Paul Stenson

Chapter 9: Tits & Ass, “I QUIT” says BS, Even More Money, Even More Money, Even More Money

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Tits & Ass

One evening in early March 2013, I was sitting in the office watching a live feed of a maths grind on my laptop which was being streamed from our studio next door. I liked to do this. If I saw that the feed was coming smoothly to my computer, I could assume that it was also running smoothly on the laptops of all 6 or 7 viewers across the country (out of a potential 55,000 approx.), who were tuned in that evening.

I always loved being in the OnlineGrinds office in the evening, as there were life drawing sessions taking place in the Trinity Arts Workshop (TAW) just across the road. The window of the TAW was boarded up so that innocent passers-by wouldn’t be greeted with images of tits and ass (sometimes saggy, other times hairy) as they were walking through Pearse Street. But there was an area at the top of the window that had no boarding. They obviously couldn’t reach that high from the inside. But why would they need to? There were no black NBA players in Dublin and all the offices across the road would be empty in the evening time when the models would bare all. So they thought :).

It was through this gap we could get a bird’s eye view of the models. The trajectory from my chair to the podium was no less than perfect. Pity what we saw wasn’t always as perfect, however. The naked beasts were also in an eyeshot of the teachers as they were presenting to camera. We ended up having to put curtains on the studio window so our male teachers wouldn’t become distracted (and erect) during the grind. We left the office window clear though.

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One of the male models across the road from OnlineGrinds.ie. Girls and Gays can click to increase size of image.

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One of the female models in an eye-shot of the OnlineGrinds.ie offices. Men and Lesbians can click to increase size of image.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I remind you that if you have an issue with any of the content I am posting, you are more than welcome to follow the complaints procedure which can be found in the Preface section of this blog.

“I QUIT” says BS

So, there I was sitting watching the live feed of Pythagoras theorem on the laptop and the live feed of boobies and balls across the road (in equal measure might I add), when I got a ping on the laptop. It was an email from BS.

It was not unusual to receive an email from BS around this time. It would be incredibly unusual (to the point that I’d fall off the chair I was already sitting on the edge of, lest a tech issue arose) to receive a phone call from him, but not an email. In fact, BS was quite gifted in the art of email writing. I am pretty sure he must have had some form of qualification in the discipline, particularly when it came to punctuation and CAPITALISATION of words. In any case, the email went as follows (click on text to increase size):

director

(Another) email from BS

So, BS ‘wanted out’ in terms of his capacity as a director, but still wanted to remain a third owner of the business. For all intents and purposes, this did not make a blind bit of difference in practical terms, as he was perpetually absent from the office in any case. But in terms of my motivation levels??? …… Nah, no difference there either. In fact, the feeling of non-description I experienced when I received this email would make me wonder why I am writing about it at all. However, the truth is that there is a very good reason why I am mentioning it here, and this will all become apparent in a later chapter.

Even More Money, Even More Money, Even More Money

We went through the €10k at the same speed it would take a school of piranhas to go through the carcass of a horse. In fact, not a horse, more like a Shetland pony, or a pygmy goat; an animal of that kind of magnitude. Having launched the site officially in mid Jan, it was now March and we had savaged our way through a whopping €50k. So, what was I going to do? There was only one option; I had to go back to Mommy and Daddy (Sean), looking for more bread.

This time I was a little more sheepish, but hey presto, after a lot of persuasive coaxing and genuflection, I got another €30,000. It took a considerable length of time to physically get this cash, however. There were detailed heads of terms sheets (that I didn’t understand at all – it was as if they were written in some obscure dialect of Swahili) which required careful and cautious study. It also meant a dilution in our shareholding at the time, and an increase in Sean’s.

At this point BS had resigned as a dick, I mean, director, and had no desire to continue doing any work for the company free gratis. He wanted to remain a third owner with no more input from his end. Why should he? The slopes of Chamonix and Val d’Isere were of far greater importance to him than a company set to democratise the grinds industry. He had no interest in improving the site, creating any new pages, adding any new logic which would allow us to capture more information on our customers for re-marketing, the list goes on. For example, we asked him to put a live chat widget on the site and he made up some story about how long this would take and how difficult a task it would be. It was obviously never done (SL). The guy who developed my new www.FrenchGrinds.com site was able to put a live chat widget on the homepage within the space of 10-15 minutes. No exaggeration.

