Success In Non-adult World.

[Mike AI]

Well we all know for years, the Holy Grail of most porn entrepreneur's was to take money from their porn empires, and build a Non-Adult online business.

We have all seen many people make the jump, some never came back, yet many have returned.

I was thinking about this topic because there are a few people returning to the adult business, who less then a year ago were bragging on their MAINSTREAM success.

I remember the frenzy which was the search for the Holy Graol of mainstream Internet businesses.

Anyone remember this as well? Who made it? Did anyone find mainstream success that is still going strong today? I think I might know a few. But there is a huge graveyard of failed mainstream businesses that were started by porno people... lets document them all.

The people who did make it, why did they make? Was applying adult ideas and concepts to mainstream successful?

Oh and I have my fair share of Mainstream failures as well. I will document them for Oprano as well.

[Almighty Colin]

I jumped and came back. Mark me down for one failure.

Next time McDonald's franchises.

[Nickatilynx]

I wanna make porn , mainstream

[President]

Yeah, shit, I know the feeling too well Mike!

I was one of those guys who left tits and ass to save my country!

Fucking hurricane Mitch ruined what was going to be a good thing.

It would have failed even without the hurricane though. People just would not buy advertising.

Still today I run Honduras.com as a news agency and lose money every day!

ahhhhhh, the potential is still there, if only I could find the cheese!!!

[Peaches]

Well, for starters, you, Sig, Matt and Directnic seem to be doing pretty well

Oh and I have my fair share of Mainstream failures as well. I will document them for Oprano as well.

I'd bet that most entrepreneurs have more failures than successes in ANY industry. Tis how you learn to be successful

I'm curious as to how many former adult web folks have been successful in non-adult OUTSIDE the internet. I know there are some in real estate, any others?

Rick Meyoung (sp) from YNOT. He bought up 2 slick business domains, then despite his millions put up messages asking for VC on their front ends. He sold them not long after. I saw him at a party in LA with two leggy pornstars in tow. I guess old habits die hard even when you're 'mainstream.'

I have both non-adult and adult businesses, I'd say the long term potential of the non-adult stuff is slightly greater, but adult is great for some big quick cash. Stick and move, stick and move.

C.

[sarettah]

Define success...........

Anyway.... although I was not "officially" part of the adult internet... From July 99 through July '01 I worked for one of the big adult providers, taking care of site reports, etc... So my initiation into web commerce was via adult internet...

After the layoffs, my wife and I decided to take a shot.... at both the adult internet and mainstream.....

My adult efforts have not borne fruit yet (freesite, tgp building..submit submit submit, ya know the story) example at: www.partyafterdark.com.redhead_in_stockings2

Our mainstream site has gottne sales, but has not yet turned a profit www.paperjewels.com

But, a year later, we are still at it...

Is that success ?

I am fairly old fashioned about business... I still feel that success is not usually intantaneous, but comes after many many mnay hours and days and months of keeping at it.... The IRS will allow me to take a loss for 3 years before they will fuck with me, so I usually use that as a measure...

If after 3 years, we have not made it yet, I will reevaluate the whole thing (or when the money runs out...whichever comes first)



Last edited by sarettah at Nov 22 2002, 01:45 PM

[Mike AI]

Peaches, thanks for the compliment about DirectNIC. Thing is our mainstream success really came about because of a fluke.

Originally InterCosmos Media Group was going to be free hosting, and portal type set up like Tripod, and GeoCities. Remember when these companies were sold for millions? We are going to be the next large community website.

Of course Grimm, and Noah were king of adult free hosting, so we figured we could take this knowledge and apply it to mainstream. We had some success, at least we had a lot of traffic. Since we were setting up some main new domains for the site, we figured we could save money by buying our own wholesale, and then sell them to our friends. Well things took off very well, so we decided there is a business to be made, so we went and became ICANN acredited, put together an amazing staff, and DirectNIC happened.

Since then it has been a struggle to keep DirectNIC going, I attribute all the success to my partners, especially the CEO Sig. I have nothing to do day to day, except cheer them on!

We do have some good things coming out soon, we got some good news from a bankrupcy court in NY - so we may be aquiring some new business models.... I will make sure to keep everyone informed.

