increase in
valid registrations (especially due to the high increase of direct
referrals many users are getting now), and a small (although noticeable)
overall activity increase. Everything worked better than planned and we
were even granted some excellent unplanned bonuses. My main excitement
is that this is only the beginning of something wonderful.
14. What is NeoBux going to do to attract more Standard
members. Due to the recent changes many have left or vowed to leave the
site. So what is NeoBux planning to do to win them over again?
Many of the few that left (and I’m referring to real users, not
fake ones) have already returned. This happens every time and it’s like
a tradition. Not only few have left but now we’ve witnessed a huge
increase in new members who actually stick around much longer than
before which only proves that the right path has been taken as
predicted.
15. Standard members who don’t have time to spend on the
internet throughout the day or who don’t have daily access to the
internet (and also for lazy people who just simply don’t want to work
hard) earn about $0.0015 through their own clicks. Are you thinking of
providing alternative opportunities (apart from NeoPoints) to these
members to increase their daily earnings?
As everything in life, we all get what we work for. Sure, a
user can only visit us for a few minutes daily and earn a smaller amount
than the ones that do it twice per day, for example. That amount you’ve
mentioned can be easily earned in less than one minute by any user. We
appreciate it a lot when our members spend more time than a few seconds
and we make sure that they will be rewarded for it. Activity currently
plays an important role in users’ benefits but, in the near future, it
will be the ultimate earning potential. Currently a user with low
activity can earn a lot depending on the option he/she chooses and
that’s why, in the future, we’ll make activity the best of things. We
offer several earning possibilities and users choose the one that suits
best their lifestyle and ambitions. Our advertisers look for the best
potential costumers they can get and we do everything within our reach
to deliver it. New earning opportunities unseen before are scheduled to
happen for everyone. Some will actually be astounded when the time
comes.
16. Back in 2008, NeoBux suffered a major setback when its
Paypal was limited. I can’t recall any PTC which has managed to have its
Paypal account restored after limitation. If I am not wrong, the issue
was solved in about 15 days. Tell us how you did you deal with the
problem and did you ever think that it would be the end of NeoBux
(considering that 72% of the funds were frozen) ?
PayPal had, and I think it still does, a very professional
approach in which all accounts with high thresholds are blocked twice in
their early days. The second time, however, is only unlocked by real
businesses that comply with all legislations. The problem was dealt as
professionally as possible from both parties and it took a while to be
solved due to all the required confirmations from both ends. Never
thought for one second that it could be the end of NeoBux because, since
the first day, one of our main internal policy rules was to always have
at least three times the amount of funds required to pay our users
therefore what was held was just two thirds of the extra backup funds.
For that period we kept doing business as usual and only requested small
donations from our users, until we balanced the other payment
processor’s funds, which wasn’t necessary since the recovery was faster
than anticipated and all users who donated got something back for their
incredible trust and kindness
17. Lets rewind back to September, 2009. A site called SvBux
shut down over night and you decided to refund those who invested there.
The amount was around $40,000 which is by no means a small amount.
You’ve always maintained that NeoBux is not affiliated to any other PTC
so what was your motive behind this?
NeoBux isn’t and never was affiliated to any other website.
That was just a small public sample of the help we give our users
privately every day. Although NeoBux is a serious business in every way,
part of our philosophy is to treat users as part of our family.
Wouldn’t you help a family member in need if you could do it? In this
particular case, it was a way to try to raise the public awareness that a
"bux” model is destined for failure (even the forced investment ones
will, although they’ll obviously outlast others). I knew from the start
that this wouldn’t stop many from committing the same mistake again (and
they prove that everyday), but after many requests from users cheated
in that particular site and a few others before, I felt the need to help
them with this small contribution. Those that learned the lesson are
still faithful because that bad experience could have cost them a lot.
Some will never learn but they can’t say they haven’t been warned.
18. One user (Darkstar2) has mentioned about a trend which
has been observed time and again on the forum. He says, ” On the issue
of locked topics, it has been observed by several members that so many
topics get locked on the forum, sometimes without as much as an
explanation from a moderator. In certain cases a topic gets locked
without a single reply. Certain topics get answered, but there are cases
where the answers given are cut & paste and exact replicas of
answers given before. Don’t you think it would be good to let other
people add their constructive comments and advices, certain topics are
rightfully locked, but some are locked way too soon and would certainly
benefit from user response. "
What would like to say about this?
All I can say is that no matter how hard we try to have an
updated and precise help system, many will still prefer to ask the same
questions over and over instead of reading them. All those topics are
answered and locked to avoid the inevitable off-topic posts that would
make the search even more difficult. There’s no way to change the way
how things are done by those that don’t look for answers. We’ll keep on
trying as always.
19. Many members have urged me to ask you to disclose your
site stats (apart from those you revealed in the NeoBux Trivia) like
Total no. of members and no. of upgraded members. Can you provide us
with the figures ?
All statistical data are offered occasionally and only unveiled when necessary.
20. You like to keep your cards close to your chest and
surprise members. However, I’d still like to ask if there any more
innovations that members can be excited about?
NeoBux is, and always has been, a planned project that exceeds
the 3 to 5 years timetable. So yes, currently there are changes and
additions scheduled to happen at specific points in the future and the
last scheduled one is meant for 2016 and it obviously won’t be the final
change as many others will already be scheduled by then. I am
absolutely excited with all the new things to come and I know that our
users, although they can’t be excited right now as they don’t know the
great benefits they’ll get in the future, they’ll sure be happy when the
time comes. As always I won’t spoil the surprise and every change has
its specific time to happen.
21. And finally is there anything else you wish to say which I have not covered in this interview?
I’ve covered this already but I feel it’s important to cover
this once more. I just wished more and more sites like our existed to
make this industry something very special. Only one would make me and
every one of our users happy. I’ll end with an appeal for all of those
that want to contribute: Don’t copy just our body because our soul is
what makes us special.
Thank you very much Fernando (now that we know your name) for your valuable time in answering the questions.
I’d like to thank everybody who helped me in building the set of questions. Without your help this wouldn’t be possible.
I hope everyone enjoyed reading this much awaited interview.
August 14, 2011