The long and the short of it is that BS treated the company as if he were a contractor, rather than an owner, and this pissed me off to the point of wanting to torture him slowly. I didn’t want to throw him to a pack of lions or tigers with razor sharp canines who would rip him to pieces violently and quickly, I wanted to throw him to a flock of man eating sheep or goats with blunt teeth who would gnaw away at him slowly and painfully.

So, realising that BS was not acting like an owner, but more like a contractor (in other words being a complete asshole), Sean recommended that his shareholding be diluted more than mine. I was company founder and I was acting as such. Despite the fact that BS and Sean each had 1/3 of the company, I still owned 1/3. At no point did I ever put a line under my commitment, or even enter a date into the shareholder’s agreement stating when my time was up. This kind of behaviour didn’t enter my thoughts. Why? I’ll tell you why:

OnlineGrinds.ie was mine; I was going to work on it tirelessly until it became a success.

So, when Sean devised a proposed new shareholding structure, meaning BS would have less equity than me, BS hit the roof. World War III had graced the OnlineGrinds.ie offices. Only momentarily however, as BS’s visits lasted a duration of approximately 15-20, every couple of months. The rest of the war was conducted via the medium of email. As I said before, perhaps if BS spent as much time working on the project as he did writing emails, we would have gone somewhere. Then again, no, you can only go places if you are actually a good developer (SL).

Below is an extract from an email where our investor Sean proposed that BS’ shareholding be diluted more than mine on receipt of the further €30k. Sean’s wording is in blue, BS’ is in black:

World war 3

(Yet another vomit-inducing) email from BS

A close friend of mine said to me yesterday that he wretches every time he reads BS’ emails. Do you wretch too?

Sean eventually backed down (which I was little put out by, if I am being honest) and our shareholding was diluted evenly. I’ll never forget the number of conditions that were set by BS at that point. He was going to do x number of hours on this and y number of hours on that but by no means go over z number of hours on the other. Again, he was supposed to be an owner of this business. What an absolute loser (SL).

Published tomorrow – Chapter 10: New Ideas and a Possible Deal with UPC

Chapter 7: Burn Baby Burn, More Money More Money More Money, €10k Loan

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Burn Baby Burn

Broadcasting live and interactive grinds was by no means a cheap affair. In fact, it was fucking expensive. We would pay teachers up to €110 per hour to come in and deliver their grind. Paying this kind of money would be fine if we had 15 or so students tuning in to watch every live broadcast, each paying €10 for the service. The problem was that students rarely purchased the ‘pay-per-grind’ €10 package. Instead, they bought the ‘pay-per-month’ deal where they would get access to all live and archived grinds for the month, all for €50. This was what EVERYONE went for. So, this meant that you could have a teacher delivering his grind, with only 2 students tuning in. This was a common occurrence in our physics grinds. Now, you don’t need to be Einstein or Newton to realise that we weren’t making money with this business model.

The cash burn rate was mega. I have never seen a business burn cash as quickly. It was like taking €80,000 in €5 notes, putting them into a wooden barrel, getting a group of dwarves to do an Irish jig in the barrel, dousing the compressed notes with airline fuel, closing the lid, getting the dwarves to roll the barrel to Ballymun on Halloween night and fuck it into the nearest bonfire. In fact, no, you would be pushed to burn cash as quickly this way as you would by broadcasting live and interactive grinds.

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A bonfire in Ballymun

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Our team of dwarves. Yes they like to strip occasionally. Especially when they are around fire.

More Money More Money More Money

Remember that every grind we broadcast on a live and interactive basis would be put into an archive to be viewed at a later point at a cheaper price (€5 as opposed to €10). It was for this reason that we took the gamble of losing money hand over fist with the live and interactive element, as students could still watch and pay for the archived grinds in their own time. Did this ever happen? No sir.

The archive element never really took off. Although, the most money we ever made was over the Easter holidays, where we packaged all of our archive content up for the attractive sum of €30. This was a big hit. And guess what, no liveness, no interactivity. This was the first time I began to question the live and interactive model. The fact that nobody had ever attempted this before was now beginning to make so much sense to me. I’ll never forget a man called Philip O’Callaghan from the Super Generation (hi Philip if you are reading!) telling me that I would be pissing in the wind if I were to embark on a journey of live and interactive grinds. I should have listened to Philip. Hey Philip, (I KNOW you are reading), pints on me next time!

