Disrupt Review: WakeUpNow 2.0 with shares?

Disrupt first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar back in late April.

With the dust barely settled on WakeUpNow’s collapse not even three months earlier, we were somewhat surprised to learn of plans to launch a new opportunity.

Since then, more information has come to light about the Disrupt opportunity and so today we take a deeper look into what’s happening.

Is Disrupt merely a WakeUpNow clone confined to the same fate, or is the business truly going to be different this time around?

Read on for a full review of the Disrupt MLM business opportunity.

The Disrupt Product Line

Disrupt has been built on an easy-share affiliate system that will allow you to easily share thousands of products with customers.

Disrupt follows the WakeUpNow product and service subscription model, offering a number of packages that are billed monthly.

• Digital Health ($34.95 a month) – provides access to “doctor on call” telephone service and “My eWellness” fitness planner
• Disrupt Travel ($59.95 a month) – access to travel discounts offered by a third-party “travel provider” (required additional payment of “activation fee” (amount not disclosed) or purchase of Disrupt Starter Kit ($59.95))
• Eastern Health and Wealth – ($149.95 a month) – Disrupt Travel subscription bundled with access to an “online language learning system” and monthly supply of Pure Innovation Restore, “made with apple and argan stem-cells to protect and vitalize your own dermal stem cells”
• Western Health and Wealth ($129.95 a month) – Disrupt Travel subscription bundled with access to an “online language learning system” and Perfect Skin Rx Oil, “nourishes your skin with only the purest, nutrient-rich botanicals”
• Money Bundle ($19.95 a month) – access to a “personal financial management tool”, Taxbot software, a “wealth management program” and Finance 101, a “collection of 9 powerful mini-courses on everything for savings and checking accounts to mortgages, credit cards, and investing”
• Disrupt Essentials ($79.95 a month) – combines Disrupt Money and Disrupt Travel subscriptions
• Disrupt Essentials Plus Bundle ($109.95 a month) – combines Disrupt Essentials and Digital Health subscriptions
• International Essentials ($79.95 a month) – bundles Disrupt Travel subscription and access to an “online language learning system”
• Health and Wealth Bundle ($129.95) – combines Money Bundle, Disrupt Travel and Digital Health subscriptions with a case of Thunder energy drink

Note that with the possible exception of the Thunder energy drink (the same marketed by WakeUpNow), all of the above offered services are provided through third-party businesses.

The Disrupt Compensation Plan

The Disrupt compensation pays affiliates residually, through a generation compensation structure and shares.

The Distrupt Affiliate Ranks

There are thirteen affiliate ranks within the Disrupt compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification requirements, they are as follows:

• Basecamp – generate at least 45 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 200 GV a month (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
• Cairn – generate at least 45 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 350 GV a month (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
• Anchor – generate at least 45 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 750 GV a month (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
• Belay – generate at least 45 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 1250 GV a month (max 40% from any one unilevel leg)
• Ascent – generate at least 45 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 2500 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Tetons – generate at least 75 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 5000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Andies – generate at least 75 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 15,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Rockies – generate at least 75 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 35,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Himalayas – generate at least 75 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 65,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Olympus – generate at least 120 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 100,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Mauna Kea – generate at least 120 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 250,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Matterhorn – generate at least 120 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 450,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)
• Kilimanjaro – generate at least 120 PV a month and have a downline generating at least 700,000 GV a month (max 35% from any one unilevel leg)

PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is sales volume generated by a Disrupt affiliate’s own purchases and retail product sales.

GV stands for “Group Volume” and is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s downline.

Note that in Disrupt, GV also includes an affiliate’s own PV.

Minimum Rank Pay

Each Disrupt affiliate rank has an associated minimum monthly pay amount attached to it.

As per the Disrupt compensation plan documentation;

You will never earn less than this amount at any given rank.

As you continue advancing through the ranks Max Pay potential and overall payout will increase along the way.

The minimum rank pay amounts for each Disrupt affiliate rank are as follows:

• Basecamp – $20
• Cairn – $50
• Anchor – $75
• Belay – $150
• Ascent – $250
• Tetons to Himalayas – $1500
• Olympus or higher – $10,000

Personally Recruited Affiliate Commissions

Disrupt pay a flat rate 30% commission on product sales volume generated by personally recruited affiliates.

Residual Commissions

Residual commissions in Disrupt are paid out via a generations, tracked through a unilevel style compensation structure.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down at theoretical infinite number of levels.

A generation within Disrupt is defined when an affiliate at the Ascent or higher rank is found.

At this point, all affiliates in that particular unilevel leg up until the Ascent or higher ranked affiliate make up the first generation.

Once another affiliate is found in that particular leg, a second generation is defined and so on and so forth.

Note that if no Ascent ranked affiliate is found, then the generation extends down to the end of the unilevel leg.

Also note that for the purpose of generation calculation, each individual unilevel leg independent from the others.

Disrupt pay out a percentage commission on the sales volume generated by affiliates in a generation, paid out up to seven generations deep in any given unilevel leg.

Generation commissions are paid out at a flat rate of 10%, with how many generations an affiliate can earn on determined by their Disrupt rank:

• Ascent – one generation
• Tetons – two generations
• Andes – three generations
• Rockies – four generations
• Himalayas – fie generations
• Olympus – six generations
• Mauna Kea or higher – all seven available generations

Shares

Disrupt’s Share pool is made up of “65% of the company’s total global volume”.

