Home Fixated Acquiring TheWoodWhisperer.com!

Editor’s Note: Since we managed to dupe a few people with this, and our psychic abilities tell us you are reading this after April 1st, 2014, please note that this post was for April Fool’s Day! Our thanks to Marc at THE Wood Whisperer for putting up with our foolishness! Anyway, here you go. . .

After months of work, we’re really, really excited to break the news: Home Fixated is officially acquiring the wildly popular woodworking site TheWoodWhisperer.com! We’ve been big fans of the site here at Home Fixated, so we couldn’t be more honored to have The Wood Whisperer officially join the Home Fixated family. Although we’ve exchanged many emails over the years, I first met Marc Spagnuolo at a media event for Jet / Powermatic last year. It was there that we first started discussing possible collaboration. I would have never guessed it would have culminated in this exciting day, but here we are! Woodworking is a natural fit for much of the HomeFixated.com demographic, and we’ve been subtly working on adding more woodworking content to the site. By acquiring TheWoodWhisperer.com, we’ve been able to jumpstart that strategy in a BIG way, bypassing countless hours of thankless content creation ourselves. Read on for more details about the deal and some exciting changes we have in store for Wood Whisperer fans!

What TheWoodWhisperer.com Fans Can Expect from the Deal

Acquisitions sometimes have a bad reputation. We’ve all heard the horror stories before. Some big, heartless, soul-sucking corporation swoops in to acquire another company, butchers it, and sells off its assets for a tidy profit. I can assure you, we’re well aware of this danger. And, while The Wood Whisperer’s well appointed workshop might be a tempting target to some takeover pro’s, that’s not what we are about at Home Fixated. We’re also highly cognizant that tampering with an already winning formula is simply inviting failure and disaster. For these reasons, we plan to only implement three subtle changes in the first two years:

1. Removing “The” from “The Wood Whisperer”
   
   Let’s face it, the “The” in “The Wood Whisperer” is super annoying. We’re not “The Home Fixated” and we don’t think it’s appropriate for The Wood Whisperer either. Expect to see the “The” disappearing from the website and all marketing materials soon. We expect this change to have minimal effects on Wood Whisperer fans.
2. Changes to the Guild
   If you’re not already familiar with The Guild (we might have to remove the “The” on it too), it’s a premium aspect of Wood Whisperer that comes with all kinds of benefits, including access to some great guild-only projects you can build yourself with plans, cut lists and even touchy-feely community support. It’s also how Marc planned to get his kid through college (he’s got that covered now, more on that below). With a la carte pricing starting at just $25 and annual subscriptions at $129/year, we think this great benefit has been massively undercharged. Expect to see pricing increase somewhat to a flat $300/project for a la cart projects and a still manageable $499.97/year for the annual subscription. Superfan memberships will now be a $9,999.93 flat fee (no more annoying annual payments!) We’ll still honor purchases before the increase so hurry and get your Guild Membership soon!
3. Wood Whisperer 24 Hour Hotline
   The Guild has previously included some voice/video Skype sessions at the SuperFan level, but they’ve always been on Marc’s busy schedule. Plus, some of the video chats got a little creepy. Now you’ll be able to access Marc 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year with the new Wood Whisperer toll free help line. If you’ve ever struggled with a dovetail, botched a mortise and tenon joint, or wished you had someone to talk with while lonesomely sweeping up sawdust in your godforsaken shop, this new feature is for you! Now Marc is on-call, just for you . . . and all his other fans. The new Wood Whisperer hotline is Toll Free!!! Charges of $24.99/minute will be billed to your credit card. Please note, we disabled call waiting to provide for uninterrupted sessions with Marc. If you get a busy signal, just try back.

Marc Spagnuolo’s Role

We all know and have come to love Marc Spagnuolo from his role in front of the camera, which is why our plans for him might come as a shock. With so much time in front of the camera, it’s easy to start to feel enslaved by it. Marc has been wanting more freedom away from the camera, which is why we’re planning to introduce Marc’s wife Nicole as the new face of Wood Whisperer videos. With a demographic comprised mostly of lecherous 25-65 year old men, we feel this talent transition will surely be well received by Wood Whisperer fans. Marc plans to spend more time editing videos, as well as pursuing two new hobbies: Fuse Beads and Rainbow Loom. Marc will still make on-screen cameos, but keep your eyes open for some great video content from Nicole very soon!

Deal Details

With Home Fixated’s IPO last year, we had the benefit of substantial resources to apply to this deal. While the exact deal terms remain confidential, we can reveal that the deal was valued in the high 10 figures (mostly through stock options in HomeFixated.com’s burgeoning shares). The deal terms have been executed by both parties, and you can expect changes to start rolling out today, April 1st, 2014!

Should you have any questions related to the deal, please feel free to reach out to us in the comments below, or through our contact form. You can also reach Marc through the new Toll Free Wood Whisperer Hotline.