Need business advice: Would you help a wildly successful competitor if they asked you
 

I just got asked to do something and don't know how to respond:

I know the owner of a VERY successful multi million dollar website that covers every niche. They got in the game early and will be big forever.
They want to expand and go into my small microniche and focus on it.
My site is new and small, but has promise and I love it.

They are planning on buying the biggest site in my niche (my biggest competitor), and they asked me for my opinion on the site and my advice.

Would you help them, or no? Or would you ask for money to help them?
On the one hand, whether you help them or not, they're going to do it anyways. So it might be good to get in on their good side.
On the other hand do you really want to help create a 500lb Gorilla in your niche that competes with you?

as a zinger, they also made a comment that they don't think my site will ever make money because I got in too late. I was kind of pissed about that comment.

Right up until the last comment I might have said, help them (in a limited way). Now I say, fuck them. Make your site the most kickass site and prove the motherfuckers wrong. :winkwink:

I was thinking that too. When he said that I had that Rocky/karate kid feeling in me, like Ill prove him wrong.

Charge them a boat load and give them bad advice so you make money while they fail

Go with it, Danielson. Rip him a new one.

What have you got to lose?

If you help him AND he whips your ass in the SERPs then you will feel like a tool. At least if you give it your best effort and he still whips you, you'll feel like slightly better.

But here's the thing...will he really beat you? He sounds either scared or over-confident to me. The little guy concentrating on the one niche is a power to be reckoned with when you run a general site. My money would be on you and I dont even know the sites; its just logic.

Short answer. No.

Many of the 'BROS', or more accurately big companies, have come into my niche(s) and not been successful. Whether they have all the money in the world, or not, that doesn't mean they know how to shoot it correctly or offer value to the consumer.

I'd tell them, "good luck", and let them figure it out themselves.

So 'spot on' it's scary.

From the info you just described I would tell them nothing more than piss off.

Yes. they spend more money in ads in a month then I spend in 3 years (right now).

Thanks, I feel a little like that too. I love my site and my niche, and I hang out and chat with my members so we're becoming friends. Some of them are referring their friends and mentioning my site in their email lists and forums for free because they want to help me grow it, and because I ask.

The good thing with micro niches and big companies: They think it's profitable, but they'll never understand it as well as a single niche site owner. Just look at smoking fetish, a pretty popular small niche many big programs cover. 90% of the sites around are a total failure, because they don't know what people really want to see.

:1orglaugh that's cold...

From a reviewer standpoint, microniche sites' members' areas on giant networks just plain suck, with few to no exceptions. Most have a tiny amount of content, never update, and the content that is up misses the mark in rather big ways and usually doesn't really cater to true fans of the niche. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt the problems are due to lack of money or time to shoot content, since the more "mainstream" porn category sites on the same networks usually continue to update regularly. The problems seem to come from a lack of understanding the niche...an understanding that apparently your friend hopes to gain from you.

Overall, it doesn't really seem like a good move from your end unless you set up some kind of ongoing revenue sharing agreement with them.