€10k Loan

Realising that we were (figuratively speaking) walking a short distance down to the River Liffey and fucking about 6 €50 notes into the beautifully clean water on a daily basis, I had to give Sean a ring. Ringing Sean asking him for more money always reminded me of asking my parents for more pocket money. I would have to convince them that I wasn’t simply going to buy sweets, but something much more healthy. Fortunately Sean was a little more forthcoming with the cash than mum or dad. My sweet story seemed to work a lot better for him.

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A kid with his hand out looking for more pocket money. He is using the piggy as a prop to suggest the money will be saved. Smart kid.

So, having convinced Sean that our need for about €10k more was for purposes much more important than Skittles and Moro bars, the money was transferred, along with a very comprehensive loan note (another differentiating factor from my sweet dealings with mum and dad). This brought Sean’s total investment in OnlineGrinds.ie to €50k; the original €40k investment funds, plus the €10k loan. It was only late January, a mere 2 weeks after we had officially launched.

You need to listen up now very attentively and carefully to what I am about to say:

One of the conditions of the loan note was that if, for any reason, the €10k could not be repaid, Sean’s company would have the right to take the assets from our company. A much more sinister condition than any loving mammy or daddy would attach to a sweet deal, says you.

Please don’t forget what you just read in the past 5 seconds. It is imperative that you remember this information.

Next Chapter – Chapter 8: Press Coverage and A Love Letter from Arthur’s Cock

Chapter 6: The Daily Grind

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10

In the space of our 6 months broadcasting, I think BS might have been present for one full grind from start to finish. Bear in mind that each grind lasted one hour and we did 7 live grinds a week, for 14 weeks (Jan – May 2013). Not wanting to blow my own trumpet or anything, but I was the only team member to be present for all 98 hours of broadcasting. In my opinion this is the kind of commitment to be expected of an owner of a business. However, do remember that I have no technical training and was not well equipped to deal with any tech emergencies (of which there happened to be many).

I can remember one instance where we found ourselves up shit creek without a paddle in the tech department and BS was away in San Francisco. In the space of 6 months, he was skiing TWICE, and in both San Francisco and Mexico for three weeks. There was always a feeling that something had changed whenever you saw BS. This was probably due to the fact that it could have been a number of months since you last saw him (SL).

Notable examples of these changes included: a new shade of just for men in the hair, a beautiful bronze tan that would take at least 2-3 weeks to acquire in Villa Moura (in fairness to BS this could have simply been acquired in 2-3 hours in tanzone.ie), bulging pectorals and biceps, glistening white teeth and pretty much anything else that would suggest that he hadn’t been up to much work. Him simply being alive would suggest that he hadn’t been working that much. A corpse would do much more work than BS (SL).

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BS at work

Maroma-Beach

Tulum Beach, Quintera Roo, Mexico: A work station of choice for BS.

San Francisco, CA, USA

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA, USA: Another workplace of choice for BS.

Anyway, one of the times the shit really hit the fan was when our broadband partners let us down. The feed of broadband was about as consistent as Moana’s heart rate. I was the one who perpetually dealt with the provider. Not BS. This was a combination of wanting to be in control and simply well accustomed to BS at this stage. It was in this 2 week period when the cow pat really hit the fan. There were lots of times when little pieces of dog turd hit the fan. But this time it was a full cow pat.

I’ll never forget one geography grind during this 2 week period where the broadband acted up and the grind simply cut off and never returned. BS was, of course, nowhere to be seen. He was probably on the stage of the gaiety theatre that evening too and had no notion of what was happening. Could you imagine watching a grind that you had paid for, and for the stream to simply cut out half way through the session? Events like this were as commonplace as BS’s absenteeism (SL). Needless to say we lost a lot of customers during this delightful 2 week period.

The software itself was as volatile as BS’s temper. I would conservatively say that it would crash during one in every four grinds broadcast. This did not do my mental health any good (the evidence of which is this blog, says you!). I was sitting on the edge of my seat every evening with no finger nails remaining. The one bit of solace I took was that I could send BS a text message (I couldn’t call him if he was on stage). There is only so much help you can get via the medium of text, however. Rebooting the machine was his usual nugget of savvy tech advice. See text messages:

reboot2

Did you reboot?

reboot1

Did you reboot (part deux)?

