This is his own view of the circumstances which lead up to the creation of a site for which we can all be grateful
" I read an article (I think in Forbes) about the fastest growing franchises of the past year. One of them was Geeks on Call. I thought it was a cool idea, and fit well with my passion for computers. So, I thought about starting an on-site computer repair business myself. However, none of the franchises met my needs. I was very surprised to find that geekstogo.com was available, so I registered it.
Over the next year or so I did a lot of research, determining if my local market would support such a business, deciding if it was really what I wanted to do, etc. I also worked on developing a site. Well, the owner of geeks2go.com (now defunct ) discovered my beta site, and had his lawyer send me a letter threatening trademark violation. I found out it would take a $1,400 retainer just to consider the case, and actual legal fees would be much higher -- even though I would likely win. That plus the fact that I was becoming more successful in my day job lead me to put it on the back burner.
That back burner happened to be a free computer help forum. For the first six months or so it was just myself, and although it was VERY slow to start, I was surprised how fast it grew. We had MANY months of exponential growth (doubling traffic every month). I remember my first hosting plan was $10/YEAR. Then I think I met our current server admin, and got on shared server for $10/mo. Next it was a small dedicated server at $100/mo, and now we have multiple very large servers -- at almost $1,000/mo.
When it was just myself, I never had any advertising or donation links. As we grew, and the expenses became higher we tried donations to the site. However, it soon became clear to me that it would be more fair to allow the helpers to receive donations, and try to pay the expenses through non-obtrusive advertising. At the time, that created quite a stir. I think time has proven that it works well!
I still have my day job, and I still get a real kick out of helping others. My time in the public forums has unfortunately become limited as admin and other responsibilities with a larger site take more of my time (as well as my one-year old daughter ). Long story short, someday we still may expand into on-site repair, or other areas, but I'm actually thankful to the jerk that threatened to sue me. I've spent countless hours here, and it's taken a huge commitment, but of course, I could NEVER do it alone. The wonderful staff here is what makes Geeks to Go so special! "
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