New Member...New Venture

[Jake]

Hello and please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jake and I thought I’d share with you my adventure as an up and coming adult webmaster.

It started in late July 2007 when a good friend and now business partner and I were on vacation. We both have a common favourite website we like to visit and after much discussion, we decided with our abilities, why not try making our own adult website. We have decades of experience in television production, some working knowledge of website building and maintenance, a little experience in internet marketing and absolutely zero experience in the adult entertainment industry (beyond being a casual consumer.)

One of the things I find of great value at the internet marketing site I belong to is case studies. It allows everyone to follow the trials and tribulations of a marketer and encourages experts to share their expertise/knowledge. While I don’t know how much detail I’m willing to get into, I hope everyone will take something away from this discussion.

I think the best way to proceed is to bring you up to date with what has transpired and what my plans/questions for moving forward from here are. From there, maybe starting separate posts for specific items might be in order but I will try to come back to this post to keep it updated for a better linear story.

Basic Premise; recruit new talent, shoot/edit all our own material, write many blogs and create websites that contain tours (video and pics) all targeted at various keywords/phrases and all linking back to our main site. We may visit PPC campaigns as this venture matures but not in the beginning (in fact I’m not sure Google/MSN even allow adult PPC.) I have no initial plans for affiliate sales but again have not ruled it out once we get things moving.

As of this writing our accountant is drafting our Articles of Incorporation and our lawyer is preparing the Incorporation papers, release forms, website audit, 2257 compliance (actually a variation there of since we are located in Canada) and a few other things. We have a basic operational website with place holders and about 8 ‘actors’ waiting to make their début (nothing has been shot as I won’t turn the camera 'on' until I have a corporation and signed release forms.) Everything will be shot in HDV and edited in HD. We also plan on mastering the final videos on Blu-ray/DVD for direct sales from the website. We would like to open our doors for business by January 1st but I think that maybe a little too aggressive.

I’ll leave it at that for now. Thanks in advance to everyone who lends a hand or shares even the smallest tidbit of information.

Jake

[Bec]

Hi Jake, and welcome to GWW!

[HunkyLuke]

adding a hello and welcome

[Lee]

Welcome to the GWW Community Jake

The one MAJOR piece of advice that i will give you is the adult industry is so much different than the 'real world' when it comes to the business side of things, it sounds like you have a great plan setup right now but i guarantee you that NOTHING will go ahead and work as you currently envision things.

Sorry to be a buzz-kill but the reality is, thousands of new companies are formed every year with the same type of detail you have gone in to above but very few succeed, take everything you know about the regular business world, turn it upside down, back-to-front and on its side, that is how you are going to be successfull in the adult industry.

That being said, im sure if you have any questions, comments or need feedback during any stage of your business venture you will find a slew of helpfull community members on GWW willing to assist you and i look forward to seeing how things progress with your business over the coming months :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

[TopBucks Lilit]

Hi Jake! Welcome aboard

[cbl_chaz]

Welcome to the board Jake!

[basschick]

i have to agree with lee here. not only does adult have a totally different vibe and way of working than other industries but our design and content have totally different requirements. in fact, working in adult has a unique mindset entirely, and i've seen many guys with plenty of mainstream experience - even in design - who found that their experience didn't help them here.

a very few bothered to learn the ropes - the rest did one of two things: they either disappeared or else they kept at it, not making money and aggressively telling anyone who legitimately wanted to help them that they already KNEW what they were doing.

see, that's the other thing about adult that's different than most industries - while we have our share of assholes and those who don't now how to do things, we also have a lot of knowledgeable and capable people who help each other and newbies out. the catch is that starting from a point of not knowing adult, the knowledgeable ones sound the same as the ones who don't know anything but like pretending they do. but once you get the hang of it, you'll get a lot more people offering a helping hand than you would in manufacturing, retail, priting, insurance, banking or medical - well or almost any other industry.

Welcome to the GWW Community Jake

The one MAJOR piece of advice that i will give you is the adult industry is so much different than the 'real world' when it comes to the business side of things, it sounds like you have a great plan setup right now but i guarantee you that NOTHING will go ahead and work as you currently envision things.

Sorry to be a buzz-kill but the reality is, thousands of new companies are formed every year with the same type of detail you have gone in to above but very few succeed, take everything you know about the regular business world, turn it upside down, back-to-front and on its side, that is how you are going to be successfull in the adult industry.