(SL)

Of course another issue was that all our grinds would be recorded as well as broadcast live. However, whenever the software crashed, the recording up until the point of the crash did not encode and was rendered unusable. This would mean we would have to get the teacher in again, at our expense of course, to rerecord grinds for the archive.

BS would not accept that this business did not take off as a result of the tech issues. Even the tech issues that were 100% outside of our control he did not accept as reasons for failure, as he didn’t want the word tech to feature anywhere in the list of potential reasons for which the project never took off. That was his department and he would protect it at all costs. Instead, the marketing and advertising department got the blame.

Next Chapter – Chapter 7: Burn Baby Burn, More Money More Money More Money, €10k Loan

Chapter 5: Big Launch and Source Code – The source of all evil

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Big Launch

Prior to our big launch in January 2013, we did a trial run of free maths grinds. We did one broadcast a week, for 8 weeks, from November to December 2012. Interestingly enough, we actually got quite a lot of interest in these grinds. Some 70 – 80 students logged in to watch each class live. There was one episode of cyber bullying during these grinds. Some lads from a south county Dublin school asked one girl in the live chat room if ‘she was hot’. It turned out that these lads had logged in to see (and possibly make fun of) their own teacher who was teaching maths with us. Our higher level maths teacher was a stentorian (of loud and powerful voice) doctor. A fine man indeed, who sported his OnlineGrinds.ie t-shirt with great aplomb and swag. It fitted the doctor beautifully.

Here is a sample lesson from the doctor himself. Fast forward to 1:25 to hear him at his best:

Despite a few technical issues (as usual) (SL) and the one episode of cyber bullying (which got us a nice piece in a broadsheet newspaper incidentally – click here to read the article in the Irish Indo), the free trial grinds were relatively successful. Our big launch date was Monday, Jan 14th 2013 and what you are about to read next is one of the main reasons why BS was so dear to me and why I loved him as much as I did.

Source Code – The source of all evil

It was Saturday 12th Jan 2013, just 2 days prior to our big launch. The excitement was palatable. The company I founded was going live in 2 days time. But the feeling of elation was equally matched with the feeling of butterflies in my tum tum. Needless to say I spent most of that weekend in the studio obsessing and making sure everything was perfect. I am the first to admit that I am an insanely obsessive person and the slightest black mark on our whiteboard, for example, would be a MASSIVE irritation to me.

Here are some pictures of how perfect the studio was (note the absence of anybody else) :

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I am often asked if I have OCD and, as far as I know, I don’t. What I have is far worse than OCD. Approximately 52 times worse. This may well stem from my education in the Shannon College of Hotel Management where our college director was an ex army general. Believe it or not, we had to wear a uniform in hotel college. In fact, not only did we wear uniforms, but we had regular uniform inspections. Every now and then we would have to line up so the general could inspect our clobber. We would walk up to him and have to do a twirl in front of him (if only I had my pink, lycra tutu back then, says you).

First, he would look at our hair to see if there was any gel in it. If there was, we would have to go home and wash it out. He would then inspect our faces to see if we had shaved that morning. Again, if we hadn’t, we would be ‘ordered’ to go home immediately and get out the Mach 3 (one time I was so pissed off about being asked to go home and shave that I went back to the apartment, packed my stuff and headed to our house in Achill Island with the intention of never returning to the college. There was still a lot of alcohol in my system from the night before however, and I returned back to college the following Monday when I returned to relative sobriety).

The inspection then moved in the direction of our blazer, shirt, trousers and finally, our shoes. Our black, leather shoes needed to be polished to a brilliant shine. The latter didn’t usually necessitate a trip home to our luxurious apartments, as someone always had some shoe polish (or equivalent; something like Vaseline) on them. However, one day I wasn’t sent home, I was sent to a shoe shop. The heel on my left shoe had actually come completely off and I simply never bothered to get a new pair as only one of them was faulty. It almost looked like I was walking with a limp. In the uniform inspection queue that day I had to raise my left heel off the ground to give the impression of equilibrium. When I faced the general that day, no matter what I did to try to camouflage the left shoe (doing a speedy pirouette with my arms extended above my head in an arch shape, rather than a simple twirl, whilst making a big, cheesy, smiley face and humming the nutcracker theme song, for example), he spotted the missing heel.

Anyway, I am going completely off the point here. All I am saying is I have a severe form of OCD when it comes to perfection and attention to detail. Almost destructively so.

