03-09-2004, 06:26 PM
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Not making A Comeback
Industry Role:
Join Date: Dec 2001
Posts: 10,218
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Quote:
Originally posted by DonovanPhillips
I see that Lightspeed is following a similar path with galleries. I made this agreement with Fletch well over a month ago. If he had declined I would have asked someone else to do it, but Fletch is my favorite designer so I would have been disappointed.
One person on this board told me, "You just like to give away money, don't you?"
He's a highly respected individual. He's chastised me in the past for sharing a large percentage of single-girl site revenues with the girls.
I see where that person is coming from... but he is right. I DO like to give money away. My reasoning is very simple:
I remember back to the days when I was dirt poor. My dad was pastor so growing up. Before selling cars in college (I made decent money at that) I worked the night shift at a saw mill. But while working my mind was constantly wandering... trying to figure out how to "get ahead". I hit up a few of the "rich" guys I knew with my ideas. They kept telling me "not interested", but also telling me that someday I'd find an idea that would launch me on my way. That someone would eventually want to invest some money.
To make a long story short, I started shooting content in 1996 for a few of the larger adult sites. I left a consulting job to go full time into content. I made very good money. Six figures per year. But then my BIG break came along. That break bore the name Gary Kremen (sex.com owner). This was RIGHT BEFORE he won the domain back. Just a few months before. He liked my content enough to make a SMALL capital investment into my content business.
But the best thing he did for me was to take an interest into my (very suck-ass at the time) Naked College Girls site.
Gary told me he'd give me a link on sex.com. Whereever I wanted it to be. So for several months my site was at the VERY top of sex.com. That was back when it was a banner farm.
I looked around and noticed that a lot of free sites had banners up the ass, just like sex.com. But the main entry was always a text link with the words "enter here" or something similar.
SO, I told Gary I wanted a text link at the TOP of sex.com, that stated in LARGE, BOLD letters "Enter Naked College Girls Here".
The traffic came in droves! Things were great until SE Guru took over sex.com. Gary gave him complete control. The first thing he did was remove my link. That's why I hated his ass for the longest time (I like him fine now... we talked things out).
IN A WAY, SE Guru also helped me out. Gary owned 51% of my content business AND my pay site. But since part of our contract was that I'd keep my sex.com link, when SE Guru removed the link the contract was voided. I lost a lot of traffic, but I regained 100% control of my company. Now I have several pay sites and several free sites as well. Life is good.
Anyway... that's part of the reason I believe in sharing. I'd love to help several people rocket ahead, just like Gary did for me.
(Hey, I think this story deserves its own thread).
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wow.. cool story.. yeah definately deserves it's own thread  |
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