What Happened To Kolakube.com ?

September 14, 2011 - Last Modified: September 14, 2011 by Hesham Zebida

Kolakube.com has been acting strange recently, the site went down for several times till it disappear completely from the internet. At the beginning I thought it’s a web hosting problem, which could happen to any website on the internet, but then I realized that there is other side for the story!

Note: I’ve categorize this post in the News section, because it’s News!

And, I am curious to know what really happened to Kolakube, not because its competition with ThesisAwesome.com, but I have other reasons:

1- I know the guy

I know Alex Frasier and I’ve talked with him via email and skype trying to find out a way to work together, but he didn’t reply to my tweet recently, he actually didn’t say anything about Kolakube and what happened with the site.

2- I am a member of Kolakube

Yes, I am a member of Kolakube since the site was launched (I also have a membership on almost all other thesis skins sites), I actually bought two skins from Alex before, the reason was not really to use the skins, but to support him as a young guy who do great work, and I like that. I some times buy things that I don’t use just to support and encourage the people behind it.

So, being member of Kolakube, I would like to know why the site is down, this is absolutely NOT a web hosting problem!

We are not talking about a blog or whatever website here, this is a business website with a lot of members who are expecting it to be working, and If my business website site goes down because web hosting problem, I will do what ever it takes to bring it back, moving it to another hosting company won’t hurt, and I will do it the same day!

3- I received a couple of emails asking about Kolakube

I’ve got a couple of emails from people who was trying to reach the site and they eneded on my site somehow, so I had to reply to them, I’ve told them that Kolakube is down, and I asked them to check back latter.

Also, more than one person are asking what happened to the site on Twitter, they are expecting an answer, so if you read this post and you know what happened to Kolakube , please do let us know!

Is Alex Selling Kolakube.com

The Answer is: Yes!

I have no doubt that Alex tried to sell Kolakube, he actually tried to sell it at flippa.com last month, but probably he didn’t complete the transfer.

Not sure why his account is banned at flippa.com?

I really don’t get it!

I just don’t understand the whole thing!

I mean, how come someone plan to sell his site this way without informing its members?

Or maybe ask them, what if there is someone interested among the members?

What Happened To Kolakube.com ?

Is Kolakube going to be live again any soon?

Did Alex sold the Kolakube ?

If yes, then who is the new owner?

If you have an answers to any of these question, please let me know!

About Hesham Zebida

Follow @hishaman

I create websites with WordPress, and I develop Schema Plugins to help SEOs. I am a social network lover. I am also the night creature who works hard to keep this project up. Owner and founder of the Famous Blog.

{ 60 Responses }

Alex says:

I know I handled the situation badly communications wise. But I am happy to say Kolakube is back online, and all members who bought my monthly membership will get an extension. Hesham, maybe we can talk about letting me write a guest post here to explain the situation a little further?
- Hesham says:
  
  Congratulations Alex, great news! Sure, hit me up on email any time
Akshay says:

Hi Hesham, I just visited to kolakube and it wasnt loading, so i searched for it and landed on this page, Site is closed.. That sucks. Why the new owners of site will buy this site and close it? Thats really strange.
Campbell McArthur says:

People need to stop being so cynical and creating a perpetual loop of anarchy surrounding Kolakube and Alex. I happen to own one of Alex's skins (Blogussion) and personally I am not freaked out by all of this hoopla surrounding Kolakube. I am not making excuses for Alex's actions or lack of but, lets keep things in perspective here, He is a young kid, did You when you were his age conduct yourself as a responsible 35 year old adult? I will make the assumption here for everyone and say that No You did Not! Professionalism and responsibility with your own personal conduct towards others is a skill and something that acquired over time just as maturity is. With that said, try to remain calm and optimistic everyone and give Alex the benefit of the doubt. Alex, if you are watching this thread you might want to take interest in communicating with your people and loyal customers to ease their minds about about what may or may not be happening ....(it's the right thing to do!) I might suggest you heed the advice before a lynch mob forms. Besides, people are allot more forgiving providing that you communicate with them. I myself have found this out the hard way over my life time! Campbell
- Campbell McArthur says:
  
  B.T.W ...Nice to see you Alex! What part of New Jersey are you from? I am from Tinton Falls, New Jersey
- Alex says:
  
  Appreciate the comment Campbell! I do understand that you aren't trying to make excuses for me (there really are none), but this is something I should have understood the moment I launched the site. I'm dealing with real people who are paying real money for something I made, so they deserve only my best. I can tell you that keeping all of my customers out of the loop during this was NOT the way to go at all. But, I learned a lot from this mess and I hope people aren't too angry at me for all of this. I'll keep going to make Kolakube a great site for Thesis resources, and hopefully people haven't lost all respect for me over this. And I think that's about an hour from me - I'm in the Burlington area :)
CDano says:

email sent Alex, really need some help!
- CDano says:
  
  No reply from Alex as of yet, i did manage to find the bug but it took many hours of my time. The good news is the design is, as we all know, clean and good looking.
- CDano says:
  