So, back to Saturday 12th January 2013, 2 days prior to the launch of OnlineGrinds.ie. At 18:15 that evening, BS decided to make a declaration via email (he always believed in emailing rather than picking up the phone). He advised that the majority of the source code (technical term for describing what makes up the website, building blocks if you like) of the website would not belong to OnlineGrinds.ie, but it would remain the property of his own business. Lovely, yeah? Perfect timing, no? Here is a copy and paste of the EXACT wording of this infamous email of 12/01/13 (click on wording to increase size):

SOURCE CODE

This news broke less than 48 hours prior to our first paid live grind. It essentially meant that if there were to be a future sale of our company, most of the website would belong to BS, not OnlineGrinds.ie. Therefore a large portion of the sale value would go to BS, not us. As you can see, he declares that OnlineGrinds.ie did not have “any real IP assets of note”.

As you are aware, the initial agreement was that he would develop a website capable of broadcasting live and interactive online grinds and this website would be owned 100% by OnlineGrinds.ie. This is why he would be getting 50% of the company, diluted to 33% once an investor came on board. I presumed that he would write the code for everything; the broadcasting software, the chat facility, the database framework, the payment code, the whole 9 yards. But no, all he did was take third party software plug ins and use his own company’s code to hold it all together. Jaysus, if I had known that originally, I would have done it all myself! And I am about as technically minded as a blind gorilla with no limbs.

None of the the new information I learnt in his email that day was ever set out in our initial verbal agreement. But yes, being the gob shite that I am, I never insisted on a written agreement at the time.

What was I to do when he dropped this bomb? He had left it until 2 days before we launched to break the news. Having spent a lot of money on advertising our launch, I couldn’t pull the plug now. But the feeling of being raped by BS did not outweigh the motivation I had to launch, and to fulfill my goal of making grinds more convenient to Chloe and Greg and more affordable to Stacey and Jason, regardless of money I would make (or lack thereof) in a future sale. So we trucked on with the launch. But what an absolute gem of news to receive.

Next Chapter – Chapter 6: The Daily Grind

Chapter 4: Money Money Money, R.O.T. and Studio

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Money Money Money

Having a concept, name, logo, jingle, voice mail and website is one thing, but having money to spend on marketing and advertising is another! So, I set out to get a third party involved who would invest cash. I created a profile on the Irish Investment Network which attracted about 8 investors, one of whom was a fire breathing dragon from a well-known RTE TV show. I met with all 8 investors and 2 of them bit. One gentleman was interested in investing funds subject to me securing matching funding from a government agency with the initials EI. Getting funding from EI is about as easy as catching a fly using chop sticks. This might be an easy task for a hot shot like Mr Myagi, but Mr Myagi I am not.

Just before I thought the exercise of securing investment was futile, I received an email while I was away in Spain. It was from an investor called Sean. We agreed to meet in a coffee shop on Dawson Street when I got back from Spain. Within an hour of our meeting, I managed to convince Sean to invest €40,000 in return for a third of the company. Now Sean, BS and yours truly would own a third of the company each. A magnificent ménage à trois.

Sean was from the Michael O’Leary School of Fashion. He didn’t wear fancy schmancy clothes. He always sported an understated, avant-garde look which I admired and respected much more than I would a pink-tie-wearing BMW salesman type of guy. I’ll never forget one day when we were holding interviews in the salubrious Carr Communications premises in Dublin 4. I presumed it would be necessary to dress up for the occasion. When I say dress up, I don’t mean put on a pink lycra tutu with a bright blue velvet shawl and a pair of tight violet stilettos, carrying two over-sized purple pompoms and wearing a long flowing luminous yellow wig and a monocle (I leave that kind of carry on for Saturday nights), I mean a shirt and trousers. Conversely, Sean rocked in wearing a jumper with brown shoulder patches and a pair of jeans. Respect to him.

I know for a fact Sean is reading this because I have already seen a number of hits on the blog that have originated in the Islington district of Inner London (Sean’s hood). So a quick note to Sean:

Hi Sean, I hope you are well! We must have that game of golf in Grange soon!

Apologies to those of you who are not Sean. I really don’t mean to ignore you. A big shout out and hug to you guys too! 🙂

Money – check.

