[DannyCox]

OLD-TIMER GEEK ALERT!

We are definitely in the "stumbled into it crowd". We actually started back in the old BBS days, before there was even a Web. We had been involved in BBSes continually since the early '80s. As I worked in the Aerospace & Defence industry, I was introduced to the "Internet" back around 1982, and my first e-mail address was from good old Compuserve. Back then we had to login to different systems to do different things, there was Usenet, ARPANET, and CSNET. In the late '80s, we in the Scientific and R&D communities started using the 'net for what it was meant for....trading Porn GIFs! (The boys at NASA had some of the best)

Okay, history lesson is over.....

"Wild Rose" was born on the BBS, with her own picture section and chat rooms. Of course, back then, all the images were downloadable GIFs. We did that for a couple of years, and then in early 1994, I started fooling around with web pages. HTML was just a derivative of a publishing language we used in aerospace, so I really had no learning curve. I started a site promoting "Swinging" that I think maybe 4 people ever saw (there was no one on the Web back then), and by early 1995, that became Carol's website exclusively, and very popular for it's time. This is before "Carol Cox" when Carol was still know as "Wild Rose", her old BBS name. As the site became larger, so did the hosting bill, and we needed a way to pay for it. So we made our first amateur home movie, and sold it via mail order on the 'net. That more than paid for the hosting bill, it paid for 2 new cars, and my huge home entertainment system! In early 1996, when the first click-through programs started, we were in the Top 10 over at Webcounter. Between the video sales and the ad revenue, we were grossing over $15K a month, and I was still working in Aerospace! I only worked on the website, one day a week, on Sunday afternoons. Carol handled the day to day customer service stuff (even Serge had our home phone number back then!).

By late summer 1996, we decided to build a members area for a pay site. We had lots of content, just not the time. I needed some help, so my old friend, and BBS buddy, Evil Chris stepped in to lend a hand. He had Web and HTML experience from doing his own sites, and was more than capable. We first had to finally get a domain name, and that's how the name "Carol Cox" was born. Just for the domain. Chris and I spent a couple of months building the new website, and the lay-out we developed back then is still in use by most Amateurs today. We finally launched the website members area in January of 1997, and did $20K worth of sales (at $9.95 each) in that first month (28 days)! I quit work on March 7th, 1997 when I realized I was losing money by going to work!

So, with us, nothing was really planned. It was just a matter of right place at the right time with the right product. What we did seemed to have a mind of its own, and took off with little help from us. The money we have made over the years paid for a lot of goodies, and we don't worry about money any longer. We say we are "semi-retired", but with an 8 year old still at home, I need to do something, so I still do this.

-- Danny