Editor’s note: this week we commemorate the 2-year anniversary of the lawsuit that almost killed Mojo Supreme back in May 2006. See Part 1, 2, 3, 4, or read on for Part 5, below:
I was hesitating between revisiting this entire ordeal: the lawsuit was a week of hell I’d rather not look back at. But, it partly explains my drive to build Mojo Supreme and WatchMojo.com into a successful company.
Admittedly, part of me wants to let sleeping dogs lie, but ultimately, the lessons and behind-the-scenes storyline is too great. So while I would not make it personal, it sure is worth putting down on my paper to get some closure.
This series is more about what went through my mind and how I coped with a seemingly impossible obstacle.
So to put things into context: May 10th 2006 was a false start to the trial, we were given a new date, May 15th. I had a few days to scramble to search for a strategy.
Meet my Wife, the Rock
On Thursday, it was not even clear yet if we would fight back. Even without a big legal firm, it would start to cost a lot of money, time and energy. I was as concerned about the stress on my wife as I was about the company. Ultimately, my wife pulled me aside and told me that if I wanted to fight back - and spend accordingly - she was fine with it. It was a bit like an informal Board meeting on our company balcony. Our office was on the same street as my former employer’s office. From our balcony I could literally look up the street and see their building. Then and there, on that bright and sunny day, I decided to wage war, fight hard and destroy them. They lost the battle and the war then and there.
Business vs. Personal
Thursday May 11th was the third day of this ordeal. I was not sleeping well and my wife and I were reasonably stressed out. I tried to maintain a “business as usual” demeanor at the office, but for all intents and purposes, I had to come to the realization that my business would be forced to shut down. It was frustrating and sad. Sadness turned into anger… and anger led to a desire to strike back at all of my aggressors with rage.
Surprisingly, I was incredibly positive; I’m an eternal optimist, as they say.
Ironically, trying to make sense of why IGN CEO Mark Jung was trying to nail me, I came across a quote of his.
Jung’s business accomplishments reflect his family’s philosophy of valuing dedication and persistence. “Many people wonder how we ended up having two CEOs in the family,” says Jung, who’s sister Andrea, is the CEO of Avon cosmetics. “My philosophy is that you have to understand what tools your family or parents give you and how you apply it to your profession.
“It’s characteristic of Chinese families that certain things you never give up: perseverance and staying positive. There was always pressure to improve where areas can be improved,” he says.
Jung had started IGN - known intially as Snowball.com - and seen it go through the highs of the first bubble and then crashed down to see the tough times, too. He had been able to see the rise once again, culminating it all with a $650M payday from News Corp. Mark held about 13% of the company, so he was set. I could not, however, understand why I was all that important to him in general, and why nailing me in such a dramatic and high profile manner was necessary.
There were two dynamics worth noting:
- I had always shown a respect for him even though a lot of people find his “I’m smarter than you” shtick a tad unbearable. I once mentioned that he should play up the fact that he used to be a McKinsey Consultant and he somehow was offended by that. I was trying to make small talk… We just seemed to clash. I don’t take myself too seriously and I don’t kowtow to anyone, no matter how many degrees one might have or how many zeros their bank account has. I’ll respect the homeless person more than the multi-millionaire if the former is a decent human being and latter is a douche bag. The problem was and is: I will say that and a lot of people rightfully get tired of my schtick, I presume.
- However, where I think I must have “tripped up” was that my president had a subservience to Mark because Mark had effectively made my boss Ric Poupada a very wealthy man. Naturally there’s an element of respect and loyalty. In fact, I had that same feeling towards Ric, Mark, as well as VP Richard Jalichandra (who is now CEO of Technorati) and the executive who led the deal on IGN’s side. They all helped my career at some point, it just so happened that they now wanted to kill me.
Well, while Richard would only move on to Exponential, the parent company of Tribal Fusion, in July, he abstained from the lynching, I think I know why, and will explain in a subsequent post when I discuss the strategy going into the trial.