R.O.T. (Rest Of Team)

Finding the best teachers in Ireland would not be an easy task. I would certainly need an elf or two to help me out. So, out to find an elf I set. However, what I found was far greater than an elf. It was an entrepreneurial, scholarship-earning, Trinners student from craggy island territory. He was a genius, albeit with a slight penchant for being visible in the media. He managed the interview process with me. He was hard working, inventive, full of ideas and a great problem solver. All in all a good guy with whom we all got along (most of the time).

We then needed someone to look after the sales and marketing end of things, and who better than a good friend of mine called Aine. I am not going to say ANYTHING whatsoever about Aine as she is a personal friend and WILL actually kill me if I do. I can safely say that BS would not kill me, but he would do evil things to me, as he is an evil man (I am told) (SL). Aine doesn’t have an evil streak in her body, not even where ants or blue bottles are concerned.

Rest of team – check.

Studio

We now needed somewhere to DO the grinds. I viewed about 8 different places, alone might I add. BS did visit one place with me, but it was because the place was in his neighbourhood (Sandyford region – in case anyone wants to knock him off for me, although I wouldn’t be willing to pay you any more than €0.10 for sealing the deal. That’s the fairest price one could possibly put on his existence, I hear) (SL).

I did a deal with a lovely girl called Donna who had a place to rent on Pearse Street. We had a Dublin 2 office address. My life was complete. Needless to say I would always downplay the fact that we had a drug rehabilitation clinic LITERALLY next door that provided us with regular visits from Micko and Moana. I think they called her Moana on purpose. Although I don’t think it was a nickname, I reckon her parents were psychic and could tell that she was going to do a lot of lunchtime moaning around Pearse Street, on a bi daily basis (or so).

Studio – check.

Next Chapter – Chapter 5: Big Launch and Source Code – The source of all evil

Chapter 3: Our beautiful website

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Now the next thing I needed was a website. But hang on, a website of the magnitude and technical scope necessary for a business like this would cost about €50k, no? Realising that this was not the kind of cash I’d have in my back pocket, or under my bed, I decided that the only way forward would be to get a web developer to build the site for free, and I would give him equity in the company. And that’s exactly what happened.

For those of you who know me, you will be aware that I like to act the clown a lot of the time. Sometimes I take my acting to the amateur stage, and it was in these circles that I met the web developer who would become one of my fellow partners in OnlineGrinds.ie.

He was about 15 – 20 years my senior and, as his career hadn’t really quite kicked off, he was looking for a break. He owned his own web development company which appeared to specialise in what I would call ‘vintage’ websites from the early 1990’s era. I presumed that this was a new trend in the website world similar to the way vintage clothes are a new trend in the realm of fashion. The one and only doubt I had about him was the fact that his company Facebook page had only 12 fans. I was a tad unsettled by this but I put it down to the fact that he had probably only launched the page an hour or so prior to my looking at it (SL).

When I initially approached him about Online Grinds, he seemed pretty enthusiastic. After a few meetings in the Westbury, we shook hands on the basis of a 50/50 split of the company. The agreement was that he would develop a website for the company that would have all the functionality necessary to broadcast live and interactive online grinds. In return for this he would get 50% of the share capital of the company. Once an investor came on board, we would then dilute our shareholding equally. Our agreement was verbal. Nothing in writing at all at all (Yes, I hear what you are saying; I am a fuckin eejit). The value he put on his work was in the region of €25k.

While I would love to mention this man’s name, I had better not. However, his name, along with a beautiful shot of his devilishly handsome face and practically perfect smile, is clearly visible on the OnlineGrinds.ie website www.onlinegrinds.ie. Simply go to the ‘About Us’ section and click ‘Our Team’. This man is on the top right. But look, I didn’t name him, so I cannot be sued by him, right? (SL) I was once at the top of this page (sob sob).

For the purposes of this blog post, I will be referring to this man as BS, this is simply because these letters are (kind of) the initials of his name. The fact that these letters are also commonly used to abbreviate the name of a substance which emanates from the arse of a male cow, which some would say (I don’t) is a very apt description of the work ethic of this man, is entirely immaterial to my using these letters. I promise.

So, website – check.