[Mike AI]

Now I also have some mainstream failures....

Anyone remember CitySoap.com ? The idea was great, it was ahead of its time, and probably not 100% non-adult since we would have had some gratutious nudity.

This was before big brother, survivror, and all the other shows became popular.

The concept was good, the execution was off - we had a partner in NY who handled the talent, and he had no experience with Internet. He was very difficult to deal with and since he was the person in NY his vision is what we all saw on the net - so he had control.

I tried to get him to work with us, even went to NY many time - and things would go well until I left again. So I finally made an ultimatum that he had to run the talent like the other partners wanted or we were going to pull the plug. He ignored me, so I turned off the T1.

I lost a lot of money in the project, mid 6 figures. I lost a lot of time as well, but I did learn a lot.

The other partner, the Technical one was R-n - working with him and his company was actually easy to do. Suprisingly I thought he would had been difficult and the other partner would have been easy, but it did not work out that way.

I did learn a lot, including the concept of picking your partners better.

[Mike AI]

sarettah success is a very relative term. Looking at what you have done, I would say you have done pretty damn well in mainstream.

Cal - you are right, Rick - kidslick has been brought back the adult indsutry with his amateur masters. He has done pretty well with it, but I do not think the success is what he had before.

Do you think starting from scratch, right now, with $100k would it be easier to make a business in adult or mainstream internet?

The people who are coming back to adult from mainstream I think are going to be shocked to find it is not easy pickings anymore....

[Buff]

Did anyone find mainstream success that is still going strong today?

Mike:

I made a successful jump from being a porn actor to being a mainstream internet blog manager. I get a whopping 100 or so visits and 150 page views per day. The traffic is so heavy and fierce that I barely have time to reply to the tens of people who make derisive comments about my content daily -- usually I have to take time away from the work I'm not doing anyway to rip them new assholes.

Just thought I'd share my mainstream success with the crew here.

Buff

[Mike AI]

HAHA Buff I think you have a future in both... I have seen your porn work, and I think you have a lot more to do. Florida will be calling soon!

As far as Blog, I think you need to do a little more, you could become the next Drudge! http://askbuff.com

:P

Mike,

Don't say directNIC and bankruptcy court in the same sentence or I'll have to transfer my 100 or so domains I have with you folks.

I'd agree that the brick & mortar adult stuff can be a regular rat hole to throw money down, especially when dealing with NY production companies. If you ever have any future ideas along those lines Mike you should contact me, I'll be in Jersey in a week and my partner has connections into the network and cable tv markets, as well as the large video houses on the East Coast.

C.

[Edd]

Originally posted by Cal@Nov 22 2002, 04:11 PM
Mike,

Don't say directNIC and bankruptcy court in the same sentence or I'll have to transfer my 100 or so domains I have with you folks.

Cal - the news from the court Mike is talking about has NOTHING to do with DirectNic - they are not the subject -

[Mike AI]

Don't say directNIC and bankruptcy court in the same sentence or I'll have to transfer my 100 or so domains I have with you folks.

HAHA Cal do not worry, this is not our bankrupcy, it is actually a LARGE, INFAMOUS company that is in bankrupcy and is selling of some major assets. We have been in negotiations with the court the and creditor for 8 months now. IN about 24 days, we should get all the reviews and approval we need and add a MAJOR component that will be great for all DirectNIC customers.

I will keep in mind about your connections CAL, we should definately keep in touch.

[J B]

We've been doing adult and non-adult (programming, consulting, data recovery, etc...) stuff since we started our biz 5 years ago.

[Mike AI]

That is cool JB - some businesses you can do both in.

I would consider what Sweet T to have done with National-Net to be a mainstream success.... because hosting can be done for anything. He was smart to get there before many other people.

He also has a lot of non-porn business....

Mike,

Ahh congrats. If you take over UUNET let me know they had some great server monitoring setups, but their prices were ridiculous. We'd all expect an Oprano discount, especially those of us who have wasted over 250 posts worth of time here!

I'll get in touch with you in the near future when I launch the new program. There are surely a few things we can do together.

