After finding out how it all got started, it’s time to dig a little deeper to see how MoreNiche came to be what it is today.

In April 2006 MensNiche became MoreNiche as it started to branch out into non-men’s related products. MensNiche had a strong reputation in the adult marketing world but MoreNiche was destined to become… well, more! A brand which could also market in the mainstream arena.

It was time for high commissions and flawless support to become more than affiliate program features, they were becoming company values.

Mircea: MensNiche branched into MoreNiche and WorldNiche. Why did this fork happen?

Andy: Darren and I have been working together all our lives but over the past 5 years we have both been pushing the same company forward. Darren is now focusing on his passion which is product development he is also pushing other areas of the business from accounting through project management to customer support, leaving me to fully concentrate on running MoreNiche.

In 2006 myself and Darren decided that the future of MoreNiche was moving mainstream, we learnt a lot from the adult market and back in 2001 this was one of the most profitable online, we felt if we were to protect the future of our affiliates and ensure the expandable future we see for MoreNiche something had to give.

M: What was going on “behind the curtain” when WorldNiche was born? Is WorldNiche managed by MoreNiche or is it a separate entity?

A: We masterminded a deal with the joint market leader (at the time both MN & LEC controlled pretty much controlled the whole PE market), the owner of LEC, a multi-million dollar deal was agrred over the space of 3 months, meetings were held in both the UK and Canada and in November 2006 the agreement was signed.

WorldNiche opened its doors on 8th November 2006 (incidentally this is my birthday, a very nice present I must say). Our affiliate linking codes where automatically updated so absolutely ZERO affiliate commissions were lost with the switch. This deal was kept relatively quiet; we did not want to create concern for affiliates which was not needed.

The owners of LEC have become close business friends and now run LEC, WorldNiche and a number of other affiliate related businesses. This fork allowed MoreNiche to concentrate on what was important for us at the time, building a long term asset which will service affiliates for years to come.

M: What were your principles and aims back then and how have they changed now?

A: We have a lot of the same values today that we created in 2001, we offer high commissions products which convert well, fantastic affiliate support and a program that pays on time, every time. One concern when working with a smaller network, “will I get paid?”

By ensuring our payouts work like clockwork, it takes one less issue away from the affiliate allowing them to concentrate on what matters, generating traffic and sales.

Although we have the same values as a network today MoreNiche are a much more professional company, we have nicer offices, solidified processors, a strong team and years of experience to fall back on, we have grown well but our core values will never change and are the same as in 2001.

M: So, if you decided go to mainstream why did you keep products like SizeGenetics and PenisHealth?

A: This is a good question, we knew that it would be very difficult to convince the mainstream world that a “male enhancement pill” would work, and we felt that this could have a detrimental effect on the business relationships we could build moving forward.

Currently we do have clinically proven PE methods like the device within the program; they do have the medical backing which proves they work. The reason they are still in the program is for this reason only.

If in the future these products do influence mainstream decision making, it is possible that we change this in some way, however only time will tell. One thing is for sure we would not want to completely remove these products from the network.

M: Tell us a bit about the MoreNiche head quarters.

A: We have office space in Nottingham (UK) and Sofia (Bulgaria) with Sandis working remotely from Riga (Latvia). Myself and Paul are the only people who work full time for MoreNiche from the UK office, I am responsible for overseeing the full day to day operation of the company, my main focus is to ensure both myself and the team are meeting pre-set targets, resulting in the network is progressing well.

MoreNiche has a relatively low number of staff on its payroll, this helps keep costs low and allows for better development of software, affiliates bonuses and investment within the network.

M: Where were you previously operating from and when did you move at your current whereabouts?

A: It’s hard to believe but MoreNiche have only ever had 2 offices (well 3 if you count working from home). In 2003 we moved into a small office “lean valley house”, it could comfortably fit 4 people which was convenient as this is all we had at the time.

The office was very old and not the most enjoyable working environment, as we grew, we knocked down walls, joining other offices within the building to make it larger and accommodate more people. In 2006 we had 9 people in our small office and it was time to move. We purchased a brand new office within a new business park about 2 miles away from our old office.

Two years later, we are in our new office and it’s still standing up to the growth we have sustained, we are pretty much up to capacity with over 30 people operating from our offices.

Looking forward it will not be long before we need to purchase additional office space, this will either be a much bigger office to ensure we are fixed for the next 5 years or we may choose to split up some of our business entities, time will tell.

M: Who can we find at the MoreNiche HQ?

A: Paul is currently our only full time Brand Portfolio Manager employed by MoreNiche; he is currently managing the Property Mentor project which takes up all of his time, Paul is very experienced with affiliate marketing and MoreNiche working on nearly every product in the program at one time or another.

Darren still has a big part to play in MoreNiche, working behind the scenes we work very closely together ensuring the network is progressing well, we are very passionate people and even at 1am in the morning after a few bottles of wine will we be putting the world to right. It’s a fantastic feeling to have someone you can talk to with a similar level of experience and beliefs.

M: Who are the brand portfolio managers?

A: Katie (Proactol), Clare (Permenda), Dave/Xan (Wass) and many more. Often a company want to be a part of our affiliate network but do not have the resource to allocate a dedicated person to MoreNiche; this person could be hired by MoreNiche like Paul or the merchant themselves.

If we are really excited by the product/niche or they form part of our group, we may make exceptions, Katie marketing Proactol through MoreNiche has done an outstanding job, Katie is passionate, organised and see’s the job through. It is some of Katies one-on-one affiliates who can be found in our top1 today. We are really looking to see these products grow and with dedicated brand portfolio managers we have some exciting propositions.

M: What about Sandis? He gets praised a lot on the forums and all the newbies seem to be most familiar with him.

A: Sandis Viksna is our Affiliate Development Director working remotely from Riga; Sandis has a wealth of experience and was actually one of MoreNiche’s top affiliate before being offered a full time job. Sandis’s job is to develop the affiliate base, supporting affiliates and helping generate more sales, all of the affiliate’s e-books and the newbie guide is thanks to Sandis.

M: And finally, what is the MoreNiche development team doing in Bulgaria?

A: The main reason is when we purchased the source code to our very old affiliate software (yes in MensNiche days we used to rent it, and then purchased the code out right) was written by Bulgarian developers.

Once we had the source code we then hired a team of developers (about 3 years ago) to work on the code, as the old code was commented in Bulgarian and we took one of the software vendors developers it made sense to have developers in Bulgaria.

At the time it was also very cost effective. The team is very different today but we still have one of the oldest developers in our team, we have 1 x Manager/Lead Developer with 8+ years experience, 3 x Programmers, 1 x Project Manager, 1 x QA and a secretary all working hard to help the company and software run smoothly and add new features.

I am very happy to report the team are fantastic and over the last 6 months we have made fantastic progress, this is thanks to all the hard work of the team.

And we, as affiliates, we see deadlines and goals being set and met. MoreNiche is a nice example of great management. Tune in to the blog, next week, for the third part of the MoreNiche history. Andy will further describe the MoreNiche online infrastructure and outline the future of the MoreNiche brand. Until then, keep selling confidently as you can always be sure you’ll get your check on time!