This volume is split into three pools; Tier 1 (40%), Tier 2 (17.5%) and Tier 3 (7.5%).

Basecamp to Ascent ranked affiliates earn shares in Tier 1, Tetons to Himalayas ranked affiliates earn shares in Tier 2 and Olympus and higher ranked affiliates earn shares in Tier 3.

The Disrupt compensation plan does not clarify whether or not higher ranked affiliates also earn shares in the lower tier pools.

In any event, a Disrupt affiliate’s GV generates them shares in the tiers, with 1 GV point equal to 1 share.

GV is sales volume generated by an affiliate’s downline, including their own purchases and sales to retail customers.

At the end of each month Disrupt assign a dollar amount to each share, based on the company’s total global volume.

Affiliates are then paid pro-rata, based on how many shares they have in the pool.

Joining Disrupt

Disrupt affiliate membership is free.

Conclusion

Following in the footsteps of WakeUpNow is no easy feat. Although inevitably expected following millions of dollars in losses over a number of years, the sudden collapse of WakeUpNow earlier this year was still an abrupt surprise.

Now out of the ashes comes Disrupt, armed with a familiar sounding monthly service subscription model, top affiliates and executive staff.

The first thing that struck me about Disrupt was the lack of retail incentive. Unless I’m missing something obvious, the sale of a Disrupt subscription to a retail customer provides no direct commission.

Instead the sale adds to an affiliate’s GV, which then translates into shares and pays out a portion of company-wide sales for that month.

This was important to note because typically in an MLM opportunity a bonus pool component is minor. In Disrupt however, 65% of the company’s sale volume is allocated to the pool, by definition making it the primary source of commissions within the company.

The primary concern I have with the whole share pool bonus in Disrupt is the very real danger that revenue paid out will by and large be affiliate funds.

This is based on the aforementioned lack of retail incentive, as well as WakeUpNow’s failure to attract a significant retail customer base.

Disrupt’s subscriptions are slightly different, but to that end preliminary research revealed a lack of retail viability.

I had a look into the Digital Health subscription for example and found it to be offered elsewhere for just $8.75 a month with a $5 fee (right).

Why on Earth then, as a retail customer, would I pay Disrupt $34.95 a month for the same service?

I suspect the answer lies in Disrupt affiliate membership being free, with the income opportunity by design aimed at being a marketing tool in and of itself.

Non-commissionable sure, but a problem if nobody outside of the income opportunity is subscribed to Disrupt’s offered subscriptions.

Why?

If all Disrupt are doing is taking affiliate funds and shuffling 65% of the funds taken in each month to pay out affiliate’s based on GV, inevitably those with the largest downlines are going to walk away with the biggest share of funds.

Not because of their sales efforts, but because they have the largest amount of affiliates under them paying monthly subscription fees.

A complete lack of retail subscription sales would back this up, indicating that the only reason Disrupt affiliates pay the fees each month is to qualify for commissions (a set amount of PV is required each month in order to qualify for commissions).

Coming off of WakeUpNow, and knowing that the same people are involved in Disrupt, my hunch is that there’s not going to be any significant retail here. Meaning there’s a strong possibility of unregistered securities coming into play.

It’s a bit more convoluted than your typical offering, but in effect without retail, Disrupt affiliates would be required to pay into the kitty each month, and then increase their share of the kitty by recruiting others who do the same.

That in turn generates GV, which in Disrupt are labelled “shares” and allocated a specific dollar amount each month.

Typically GV is paid via a fixed percentage commission, but in Disrupt that value is a floating value, directly tied into the total amount of funds flowing into the company for that particular month.

And if those funds are by and large only being paid in via affiliates, that brings us full circle on the unregistered securities issue.

Disrupt seem to be aware of this potential issue themselves, offering up the following explanation in their compensation plan:

The Global Override commission is calculated by taking the allotted percentage of volume from the entire company worldwide and creating a “per-volume share price.”

In layman’s terms, this converts each unit of volume to a dollar amount.

After the share price is created, commissions will then be paid by taking your qualified volume and then paying you the equivalent dollar amount, up to the rank maximum.

While we’re referring to a “share price,” it’s important to understand that we’re not talking about traditional shares, as in shares of stock.  These shares are simply tokens of value that help us compute the payouts.

That last bit is pseudo-compliance, as mechanically GV points are indeed shares with an anticipated dollar amount fixed to them. Call them tokens or whatever else you want, the point stands.

Now, that’s where my analysis of Disrupt ends and yours begins. As a prospective Disrupt affiliate the clearest way to establish what’s going on within the company is to ask your potential upline what their monthly PV is.

Then ask them how much of that is their own spend each month.

If the answer is a close to 1:1 ratio (meaning little or no retail sales exist), that’s a pretty strong indication of what’s going on company-wide.

If your potential upline isn’t a big player, ask them to enquire upline until you get figures from someone of an appropriate rank (anyone who’s Ascent or higher should do).

On the other hand, if the PV ratio of an affiliate’s own spend is small, meaning there’s a healthy dose of retail sales being generated, then this plan might just work out in the end.

My gut tells me otherwise, but ultimately as a prospective affiliate you’ll be in a better position to gauge retail activity going on.

Good luck!