Figures right as we were talking I realized I'd forgotten the pw to one of my directnic accounts after I changed it in a recent company buyout. Sigh.

C.

[J B]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 22 2002, 01:36 PM
That is cool JB - some businesses you can do both in.

I would consider what Sweet T to have done with National-Net to be a mainstream success.... because hosting can be done for anything. He was smart to get there before many other people.

He also has a lot of non-porn business....

When I started working in adult I had my brother - who had been in the programming/consulting biz for more than 10 year - write software for me to make my life easier... the first bigger project was a combination of an automatic site generator and an SE submitter. Everybody that played the SE back then knows how easy it was to 'dominate' them, so it didn't take long and he left his job and we started our biz together

We still do a lot of mainstream work and have some pretty loyal clients here in Europe.

Regarding Sweet T/NatNet... where do you think we have most of our stuff hosted? We've been with them since early 99...

[cj]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 22 2002, 01:20 PM
I wanna make porn , mainstream

HOLY FUCK NICK!!!
you and me share a similar purpose ;-)


Although ... just as vague prediction ... I think my pretty women's porn products might have a better chance than uswives spam of making it into the mainstream world

LMAO

hey are you up for dinner in a few weeks? i'll probably be in your city for xmas, if not, at least new years ...

[Nickatilynx]

better chance than uswives spam of making it into the mainstream world

I call it :

"" The company is able to reach ,through the utilisation of its proprietary bulk email software over 25 million internet surfers and is able to direct them to either clients or the subscription membership sites of the Company""

Well thats what it says on the business plan.

Fifth Time lucky, maybe?

[cj]

Originally posted by sarettah@Nov 22 2002, 01:45 PM
Define success...........

Anyway.... although I was not "officially" part of the adult internet... From July 99 through July '01 I worked for one of the big adult providers, taking care of site reports, etc... So my initiation into web commerce was via adult internet...

After the layoffs, my wife and I decided to take a shot.... at both the adult internet and mainstream.....

My adult efforts have not borne fruit yet (freesite, tgp building..submit submit submit, ya know the story) example at: www.partyafterdark.com.redhead_in_stockings2

Our mainstream site has gottne sales, but has not yet turned a profit www.paperjewels.com

But, a year later, we are still at it...

Is that success ?

I am fairly old fashioned about business... I still feel that success is not usually intantaneous, but comes after many many mnay hours and days and months of keeping at it.... The IRS will allow me to take a loss for 3 years before they will fuck with me, so I usually use that as a measure...

If after 3 years, we have not made it yet, I will reevaluate the whole thing (or when the money runs out...whichever comes first)

I'm going to take this opportunity to plagerize a pearl from last year ...


"Success is not a destination, its a journey."

pop quiz, who said it?!?!?!?




I've worked a little with mainstream business in the last few years, but to be honest ... its just too hard and too expensive ... I believe there are a few business models that work, but timing is more important than anything and my timing always seems to suck ;-)

However, purve has always crossed over into mainstream ... and with a few of the deals i have in the works with mainstream women's publications, you'll be seeing a lot more naked men in the mainstream world eventually ;-)

[bpj]

This is a very interesting thread to say the least. ... ;-)

I don't know a lot of success stories in mainstream, but a few I do know are familier faces from the old webmaster community.

- Slavik's Eraser proggy
- VooDoo Chili's all pre-approved credit card program does mid-six figures a month in sales
- PsychicWeb.com, does six figures/month in revenues

Don't know if you guys would consider them successful, but I do.


ANOTHER technology developed for the adult industry and now being applied BIG TIME to mainstream business!!!

[Hell Puppy]

I think you'll find that most of the people who have made money in mainstream haven't done it by building mainstream websites as such. Instead the money is in services and similar (hosting and domain registrations being examples already mentioned). There are exceptions of course. But so far the mainstream players have been too clueless to have a viable advertising revenue model that is profitable for all involved. Subscription models also haven't met with a great deal of success in mainstream so far.

I also see several of us have learned painful lessons about choosing partners. I made the mistake of partnering up with some mainstream guys who had experience playing the VC game with startups and raising millions of dollars. I still have trouble sitting down from that one.