Anyway, when Ric was trying to decide whether or not to sell, I reminded him that a $13.5M sale was nothing to sneeze at but that if he wanted to remain independent and raise a bit of money, we could build a $100M company and be bigger than IGN and he could be bigger than Mark. Did I believe that? That’s not the point. But as an entrepreneur, you have wake up thinking you can be the biggest and best thing ever. And as a VP, my job was to cheerlead Ric on.
I can only imagine that Ric relayed this to Mark, because apart from this “we can be bigger if we stay independent” talk, I do not see what I ever said or did that made Mark so angry, enough to unleash Operation: Douchebag.
Whatever the case, reading through the mountains of paperwork and seven - count ‘em seven - affidavits, it was clear this was a venomous and personal attack. It was frivolous, it was personal, and excuse me, but this had little to do with non-competition agreements and online men’s magazines, it had everything to do with personalities and egos.
Hatred and Revenue are Driving Forces
In 2007, I read this story in Business Week about how revenge motivates executives. Anyone that tells you revenge is not a motivational force is a liar. I am extremely driven to be successful, I don’t need added sources of motivation.
Ironically, while I was always the emotional and supposedly wild executive whose reactions could not be anticipated, during the proceedings, they let their emotions get the better of them whereas I acted quite diplomatically throughout.
At no time during this week of hell did I ever lash out against them and even during the preparation of my counter arguments did I swerve into the personal.
However, while I was very confident that I could address the substantive, I needed guidance on the procedural.
Corporate Route?
Reaching out to lawyers was the obvious thing to do, but I also actually tried to see if any competitors of IGN would be interested in a representation for equity kind of deal. I guess that was the dealmaker in me looking at all angles.
I reached out to CNET because I knew CNET and IGN were fierce competitors. I considered reaching out to players in the men’s lifestyle space, too, but I feared that this would make my new venture indeed look competitive to a men’s magazine. This was all lunacy, frankly, because I don’t even know what I was trying to gain. However, with my back against the wall and a potentially large legal bill in front of me, I could have easily given up a lot of equity in exchange for representation. Within minutes, it was clear that I was working on limited time and this kind of strange legal strategy would not pay any dividends.
Not all Lawyers are Created Equally
So I began my search to find a lawyer willing to hold my hand as I fought off the biggest onslaught of my life. With two business days before the weekend, I had to get cracking.
- Walking to work I spoke to one of my dad’s lawyers, he said he was not a litigator and employment law not his forte.
- I spoke to our corporate attorney, he was admittedly not a litigator.
- I spoke to one of the attorneys I had consulted (apart from Blakes) and he said he would ask for a $25,000 retainer just to look at the dossier. I actually had that kind of money but it just did not make sense to engage a big expensive law firm. I knew that this was the trap I was being asked to walk into so I had to avoid that at all costs.
- I must have spoke to about 10 lawyers that day: another litigator asked for $15,000 and he too seemed adamant about taking this on because the mere concept of News Corp. made him realize this could - and would - get more expensive.
- I even went back to Blakes and they respectfully said as Canada’s top law firm, they could not offer what I wanted, which was to serve as a legal guide alone. This was expected so at one point, I was referred to one last lawyer.
- She gave me the impression that she had done some corporate work. In my impatience to find someone who agreed with my mandate (to let me handle the actual case but help me with the legalese), I made a major, major mistake.
- This lawyer, while a genuinely nice person, did not really have much injunction or trade law experience. Mind you, she said she did, but in fact did not. This was clear once we got to the crux of the matter.
- Of course, seeing News Corp. / FOX on the file, she had asked for a $10K up-front. With my back to the wall and apparent that I could not find any takers, I gave in.
- Anyway… I met with this lawyer and we started to look at the files and case in general. By now, I had done enough researching and as we were speaking, it was pretty clear that I knew some aspects of injunctions more than she did.
Bear in mind, I just wanted to debate the lawyer (the President of the Bar Association) myself. It sounds really crazy if you don’t know me, but even as a reader of this blog, you can imagine I am probably a well-meaning but extremely brash and confident person. I actually think I can win any battle on any day against anyone.
