Starting Your Own MLM Program Q+A mostly Q for now...

For the last several years I've been fascinated by the whole MLM field. I'm not talking about being the asshole selling exotic fruit juice, bullshit mortgages and financial products, over priced girdles, supposedly wholesale items, or any other product. I'm talking about starting my own MLM.

I mean fuck... it's the easiest business plan in the world. Find a product you can get for cheap and normally sells for a lot more and find other people wanting to make money (of course off of the product). I mean look at the bullshit that's already on the table (a few examples given above). You can go to ebay or dozens of other sites and buy better products for half the price that these MLM companies sell the products for (supposedly wholesale to their associates).

Anyway my questions are more on some of the legal aspects of this. I associate with some lawyers, but this is one of those fields that these guys don't deal with and lawyers are usually lazy fucks (and if they don't deal with that field it's easier to ask on a forum or find other resources) and I'd prefer someone or some people that has experience with this to answer some of my questions.

I know the members of this forum are here because they have an entrepeneurial spirit and think outside the box. So these questions might not be totally outside the realm of this forum...and even if they are the SE results that would be generated from this post will at least get us some spam from companies that deal with this issue.

Here's my ideas (althought vague) and questions.

How do you start an MLM? Apart from telling me to incorporate the company because of liability issues and set up decent commissions and training (since that should be available for most programs).

I found software at:


I did not go through the trial, I haven't tested it out and don't know what it can do, although I have looked at the website. It looks good (and cheap), but this might be something I want custom coded. Also the fact that the whois says they're from Israel doesn't help my confidence.

Do you have any recommendations on software? It doesn't have to be MLM related, but easily customized into an MLM environment and ability to add new clients even if they're not online (because a lot of people into MLM aren't online at all or very limited).

My ideas are these. I've found several different types of products that I can get for incredibly cheap and mark up several times (from what I pay) for a great profit. I mean this won't be one MLM company I can actually make a few of them off of my ideas. Of course I want to work with one or two ideas and build from there. The main thing is what is the easiest way of setting this up?

I'd prefer to start offline and of course make online services an add-on. Think about it, it's a win-win, no matter how you look at it. I know I'm not the only one that can make a ton off of this, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that has though of this.

Anyway this is something I've been thinking of for too long and hopefully some questions will be answered and I know this can help others also.

Maestro! Another good share my friend. These will go up in my big projects to do list on my list of things to do. My good ol' trusty clipboard! This would go well with cpa I believe if I'm not mistaken.

Here's a question. Would you be able to implement this on lets say... a freebie incentive site, or maybe even a mystery shopper business where you have mystery shoppers purchase items and eventually tell their friends to become them as well. I think this would go well along those lines.

Thanks

:usa:

Are you fuckin serious? Are you really a New Yorker? I'm originally from Boston so I have a real prejudice against you. Your questions look canned, but of course anything is possible. The trick is geting other people to buy your product, I'm not worried about affiliates or freebie followers because I'm trying to be the horse's mouth, not heard from the horse's mouth.

I'm in NJ by the way.

I'm trying to be the top dog without breaking to many rules is the best explanation for this thread. Does anyone have experience in this or should I just talk to my lawyers and wing it from there?

Uh oh at my newb time i thought like " ill set up my own MLM and make fuckloads of $$ " since how ever you watch it the founder is the one who will get money. Hmm im sorry i dont know about those Law stuff. About software what kind of structure you were looking, like those matrix thingy or something different?

You could allways make some software to "market" usefull or not like make some cracker handler toolbar and " ONLY 47$ to join get 2$ for each referral in 10 level "

oh well i list what would be important imo in this kind of stuff:

Sweet words make it sound ur going be next billgates promoting your stupid toolbar.
Good looking website.
then jut go spam all over those places where thiskind of people are. you can find those from spiderweb system atleast ( joined that once bk then) there everyone is about mlm allmost and they mostly care for their own program.
go to place like that and give like 200 free memberships at start then you have idiots promoting for you.
sit back and whats the money roll in ;P

how it really works is different story
Good luck tho

Maestro,

I looked into this stuff a few years ago, as really MLM's was one of the first things I tried/got into to make money. They *can* work if put a bunch of time into them, and not all of them are bad. Anyways, I too had an idea to start my own MLM and be the guy at the top and did a ton of research into it. There's this one guy, R0d C00k who is the "MLM W@tachd0g" (really don't want people googling that and finding this place and coming here) that basically says there ARE good MLM's out there, but what he does is try to bust the ones that are shady/scammy/illegal pieces of crap. The reasoning behind it is - ignorant people (attorney general's) will just group all of them together and label them all as bad or illegal, so he tries to educate on what makes something good, and legal, and then calls out the bad ones to flush them out of the system per say.

Anyways, his website is totally 1990's stylin, but good info.

The main reason I posted, is this, he sells a book that tells you all about how to set up your own MLM, be legal, etc, etc. It's $169, and a physical book he sends you in the mail.
The things I learned, is basically it takes a lot of cash to start up. You NEED an MLM lawyer to make sure everything you are doing is on the up and up, you've crossed all your T's and dotted your I's. I say you're looking at NO LESS than $20,000 to start one up. The idea I had for mine, would require roughly 50k to 60k to do it right. It's something I still think I'd like to do and could certainly be successful.. just that I'm going to have to make a bunch of cash through other IM stuff to fund it.. No way do I want to go into debt to start that kind of thing up.

It's serious stuff man.. make sure everything is done right, so stupid ass state attorney general's can't come busting you saying "this is a ponzi". Of course, you have to not BE a ponzi and actually be a legal MLM company. Hope that helps man!

RandomStuff is right on this. It will probably cost you in the neighborhood of $50K just for attorney and legal fees. You have to file in EACH state before you can market your MLM in that state. You're also talking about a year to 18 months before completeing the legal part and legal filing of the business.

It would be cheaper, easier and faster to simply set up a four or five tier Affiliate program and call it "Network Marketing" to capture all the "get rich quick" noobs. You can market your tiered affiliate program like network marketing.

The key is to not get too greedy. I've seen too many founders have a good thing and then get greedy and blow it. I used to consult with Network Marketing companies back in the 80's. It didn't matter whether the company was a prep*aid legal company or a nutritional or a long distance company -- founders always got greedy and killed the golden goose.

Good luck!