The mentality bred into adult webmasters if they've been around a while is build, execute and make money. If it doesn't make money, dont do it. If it does make money, do it over and over again. And milk it for all it's worth while that money is coming in. These mainstream VC guys did not work that way. They'd rather pitch their business plans, wine and dine investors, have lots of meetings and basically do everything but sit down and make it happen. Eventually funding runs out, the whole startup is insolvent and you're dead as you do not have a viable revenue stream.

Maybe they're not all that way, but all of the ones I've encountered are morons. I learned a lot about how these guys move money, etc. I also learned a lot about how to sniff out the guys who wanna execute and the guys who just wanna play the game. I also learned why so many dotcoms became dot bombs.

I've had some mainstream successes, but it is mostly leveraging services and resources used primarily for adult. My company has provided tech services and solutions to many mainstreamers. We dont tout that we learned those skills from having to bullet proof adult projects against hellacious traffic, scammers, cheaters, etc, but the mainstreamers are usually dazzled at how solid and reliable our solutions are and how fast we can make them happen.

And we have done a few mainstream sites that have enjoyed some success. Again success being relative... They meet the goals of their individual business plans, get publicity and have good traffic, but I'd hate to have to use them to try to make payroll anytime soon.

[Dravyk]

Let me see ... adult to mainstream webmasters ...

I always think first of Jonathan Lieberman, from Naughty Mail to FocalX.

Surprised no one had yet mentioned RB and Razor Magazine.

Serge is gonna bitch slap me but Standard Internet comes to mind. (If nothing else Serge, I gave you a chance to rant!)

Ah shit, whatshisname (not Spanker, not Spanky, not Sharpie, not Sharky... er, something like that though) the guy who owned Best Bucks ... I heard he was doing well in mainstream, but I forget what it is he's doing exactly.

I agree, hosting, domains and programming are excellent for having a foot on both sides of the fence.

[bummer]

hello there.

i would have to agree about this being an interesting thread.

i do dabble in adult sites now and then, but primarily, i do work for someone in the mainstream arena. At one time, i did ok in the adult industry, money-wise, but now i'm doing se work and traffic management for a mainstream company. i would have to say, traffic-wise, that i am successful, but i guess you would have to ask who i do work for.

laterz peoples.

[HoneyBlond]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 23 2002, 05:20 AM
I wanna make porn , mainstream

You mean it isn't ??

Bugger!!

When I took this job, they assured me it was..
hhmm..there was also something about a cheque in my mouth and
morning respect mentioned too..

[Torone]

So far, my mainstream efforts have been far from successful.

[Edd]

Originally posted by cj@Nov 22 2002, 09:33 PM
I'm going to take this opportunity to plagerize a pearl from last year ...


"Success is not a destination, its a journey."

pop quiz, who said it?!?!?!?

CJ - it was MikeAI who came up with that gem!

And I gotta agree - Mainstream takes $ - more than adult.... you have to be willing to lose $ in the start to get it going - its tough

[Mike AI]

Drav - Lieberman is a good example, he took what he learned in adult, applie it to non-adult early then sold out, and moved on. I think he definately qualifies for a successful crossover.

Standard Internet? haha they might have had some success, but it appears they are running back to porn.. I have been noticing activity. These are the clowns who used to insult everyone and act so superior to them. All the did was use their click brokering ( which Serge taught them, though they raised the bar on cockhoslterdome with shaing and cutting people off for "Cheating" ), and tried to apply it to mainstream. They must have did ok for awhile, bit I have a SNEAKY feeling it ain't want it used to be.

OF course I am sure they will say other wise, but their non-adult business must be faltering. OF course all click brokering is difficult now adays. No one who has mainstream success goes back to porn. I think they will find it difficult in porn too - it is tough all around.

Oh and for the record Drav, I heard Serge and the guys from Standard have buried the hatchet.

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 23 2002, 09:44 AM
Drav - Lieberman is a good example, he took what he learned in adult, applie it to non-adult early then sold out, and moved on. I think he definately qualifies for a successful crossover.

