Ethics of competing against a friend.

Friend wants me to work for them but I can do it on my own.

[nipear]

I have a difficult situation. A good friend of my wife is involved in an online business. Up to now they have generated most of their sales/leads through SPAM. I ran into him a month ago and we started talking about getting traffic through the SE, etc.. He really doesn't know much about Search Engines, or the web for that matter, which is probably why he SPAMS to generate leads.

Anyway we've been talking for a week or so about working together, and how I could create a legit website that would do well in Google, and generate a lot of quality traffic that way. I've given him some conservative #'s and conversion rates. He's really excited about what his sales would be.. Yesterday we started talking about money and ownership. He wants to pay me 1/3 of what other companies pay their affiliates, and he wants to own the site.

Also it turns out he is not much more than an off-line affiliate to other companies. And there is no way he and his partner can pay me much at all.

The thing is it's a very compatible industry to many of our sites (about 10), and VERY LUCRATIVE. Cutting him out, I can make 3 - 4x as much, own my site, not worry about him SPAMMING people to come the site, and not worry about someone looking over my shoulder, and trying to tell me what we should do. But I feel somewhat obligated to him, since he is an old friend of my wife, and a nice guy, and introduced me to this industry.

Anyone been down this road?

[Mike_Mackin]

>I have a difficult situation.

HE has a difficult situation.
Just tell him what you want and put the ball in his court.

imho

[jackofalltrades]

Yeh, business is business.

Come to an arrangment that would be beneficial to both of you.

If that doesnt work just say because your sites are related, it would be a conflict of interests for you to do it.

my 2c

JOAT :)

[toadhall]

Never sign a business deal based on friendship. It sounds nice, but the friendship is (perhaps inadvertently) being used to hide responsibility. Contracts lay down the rules both can live by, and assure friendly relations. A friend does not 'guilt' you into a bad business deal.