  Just to keep the record straight, Alex did get back to me, it took a couple of days, but that's understandable. All is good and i'm very pleased with the skin.
  - Hesham says:
    
    Glad to hear that!
Luke says:

Alex opened a new blog at lifenotion.com. In the about section is specified that he sold both Kolakube and Blogussion. Funny that yesterday he tweeted to Chris Pearson that his sites have been hacked. Really weird.
- Alex says:
  
  lifenotion is not yet launched, and that page is outdated.
Alex says:

Send me an email through the site linked in my name cdano
CDano says:

Nice to hear from you Alex. Please redeem yourself, i'm stuck with a great skin i can't get to work.
Jose Tinto says:

What's worse! He's banned from from Flippa too!!
Alex says:

It was not sold. Will explain everything shortly & will talk to customers
- Hesham says:
  
  Thanks for stopping by!
Gary B says:

Selling a site that makes $3,200 p/m for 20k seems a bit odd.
- Hesham says:
  
  Yes, it just doesn't make any sense, really!
Garish Wasil says:

yeah, its too sad (and strange at the same time) to know that Alex sold Kolakube. And the site is now redirected to supermum.tv by its new owner. Sad, but he made some great themes (and i am using one of them). Don't know what made him to do such act, but its not at all good at his part. Moreover, there were a lot of people subscribed to his yearly membership plans (uff, How he might have handled explaining to them)
CDano says:

This is very disappointing. He made promises to give support via the forum, which he rarely followed up on and now this. I bought in, because i thought his designs were good, and for me forum support is vital. This is very unprofessional, and having just bought the skin without getting it to work, i'm feeling ripped off. Sorry Alex, you really blew it, say goodbye to your reputation.
Joshua Zamora says:

I was SO close to buying their blogussion skin too! Glad I didn't 8) Sucks for the members too. Who in their right man would abandon their community like that? I really hope it's something serious and more important then a one time payday. My reputation is certainly worth way more then $20,000
Jose Tinto says:

I was trying to reach Kolakube.com and it was forwarding to some strange mom sites. I have done a search in Twitter and ended up here. I must say this is very unprofessional way to do the business to sell the site and go offline without even informing the customers. Thanks for putting up this. Now first thing I have to do is to find a way to remove the kolakube footer link from the site. I don't want an external link to any spammy site. I will thankful if anybody can help on this.
Damon says:

Hey Hesham, Thanks for the post. I am doing a redesign for a client of mine and am looking throw skins to send them to see what they like. I kept getting redirected to this supermantv site while I was trying to pull up kolakube. Then I did a search for it and found your post. I guess it isn't a huge deal because there are other skins, like the new product one you just put out looks really awesome. Of course I need to give a variety to my clients so they can decide what they like best. Guess I won't spend anymore time looking for Kolakube :-)
- Hesham says:
  
  Hi Damon, Let me know whenever you or your client are ready. The Product Skin is really nice, but I keep telling this to everybody to take out the confusion, it can be used to create only one sales or landing page on the front of the blog, this makes sense as we are using the WP widgets system. Glad to save you some time :)
  - Damon says:
    
    Oh, thanks for clarifying that Hesham. I was under the impression that you would be able to create multiple or essentially unlimited landing pages for various products.
    - Damon says:
      
      I forgot to ask, I am a beta tester of the commentluv premium as well so I automatically get 10 posts and it does not offer me the option to click a social media button. I noticed my commentluv link was no follow and others on here are not, how do you have your settings set up for the do follow vs no follow. I am wondering if it might be a bug we should bring to Andy's attention if other commentluv premium blogs are not able to even select the option to retweet an article for a do follow link. Just something I noticed when I left that last comment.
      - Hesham says:
        
        I think this because my new commentluv settings which removes the nofollow after 10 comments or if you shared a post!
Suraj says:

That's really strange thing, I am not a premium member. But yes I have tried his free themes many times. I think really tough time for premium members for downloading themes and getting support.
Tran Duc Hung says:

I am also a member of Alex's site.Hope they will fine soon
courtney stodden says:

I am curious that I end up thinking that this might be the new owner of the site.
ThesisTheme.Net says:

I've been trying to get a hold of Alex lately also to find out what the deal is. At the beginning of the month he told me on twitter it was hosting related but its been a couple of weeks and the site is still not back up. I'm a Kolakube customer and also participate in the affiliate program. Whatever the issue is, I think Alex should take a minute and update his paying customers and affiliates.
- Hesham says:
  
  I wanted to get in touch before, but it's not my attitude to contact people asking them to join my aff program, I think they need to make that decision with their own welling. Thanks for stopping by Chris.
Sushant Risodkar says:

From sources, I think alex in partnership with rob rammuny are doing something together; maybe a new blog or product. Here is some text that I got to read: July 30: Rob: "‎Alex Mangini & I just closed a $20,000 deal.... that's what we call hustlin ;)" Alex Mangini: DUDE WE DID IT!!!! :) Aug 2: Rob: "just confirmed w/ Alex Mangini - big stuff coming this Sept boys. stay tuned ;)"
- Hesham says:
  
  What's your impression about that?
- Mushfique says:
  