P.S. His company Facebook page today has 26 fans. An increase of 14 fans in 3 years. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is! (SL)

Next Chapter – Chapter 4: Money Money Money, R.O.T. and Studio

Chapter 2: How it all began – January 2011

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Before I set up OnlineGrinds.ie, students had a number of options when it came to doing grinds. They could invite an unwashed, perfect stranger with no garda vetting and questionable qualifications into their home and pay them anything up to 80 lids an hour. Alternatively they could get mommy to drive them to a high cost grind school in her Range Rover Sport (or those who had the means could drive themselves in their VW Polo). The very least a class in a grind school would set them back would be €25. This, of course, would be merely chicken feed to Chloe or Greg whose daddy is a senior partner in Deloitte, but to Stacey or Jason from Coolock, it would be a fair whack.

Concept

My idea was to set up an online grind school which would make doing grinds more convenient to Chloe and Greg, and more accessible to Stacey or Jason. Grinds would be broadcast online, in a live and interactive capacity, and would cost no more than €10 per live class. Teachers would come into a studio, deliver their grind which we would stream live to students in their homes across the country. Students would be able to ask the teacher questions via a chat facility which the teacher could answer in real time.

Name

So, now that I had a concept, and notwithstanding the fact that I didn’t yet have a team, I sought to come up with a name for the website. The list was full of very colourful and quirky names, but after much deliberation and painful internal conflict, I decided that the best name for the website would be OnlineGrinds.ie. Simple, to the point, and doing exactly what it said on the tin.

Logo

Concept and name under the belt, it was now time for a logo. I have always had a tendency to put the cart before the horse and, until the day I am 6 feet under, I intend to keep it that way.

I got in contact with a graphic designer friend of mine called Dermot Collins. I gave Dermot the brief that I would like a logo that had the name of the website written in chalk on a blackboard that was encased in a laptop screen. In a couple of goes he came up with this gem of a logo:

onlinegrinds_cmyk_300dpi

I still work with Dermot today and would highly recommend him for any of your graphic design needs. Email me for his email and I’ll send it on.

Incidentally, I might mention that I am the registered owner of this logo. Therefore I am the only person who can use it. But I have nothing to worry about. Of course my ex-colleagues will have stopped using it once they got rid of me and it won’t be currently visible in any shape or form whatsoever on the website www.onlinegrinds.ie. I haven’t checked of course as I don’t really like visiting the site I founded and lost. But I don’t need to check. I trust them. They are good guys after all. They surely realise that if they were to use it, this would be a blatant infringement of trademark (not to mention pretty shitty!). Yeah. I guess I’m just being paranoid. How could the thought of them using my logo even enter my head? I can be such a naive gob shite at times!

patent

Jingle Bells

We then needed a jingle to go at the start of our live grinds. It had to be something school-like but at the same time rebellious. OnlineGrinds.ie was going to disrupt the high cost, cosy grinds industry and this had to be reflected in our jingle.

Under the influence of copious amounts of intoxicating liquor one evening in a friend’s apartment, I had a flashback to a scrap I ‘attended’ in my school days in St Mary’s College, Rathmines. Whenever 2 lads were burying their fists in each other’s faces, we would serenade them with a little song. It went A-G-A-G-R-A-G-R-O……AGRO.

To hear this song and its metamorphosis into our jingle, click below:

 

Another fundamental ingredient we needed was a voice mail message. Again, because we were an up and coming online company, this couldn’t be a simple boring message. To hear the message, click below:

 

Below is an info video on OnlineGrinds.ie (listen out for our finished jingle at the end!)

Concept – check.

Name – check.

Logo – check.

Jingle – check

Voice mail – check

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Our beautiful website

Chapter 1: Brief introduction and a note to solicitors.

/ PaulVStenson / 1 Comment

When you did your Leaving Cert, did you take grinds? Do you remember how much they cost? Did your maths grinds cost you €80 per hour, by any chance? Well that’s what one Dublin-based maths teacher is charging these days. And guess what, the student has to come to his home!

The new project maths syllabus, with the 25 bonus points going for simply asking the invigilator for a pink exam paper (Higher Level) rather than a blue one (Ordinary Level), is making grinds a necessity for 73% of Leaving Cert students these days.

I would like to advise the Leaving and Junior Cert students and parents of Ireland about what was nearly, very nearly, going to be a reality for them – low cost grinds with some of the finest teachers in Ireland. When I say ‘nearly a reality’, I am referring to the two companies I started in a bid to democratise (fancy word meaning ‘make affordable to EVERYONE’) the grinds industry in Ireland, both of which I lost through no fault of my own, but through the greed of others.

