Ron Jackson leaves Bido due to conflict of interest

Ron Jackson, the founder of DNJournal.com and co-founder of the Bido.com venture has opted to leave Bido citing conflicts of interest only months after the launch of the new venture.

“By now most of you know that I was one of four co-founders of Bido.com, a multi-faceted company that now operates the free domain management platform DNZoom.com and that is scheduled to debut a one-name-a-day auction service on March 20. The company has come a long way since Sahar Sarid, Darren Cleveland, Jeff Bhavnanie and I started putting it together last October. With many other services scheduled to be rolled out in the months ahead I think it will prove to be a very successful venture but after careful consideration I have decided not to continue what has been a very enjoyable journey with Sahar, Darren and Jeff.

Having never been involved in a business partnership before I had some concerns about how well four guys with their own ideas about how things should be done would be able to work together toward one goal, but they have been an absolute delight to work with and I can’t imagine any group getting along better than we have. My decision to depart now has nothing to do with our working relationships or the Bido business plan which I still think is an exceptionally strong one. My decision is based on relationships, but they are relationships outside the company rather than inside it.

While Bido.com was an exciting joint venture for me, DNJournal.com remained my primary enterprise. I have been able to report on the industry in the way that I have for the past five years because I have taken time to build key relationships and trust with people and companies in every part of the domain business. As long as I call on them as an independent party, the door is always open. If I had to call on anyone as a potential competitor that would change the dynamic with those parties and make it more difficult for me to do my job at DN Journal.

I had not anticipated that this would be a problem because Bido’s business plan is based on launching entirely new services or bringing new twists to existing services that made them unlike any current platforms. However, as we have gone about putting the bricks in place I am seeing that other companies also have an interest in entering some of the same territory Bido is targeting. While that will not be a problem for Bido as a company (that I think will be a strong competitor in any category they choose to operate in), it eventually would be a problem for me as an individual because DN Journal would no longer have open access to
information from those Bido might end up competing with.

So, while we are still early in the process I feel now is the time to step away and avoid future problems. Considering the track record that Sahar, Darren and Jeff have I understand that this decision means I am likely leaving a lot of future revenue on the table. But relationships have always meant more to me than money, so all things considered, I know that this is the right decision.

Working with Sahar, Darren and Jeff has been a very valuable experience. I learned a lot from observing how they work together and leave grateful that I had the opportunity. As businessmen each of them is truly light years ahead of me. I leave knowing that they are the ones who have been doing the heavy lifting on this project so they deserve to be the ones who reap the benefits from their talent and hard work. My best wishes go with them.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 10:36 am and is filed under Domain News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.