At minimum the dept of credit card rewards. :)

Is it weird we don't hear from Josh anymore............

Josh is in a difficult position. I can understand how these folks are hurting, and unfortunately they may be over-extending themselves in ways we don't know.

Will cutting staff help? Moving to less expensive quarters? I have no idea. My suggestion of paying by the proposal -- for those of us who don't have more than a few proposals a month -- was not met with any enthusiasm.

My prediction is that they will be out of business by early next year. If they get lucky, perhaps they will get purchased by a large company (Snap?) to offer to their dealers.

"The report of my death was an exaggeration." - Mark Twain

I'm here, I follow all the forums. I don't like to discuss any account-related questions on forums. Our customer support team is very responsive for that stuff. Other than that, let me know if you have a specific question.

It looks like the question everybody is asking is why have you not told the truth about rebates?

People dealt with you in good faith, and you have made promises and not kept them. That deserves to be spoken of truthfully for the world to see.

The fact that you will no longer speak of the rebates on a live forum tells us that they are no longer even on the back burner.

I agree that Portal should be more upfront about the rebates, however, they are trying to stay above water these days. Hopefully they will have enough money to pay everyone back down the road.

I do have an unrelated question for Josh.

Can a dealer join the service on a month to month basis? In other words, pay the monthly fee and then cancel until they need to write another proposal?

Hi, Tom. Look, these forums are difficult in the sense that there is a lot of false information out there, mixed with emotional responses. I really try to be careful to be constructive and helpful in my responses to legitimate questions. Responding consistently through 20+ pages of posts by both Portal customers and non-users is not easy, and it’s not always a one-size fits all “announcement”. That said, here’s what I’d like you to know...

We’ve been very transparent with our rewards members. We often send messages directly to card holders or specific groups of dealers that decisions or news affects, so as not to waste other people’s time. Not all of those dealers read all of those messages. The truth is that whenever there has been an update to give, we have done that directly, usually via our site.

We have right around 1k dealers enrolled in the rewards program. Of those dealers, not too many take to this forum, but some obviously do, and that’s ok. I can understand their frustration, I really can. We don’t like the missed payments any more than you or our cardholders do. We’ve been running the rewards program for more than two years now - we certainly didn’t plan or expect to have a problem with two months of payments this far in. This isn’t about lies or malice. All of our loyal dealers who have supported Portal since day one know how we operate. Sometimes you have to make a tough decision in order to protect what matters most. In this case, what matters most are the thousands of dealers who rely on us to run their businesses every day. Keeping the platform running for these dealers was and is priority #1.

This whole transition that we’re going through right now to a paid SaaS model has been surprisingly rewarding for us. Sure, it’s been difficult. But what’s been incredible has been all the support we’ve received from our most loyal dealers. I’ve never received so many thoughtful messages of encouragement from dealers as I have over the past month. Of course, we’ve received messages from dealers who are upset that we are charging, or that we are charging too much. We’ve received a lot of ideas of how we could or should have done it differently. The positives are what encourage us that we’re doing the right thing for dealers and the industry. Messages like (and I quote): “Don’t hang your head because of this business model shift, hold it high and know that for many of us you have already succeeded in creating a life altering product”, and “we want Portal to not only survive, but thrive. We love the platform, not even blinking at the cost”, and lastly, “I love you guys, we aren’t going anywhere.” These were a total surprise, but a critical reminder that all the hard work we put in doesn’t go unnoticed. Sometimes it’s too easy to get distracted by all the negativity. I’m proud that our team has stayed focused on what matters most and that they've kept their heads up despite the negativity around our decisions and path to this point.

Tomorrow is a new chapter for Portal. We will turn on our subscription service and a group of dealers committed to supporting our vision will be formed. Thanks to everyone who’s joining us, let’s kick some ass together!

- Josh

P.S. We initiated a large rewards payment yesterday and sent an announcement to cardholders. That means that we will be caught up to the end of April for all cardholders, with the exception of those two outstanding months, Sept & Oct ‘18. We haven’t given up on that balance, we just can’t give an ETA yet. Oh, and everyone will be automatically issued a new card in June, there have been a few concerns about this.

Yes, Dawn. That's how we built it.

Once you activate your user/account for a month, you get 30 days of unlimited access. You can deactivate during that month and it will not automatically renew. I've talked to several smaller dealers who plan to do this and "batch" their proposals. Others have told me they plan to charge a small fee to cover the cost of the Proposal tool.

What's everyone using as a Portal alternative aside from DTools? Is there another proposal platform that has vendor inventory prebuilt into their system? In the middle of 4 proposal but I guess I'm forced to pony up the $89 to get them complete.

Is this a bad time to mention that some of us have a pool going if anyone wants in?

what is the average size job that you guys are using this service to bid on? I would assume they must be sizable (>$10k) if it saves that much time. at that point it would seem like the fee being charged is not material to the overall potential profit. I can knock out sub 10K proposals in about 10-20 minutes with excel. I do keep a pretty lean SKU list which helps - i don't need 75 different speaker options and i have heavily negotiated pricing with my primary vendors.

You’ve got to get some perspective here. You went from free to $50 to $90, so that is a shock. Probably not done well public relations wise, in the midst of software failures on their part. But now you are griping about $90 to do four proposals. Like my old aunt would have said “we need to put him in a brown paper bag and shake him up”.

If the time savings is not worth $22.50 per quote to you...

I've been using portal for a while now and it does have it's issues here and there but not only can you put proposals together pretty quickly, it just looks good. I have had multiple clients comment on how easy it is to go through.

Would the $89 be worth it to you to close and $10k deal? absolutely!
A $25k hell yes!

I used to use QuickBooks and it was very confusing for my clients. Just a bunch of line items and a large number at the very bottom.

What's the cheaper option that gives you everything portal does?

D-Tools? no..
D-Tools cloud? no

I know there are others out there but I think they are more expensive.

I do think it sucks the way that they handled it but I just consider it a business expense like having an internet connection.

And if and when they go down I'll probably go to D-Tools cloud.

I guess I don't know what Portal offers that Dtools doesn't.

We use Dtools and it has paid for itself on the first bid.

People just don't want to pay monthly for something they're not using.

Like the gym membership.

Dtools cloud IS cheaper, and even cheaper now if you catch there early bird promo.