Quote:
Originally Posted by kingofcool
With this said, i still don't see what Fernando has done that is unethical. Especially given he 1) made them lots of money and 2) followed their stipulations.
There are a handful of things that stink.
1. The Upswing team didn't just hire JNandez, they befriended him. Although JNandez called it a big company, it's really not. I work for a big company and I can see that Upswing is a pretty small company with a handful of content creators and a community feel -- the strength of the community was what made JNandez want to pursue his own site.
Doug said in the original thread that he worked hard to give JNandez a platform and support him on social media. Of course that's good for Doug too, but I don't believe he was solely motivated by the positive light it would shine on the PLO Lab. He wanted to support JNandez with his own endeavors and believed that JNandez could manage those in tandem with his coaching responsibilities.
Now okay, you know there's a loophole in your contract and you can exploit, but do you do that if you know it will negatively affect people who call you a friend and who have only ever tried to support you on your various platforms?
2. It's one thing to decide your going to leave a company and set up a rival, but it's another to exploit your position in the company you're in to poach clients.
In his video, JNandez talks openly about how great the small community is and how it's a group effort. He says he wants to expand on that and develop it in ways that Upswing didn't allow.
He's not talking about leaving and trying to start a similar and better community, he's talking about lifting the best of the existing one. This is exactly why he was blocked from the FB group!
Poaching clients/members happens in a lot of industries to be fair, but it is generally considered unethical and a lot of companies will put a clause in the employment contract to prohibit this type of behavior.
3. In his video he talks about how he wants to ensure Upswing members are fully refunded and treated fairly blah blah. Of course he has to make it clear that he wants to look after members if he's going into this line of business himself -- he can't say I don't give a **** about members, I'm leaving.
The reality, though, is that people signed up to a course where he had shown a lot of commitment. Now he's bailing and even if you get a refund, you're still being messed around.
He could quite easily have worked closer with Upswing to manage the transition for the solid 12-18 months and then make sure members genuinely are not affected. However, I see that would be to his disadvantage for a few possible reasons: he was creating strategies (with Upswing members) he didn't want Upswing to have; and if Upswing refunds a bunch of members they're then free to sign up to the same course with JNandez using the same deposit.
So I see an exploitative side there, taking advantage of the Upswing members and the trouble he would make for Upswing, so that that he could promote his own site and start on a strong footing.