That being said, im sure if you have any questions, comments or need feedback during any stage of your business venture you will find a slew of helpfull community members on GWW willing to assist you and i look forward to seeing how things progress with your business over the coming months :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

[Jake]

Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. I appreciate all your advise and I'd take a buzz kill any day over candy coated advise.

I can honestly say I haven't formed a complete picture of how this is going to work, evolve, grow, etc. We have a rough idea of what we want to do and the rest...i guess we're going to make it up as we go along. OR...take the great advise/posting from here and make a more educated guess.

One of my biggest fears is I get embarrassed very easily. I have to leave the room sometimes when watching tv because something un-easy is about to happen (real or fake.) I don't know how I'm going to react when shooting our own videos. I've told myself I just have to face my fear head on and deal with it. My other thought is should I take a few minutes alone to myself before so I can concentrate on the my job after? As silly as it seems, I am worried about it. Why do I feel like i'm in confession :s

Our lawyer is still working on the Incorporation. At the moment we're deciding between a provincial or federal company. Because he's located in a different province, i think we're leaning towards a federal since he can't incorporate in our province and I want him to look after everything.

I have a few questions regarding file structure on my server but I'll post them in a separate thread.

Again, thanks to everyone!
Jake

[jIgG]

welcome

Google Adwords (not be confused with Adsense)
allows adult keyword bidding and adult ads

if you don't know what you're doing though
you could lose a lot of money and get nothing in return

[basschick]

Jake - i'm also easily embarrassed but most of the webmasters here are way cool and willing to help. ask - we'll answer you. afterward, if you have to, you can go hide for a minute till you feel better...

[gaybucks_chip]

Jake,

If you're in Canada, you may want to talk with Paul Kent-Snowsell, he is widely considered to be the top adult industry attorney in Canada. I've heard him speak and spoken with him at a couple of conventions and he's a great combination of someone who knows his shit but isn't arrogant or condescending. He's in Vancouver.

http://www.hierosgamos.org/hg/db_law...e2&pcomp=30578

As for being embarrassed or uncomfortable about shooting content, I think a lot of people are probably in that boat when they start shooting content. I think also that, no matter how much porn you've seen, for most people it's a little bit surreal or shocking the first couple of times you're shooting content of people having sex in front of you. Try working first with a couple of people that you either know and are comfortable working with, or people that have worked for other producers. Once you've shot a couple of scenes, the 'surreal' aspect will go away and once you've shot a hundred scenes, you won't even notice that you're shooting porn

My former business partner who was a model for us as well as shooting a lot of our content often had problems with getting aroused during the shooting of scenes, which was really distracting to him and resulted in the camera work being less than ideal in some of the early scenes. Eventually, he figured out the best solution was to disappear for 5 or 10 minutes and jerk off right before shooting the scene. Of course, no one has to know you're doing that, but if it's an issue, it may solve a problem and allow you to stay focused.

Hope that info helps

[Jake]

Jake,

If you're in Canada, you may want to talk with Paul Kent-Snowsell, he is widely considered to be the top adult industry attorney in Canada. I've heard him speak and spoken with him at a couple of conventions and he's a great combination of someone who knows his shit but isn't arrogant or condescending. He's in Vancouver.

http://www.hierosgamos.org/hg/db_law...e2&pcomp=30578

Paul is in fact representing us. He did come highly recommended! I've never dealt with a lawyer before so it's a new experience. My biggest struggle is the delay in response. I'm use to a very quick response/action in my day life.

As for being embarrassed or uncomfortable about shooting content, I think a lot of people are probably in that boat when they start shooting content. I think also that, no matter how much porn you've seen, for most people it's a little bit surreal or shocking the first couple of times you're shooting content of people having sex in front of you. Try working first with a couple of people that you either know and are comfortable working with, or people that have worked for other producers. Once you've shot a couple of scenes, the 'surreal' aspect will go away and once you've shot a hundred scenes, you won't even notice that you're shooting porn

This is what i'm hoping will happen.

My former business partner who was a model for us as well as shooting a lot of our content often had problems with getting aroused during the shooting of scenes, which was really distracting to him and resulted in the camera work being less than ideal in some of the early scenes. Eventually, he figured out the best solution was to disappear for 5 or 10 minutes and jerk off right before shooting the scene. Of course, no one has to know you're doing that, but if it's an issue, it may solve a problem and allow you to stay focused.

Hope that info helps

yeah...that's pretty much what i figured i would do