Stop Bleeding Cash: The Brutal Truth About Vetting Partners

Avoid the "Too Good To Be True" Deals

our business is not a charity for cowboy operators. Learn the brutal lessons from the GrabOne collapse, master due diligence, and stop falling for "easy" money.

Hope Is Not A Strategy .

You think you’re hustling. You think you’re grinding. But if you are handing over your revenue stream to a third-party platform without doing your homework, you aren't a CEO. You’re a passenger. And passengers get hurt when the vehicle crashes.

Recent headlines in New Zealand have exposed a brutal reality: The collapse of deal site GrabOne left hardworking Kiwi businesses—like Coromandel Shelly Beach Top 10 Holiday Park—out of pocket by thousands. Aaron McFarlane, the owner, faced a $60,000 hole from multiple liquidations in a single year.

Why? Because he trusted. Because the offer of "easy volume" looked good.

The market doesn’t care about your feelings. It doesn't care if you worked 80 hours this week. If you fail to vet your partners, or if you chase offers that are mathematically impossible to sustain, you will bleed out.

This article isn't here to comfort you. It’s here to armor your mind with the psychology, strategy, and market research tactics you need to survive.

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The Founder’s Journey: The Trap of the "Easy Win"

The Siren Song

Every founder’s journey faces the temptation of the shortcut. In narrative structures, this is the "False Guide." For many businesses, GrabOne was that guide. The promise? High volume, massive exposure, quick cash flow.

It triggers a classic Heuristic (a mental shortcut) known as the Scarcity Principle. You fear missing out on customers, so you sign away your margins for a shot at volume.

The Crash

Aaron McFarlane’s story is a tragedy of reliance. He delivered the service—glamping escapes on the beachfront—but the platform collecting the money (GrabOne/Global Marketplace) went into liquidation.

The Reality: The liquidators (Calibre Partners) announced retailers were "unlikely to be reimbursed."
The Result: McFarlane is honoring the vouchers to protect his brand reputation, effectively working for free.

This is the Sunk Cost Fallacy in action. You’ve already invested time and inventory; walking away feels impossible, so you dig a deeper hole.

CreativeStartupNZ Insight: Don't let your brand’s reputation be held hostage by a third party. We offer Business Planning services to help you model these risks before you sign the contract.

Market Research: How to Spot a Cowboy

You cannot afford to be naive. In Market Research theory, this is called Environmental Scanning. You must look outside your four walls to see the storm coming.

The Due Diligence Protocol

Before you partner with anyone (a deal site, a contractor, a supplier), execute this forensic analysis:

Financial Health Check: Don’t just look at their website. Look at their solvency. Are they paying other vendors late? McFarlane noted GrabOne was "two months behind in payments" before the collapse. That was the flare.
Competitor Intelligence: Are your competitors fleeing this platform? If the smart money is leaving, why are you staying?
The "Too Good To Be True" Ratio: If a partner offers you exposure but demands 50% margins plus a delay in payment, calculate your Break-Even Point. If the math relies on "upselling later," it’s a gamble, not a strategy.

Stop guessing. If you don't know how to dig up this data, use our Start-up Consult (1st hour free). We can teach you how to analyze a partner's viability so you don't get left holding the bag.

The Psychology of Deception
Why do smart founders fall for cowboy operators? It’s not stupidity; it’s biology. Psychology 13e highlights specific cognitive biases that blind us to risk.
1. Authority Bias
You see a big brand name like "GrabOne" or a slick website, and your brain assumes safety. You assume, "They are too big to fail." Wrong. The $25 million debt pile in the GrabOne liquidation proves size does not equal safety.
2. Optimism Bias
"It won't happen to me." You see other businesses getting stiffed, but you think you’re special. You aren't.
3. Intermittent Reinforcement
This is the most powerful motivator in behaviorism. The platform pays you sometimes. You get a burst of sales occasionally. This unpredictable reward keeps you hooked, ignoring the mounting debt and late payments until it’s too late.

Strategy & Execution: Build Your Own Castle

Principles of Marketing 17e teaches us about the Marketing Mix (4Ps). The most dangerous P to outsource is Place (Distribution).

If you rely on a third-party marketplace for your customers, you are a sharecropper on someone else's land. When the landlord goes bust, you starve.

Actionable Steps to Own Your Future:

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Pivot: Stop paying commissions to deal sites. Build your own channel.
- Solution: Use our 5 Page Website (Google Sites) service ($215.99). It’s cheap, it’s yours, and no one can shut it down.
Own the Traffic: Don't wait for a daily email blast to bring you customers. Go out and hunt them.
- Solution: Invest in a Web Page & Blog Post SEO Audit ($49.99) or Social Media Optimisation. Rank for your own keywords so customers find you first.
Diversify Revenue Streams: Never let one partner account for more than 20% of your income. If a builder or platform goes down (like the tiny home builder who owed McFarlane $49,000), you need other pillars standing

Motivation: Callous Discipline

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The system is broken? Good. The economy is tough? Good. It filters out the weak.

Aaron McFarlane lost $60,000, and he’s still honoring vouchers. That is resilience. That is taking ownership of a situation he didn't create. But you know what’s better than resilience? Preparation.

You need to be savage with your trust.

Someone offers you a deal? Audit them.
Someone delays payment by 24 hours? Stop work immediately.
A platform promises the world? Demand the cash upfront.

Nobody is coming to save you. Not the liquidators, not the government. You save yourself by being undeniable and by watching your bottom line like a hawk.

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Next Steps

The collapse of GrabOne is a wake-up call. Cowboy businesses and "too good to be true" offers prey on desperate founders who skip the vetting process.

Your Battle Plan:

Audit every partner you currently work with.
Identify any entity that holds your money for more than 7 days.
Build your own digital assets so you aren't dependent on platforms.

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