Standard Internet? haha they might have had some success, but it appears they are running back to porn.. I have been noticing activity. These are the clowns who used to insult everyone and act so superior to them. All the did was use their click brokering ( which Serge taught them, though they raised the bar on cockhoslterdome with shaing and cutting people off for "Cheating" ), and tried to apply it to mainstream. They must have did ok for awhile, bit I have a SNEAKY feeling it ain't want it used to be.

OF course I am sure they will say other wise, but their non-adult business must be faltering. OF course all click brokering is difficult now adays. No one who has mainstream success goes back to porn. I think they will find it difficult in porn too - it is tough all around.

Oh and for the record Drav, I heard Serge and the guys from Standard have buried the hatchet.

Click brokering isn't that hard if you cut the right deals. The key I think is to follow the general consensus of the community, and set something up that allows you to middleman (no risk) for a service people were already using, and offer additional incentive. Just my two cents.

I'll keep you all posted on the new non-adult program, if you don't send me hits when it goes live I'll have to call you all cheaters and nobodies. Gotta stay true to the click broker spirit.

C.

[Nickatilynx]

Didn't Blaze at WSS move to mainstrwam and $$$ too?

[Mike AI]

I am not expert in click brokering, Serge might be able to fill us in with information. However, click brokering in the non-porn world seems to be falling apart. There is no one really buying clicks just for the sake of buying clicks. The pay per search, Search Engine deals are all drying up. You can only send so much redirected traffic to cell phones, or non-secure credit cards, and places like this.

As your dals start going away, or paying less it puts pressue in the middle on the brokers.

But of course Cal, I will send you traffic.... I am no cheater!

Oh I definitely agree. I never actually paid per click, I just gave better payouts on existing stuff people were using (technically a higher earnings per click). Kind of like XPays, except with actual benefit to the webmaster. Brokering sales I guess would be a better word for it.

I still think that the non-adult internet is a goldmine for per-click programs. I wouldn't middleman that kind of traffic though; would need my own programs or I wouldn't touch it. There are a few non-adult areas that interest me at the moment, might be able to justify 6-9 cents per unique on them.



C.

Wut oh Mike. Should I change my domain info from Serge's home address now?

http://gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?s...&threadid=89865



C.

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Nov 23 2002, 01:31 PM
Didn't Blaze at WSS move to mainstrwam and $$$ too?

Good point, Nick. Forgot about HitBox.

Hmmm. Speaking of click brokering, wasn't there a guy Farber who had a third-party sponsor thing in adult -- sponsors joined him, he served the banners, and paid out by unique click -- that moved to mainstream with the same concept? I know it was successful in the beginning (what was the name of that program? something with "riptide" or "warp" or something like that in the name? Serge was it you and WebDad who used them on BestTraffic? I recall they were busy on the old Netpond Mainstream board in the Netpond II days.) No idea though if the program tanked or got more successful though.

[Mike AI]

Cal this makes sense.

Xpays has always suprised me how well I did sending them traffic. I would send CEN traffic and get conversions of 1 in 500, then send the same traffic to Xpays and do 1 in 175.

There is only 1 reason for this.... and I think we all know what it is.

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Nov 23 2002, 12:44 PM
Oh and for the record Drav, I heard Serge and the guys from Standard have buried the hatchet.

Naw, Mike! Is that true???

[Mike AI]

Drav, you will have to ask the people directly invovled... I just heard through grape vein!

Hope you are having a good weekend Drav!

I had someone try to tell me once as an excuse for not joining my program that 'the more traffic you send a sponsor the more they shave'. You'd be amazed at who said it too, not some little chump (which in click broker terminology means 'everyone I don't do business with'), a guy who runs one of the bigger 4free programs. I don't know how some people make it in this business when they can't even do the simple math involved.

C.

[Mike AI]

Yeah I rememebr Farber, he was such a shitty programer - sold me some software it never worked, and he had terrible support. However he did seem to do very well with the non-adult click brokering.

Cal - those morons on GFY do not know what the ICANN rules on domains are. If someone complains there is not proper information, the registrar has to contact the owner to get proper information.

Thing is, a registrar cannot confirm proper information if people put in fake information that actually makes sense. But if you put stupid information, or 111-111-1234 for phone numbers and such, it is obvious so the registrar has to send out the e-mail.