That was exactly what made the IGN brass disrespect me and the frigtards at my old company hate me. They now combined their venom to tag team me. What the May 9th false start made me realize, however, was that I could not be as comfortable debating the substantive elements of the case if I did not have an actual lawyer to mentor me on the procedural.
The lawyer - whom I now refer to as a family lawyer but was probably just a less experienced business lawyer too - left. I began to get a tad worried but it was now Thursday afternoon.
I won’t lie, the mere fact that someone else would now worry about this was a soothing relief.
THE CALL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
By now, my parents and in-laws were admittedly concerned about me.
Apart from cursing my former colleagues, my parents somehow did what they have been doing for a decade now: they just trusted me.
My in-laws were also concerned, but from their vantage point, there was not much they can do. My father-in-law - who has held many corporate roles over the years - mentioned that a family friend was a lawyer and that maybe I should speak to her as well. I had been given her number on the 9th of May, but between my call with venerable Blakes and the other lawyers, I had simply left her a confusing voice mail and forgot all about it.
After the family lawyer had left our office on Thursday and began her mandate, I got a call from her, one Maitre Olga Koutsouris. You might have noticed that I have not named the other lawyers, why? I don’t know. The Fasken lawyers - while pretty douchebaggish in their own right - were mandated to do a job.
I had to channel my anger, hatred and rage against IGN and Askmen towards the lawyers during the trial, but if I see them now somewhere, what can I say or do? They were, as the saying goes, doing their job. But I owe a considerable amount of gratitude to Me. Koutsouris.
Anyway, Me. Koutsouris called me back at about 1 or 2pm that Thursday (after the family lawyer had walked away with the paperwork).
Initially, I figured she too was a family lawyer or corporate lawyer who was too busy etc. Me. Koutsouris was also very busy, and in fact she did not even want the mandate, but I guess because I was a friend of a friend, she not only returned my call but began to ask questions and dole out advice.
As I began to tell her about the case, my eyes were getting bigger and bigger as I found out I was dealing with the Mother of All Injunction Specialists. You can always spot a con artist from the real deal, and she was the real deal.
Simply explaining, for example, that we were given a postponement because the lawyers had sought an interlocutory injunction and not a provisional one, sent her off.
“What?They did what?” she pressed me to repeat. So I did.
“Idiots. Right there, they lost the case, it’s over. These big law firms are all the same,” she continued. In a rare moment for me, I sat there silent, mouth shut, taking notes.
The gist of the call was that I had a strong case, but that even if I win the first phase of the provisional injunction, all that meant was that I get to live another day to take them on in the next phase, the interlocutory one; and after that, the actual merits… echoing the sentiment of everyone that this was to be the beginning of a long, protracted and expensive matter that would cost me - if not the hundreds of thousands of dollars the big law firms were saying - at least tens of thousands of dollars.
We were at least speaking the same currency. I don’t beg, but I pretty much pleaded her to meet me. She was busy and told me she could make some time for me on Friday evening.
Understand one thing, we’re now Thursday afternoon, I have given a $10K check to one lawyer who really had no business taking my mandate on. That $10K would obviously be the beginning of many more payments. I had suddenly found what seemed to be an injunction maven in Me. Koutsouris but the flip side was she could only see me on Friday evening.
I considered the options and decided to call the family lawyer and tell her to stop working on the case and tried to get back my money. Surprisingly, the family lawyer said “no worries” but she would charge me for the hours she had worked on the case thus far.
While Me. Koutsouris was providing me with a glimmer of hope, who was I kidding, even in her best case scenario, I was a dead man walking and sort of knew it.
By Thursday evening I had pretty much gone through all of the emotions. I was drained. I headed over to my parents for a meal. My older brother was also there, as were his in-laws. They were shocked by how laid back I was… if my memory serves me right, by that night, I had resigned to the fact that Mojo Supreme was about to be shut down.
Now pass the bread… I had a hail marry play in my playbook. Would Me. Koutsouris be a mirage and flop or would she be able to whip me into fighting shape for my meeting with destiny on Monday May 15th?
What happened May 12th 2006. Read more here.
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