If you have made it this far, I thank you. I am not a boring person, and I normally lose interest in reading a piece very early on. So I will try to make this as interesting as I possibly can. Another objective of writing this blog is to see how many solicitor’s letters I can get. I would say I’ll get about 10, but I may be wrong, it could be more like 20? In any case, I will put the letters SL in brackets beside the bits where I think I could potentially get a solicitor’s letter. This will be for the following reasons: (a) so I can keep count of how many letters to expect and (b) to make life easy for the solicitors so they don’t have to waste any highlighter ink. I can’t decide which reason is more important, but at the moment I am leaning towards the latter.

I have one simple request however, solicitors. Can you please make the language of your letters understandable and speak in normal language? Otherwise I won’t have a clue what you are saying, like. Would really appreciate that. I don’t know who you think you are and why you think you are entitled to use such language. It is glaringly obvious from your language that you believe you are somehow better than us laymen. Please take yourselves down a peg or two to our level before you even attempt to write me a love letter. I mean, I have made life easy for you by inserting the letters (SL) everywhere, I would expect you to return the favour. Cheers guys. You are just fab. Besides, nobody wants your letters to end up as paper airplanes in the jaws of a Doberman, do we now?

Next Chapter – Chapter 2: How it all began – January 2011

Preface

/ PaulVStenson / Leave a comment

Preface

It’s finally done. Thanks be to fuck. I’ve just spent the last week in sunny Spain finishing it. Now it’s truly time for me to move on and forget about the company I founded nearly three years ago, ran for two and a half years (with no pay whatsoever) and from which I was removed by the very team I took on to help me run it. This company is called OnlineGrinds.ie. It was going to revolutionise the grinds industry in Ireland.

While I am not at all bitter about the whole situation, I do want my story to be known. If you are easily offended, I suggest not reading this blog. If you are one of my friends or family who is reading it simply because you know me, again I would think twice. It’s not very short so to spare you the feeling of ‘Jesus this is way too long for me to read, I have far better things to do with my time’, I suggest you go back to baking your cupcakes or combing your leg hair now.

If you don’t take my advice and do read the blog and become offended, there is a complaints procedure you might want to avail of. You are more than welcome to fax me your complaint. I am not prepared to give you my fax number here, however. If you want it you can send me an email including your fax number and I will send you a fax back with my fax number.

I know this complaints procedure may seem a little laborious, but this is the price to pay for not taking my advice in the first place. I am hereby giving you a second chance not to read this. I guarantee you there will still be some people who will read it and take offence, despite my warning them twice not to. So, third time lucky, please feck off now and don’t read it. Thanks.

If you don’t happen to fall into any of the above categories, I invite you to follow my blog every day. It should make for interesting reading with some laughs and gob smacks along the way.

Here is my story.

Next Chapter: Chapter 1: Brief introduction and a note to solicitors

Extract from: OnlineGrinds.ie – My Side of The Story.

/ PaulVStenson / 1 Comment

Below is a short extract from my eBook. Yes, it’s called an eBook now.

“When I received the first solicitor’s letter, I felt confused, frustrated and conflicted. I hadn’t a notion what to do. The feeling of indecision made me extremely vulnerable. I was weak. I needed help deciding my next move. But who was going to advise me on the options that lay ahead? There were just so many of them. If I chose the wrong one, I could regret it forevermore.

Each of the 10 or so options available to me had their fair share of both pros and cons. This didn’t make the decision any easier. I needed to evaluate all alternatives and create a shortlist of the 5 most suitable ones. The resulting frontrunners were as follows:

Would I?

(a)    Place the letter beside the toilet and leave it there for a rainy day when I ran out of toilet paper

(b)   Fold the letter and use it to prop up a leg of my kitchen table – I HATE wonky tables!

(c)    Try to disprove the theory that you can only fold something a maximum of 7 times

(d)   Crunch up the letter and use it as a ball which would provide endless hours of fun and entertainment for my dog

(e)   Create a paper airplane with the letter which I could throw down the garden for my dog to chase. Would it come back to me? Could I create the first boomerang paper airplane in the history of time and mankind?

After an extended period of painstaking vacillation, I came to the conclusion that the potential of option (e) was so vast that I could not but choose it. In hindsight I made the right decision. Both my dog and I had immeasurable fun that day.”

My eBook should be published by the end of this week. If you give a shit, you can read it here. If you don’t give a shit, I shall remove the gun I am holding to your head forcing you to read it.

P.