  Hope they are on to something big and good ! :D Thanks for this piece of information Sushant!
Melvin says:

well the strange thing now is its redirecting to supermum.tv w/c is totally unrelated. Its either hacked (w/c hopefully is not) or he probably sold the domain to someone else who just then used it as a redirector w/c is very not possible though. I'm curious as well because I know Alex and I;ve guest posted on his site for a couple of times.
Ming Jong Tey says:

Hey Hesham, Most of the time if I am the guy who would like to sell my website, first thing I would do is to notify my list and ask if anyone is interested. This is really strange... Cheers, Ming
- Hesham says:
  
  Exactly :) Selling your site without informing the members, is like selling the members!
Felix says:

Hi Hesham, I visited Kolakube just now and I noticed that the page shows the SuperMum.tv. I am curious though that I end up thinking that this might be the new owner of the site. Or maybe they are attacked by some hackers or anything else. I am also thinking that this is some hosting issues because my sites gone down for almost 24 hours. But last night, it went well. I hope that Alex will clarify this issue. - Felix
Wong Chendong aka The Bad Blogger says:

The only way to find out is, call him directly, but I bet you need to find his phone number, going missing without reasons and explanation, it's almost irresponsible moreover I had a good respect to Alex since the day I knew his blog, but hearing this and also not updating his blog for a long time seem to me something big had happen, and I hope one day he could stand out and explain or else it will be hard for him to face his members, fans and even his friends online once more...
- Hesham says:
  
  Not really interested in calling him anymore, but I wanted to know what happened like everybody else. speaking about his blog, I think back to school time has it's big impact on young entrepreneurs who start business in early age!
Nasif says:

I just hope that kolakube is not being sold to supermum. It will put a lot of bad impression on Alex.
- Mushfique says:
  
  I fear it has already been sold to Supermum.tv Nasif :( For people like me who would want to buy his skins later, this is a real bad news. But oh well, thanks to Hesham for Thesis Awesome :D
Mushfique says:

I thought it was down for a few days, but found out it to be out of service totally. Searched in google what happened to kolakube and ended up here ! And according to Saket, it did get sold to supermum.tv Strange it is. They better change the domain name ! Alex should have informed the members!
Music Diva says:

Well, as a matter of fact I spent the last two days trying to get into Kolakube, when I finally noticed that you not only have the skin I want, but it's better for me than the one I planned to buy from Kolakube. I'm referring to your 'BlogSkin.' So for me it's been a blessing. Now don't leave me! :) Dee
- Hesham says:
  
  Never!
Abhay says:

Alex became greedy and scr*wed his members... I am a paid annual member of kolakube and I paid for his skins even though I knew it was available for free from other free template websites... I regret this now and in future will not purchase thesis skins... free warez rulez !
- Hesham says:
  
  It's nothing really to regret, you paid for something and you got it, I won't agree with you on free download stuff, however it's up to you, what counts is support that you won't get wihtout paying for it. What I am discussing here is tottaly different, I am talking about selling a site and distroy a comlete project for cheap, and give pain for those who have established brand new websites to promote this business, waste of time for some people who took a dicussion to support it, now what they have is punch of broken links!
Saket Jajodia says:

Kolakube is live but not as Kolakube Yes, it is sold It seems it is sold to Supermum.tv Even their NameSever is changed within last four days but the contact details in WhoIs is still of Alex
DiTesco says:

Hmmm, interesting at its best. I am actually surprised to hear about this news. I fortunately am not a member of Kolakube and if I were, I can totally understand the frustration current members are having. This is really very unprofessional and at worst, there should be something on the website indicating what is going on. Not parked, no "under maintenance".. simply nothing. Wonder what happened. I hope it is nothing serious about Alex. Guess this is a wait and see kinda thing
- Hesham says:
  
  Hey buddy, I am sure that you understand this better than me :)
Robert says:

I've been just as curious, I've no idea what happened to kolakube, he should have told his members what was happening, they've a right to know if they've paid for a service. His other site - blogussion hasn't really been updated in ages either, I'm not sure what's going on with him
- Hesham says:
  
  mmm.. Members have rights only if he can understand that, but seems he don't get it! I am sure that kolakube's terms is protecting him, but it's something more far than that, It's about having a good relationship with others!
Tuan says:

I have no idea what the website Kolakube is because it is unavailable now. But it seems like a good website and great earnings too. Hopefully it has already had a new owner, I don't like the action of selling website without notifying its members. At least he should show some respects.
Dan says:

I would also like to know what's happening
Dave Lucas says:

What happened yo kolakube can and will happen to other servies, apps and features! Hesham, The only defense: find a similar offering by a seperate entity and join that too: that way you have a cushion to fall back on.
- Hesham says:
  
  Good point Dave!
Faissal Alhaithami says:

I don't have any idea about this site! I just heard the first time about it! but it's really strange to see a website who's running great to be closed without even telling the members about it! as you mentioned it's not a free services he was offering maybe he sold it out as when you go to Kolakube.com it shows Supermum.tv !!
- Hesham says:
  
  That's what I was trying to know, and it seems that kolakube was sold!