Thinking of starting a porn site - Please provide realistic insight
 

There is a niche that in my opinion, can be pretty popular. Unfortunately, my opinion means shit.

There is very little stuff for this niche. The stuff that exists is either very very poor quality or old stuff from a couple of sites that existed years ago that has been passed back and forth on torrents into oblivion.

There is no existing site that actually provides exclusive content for this niche.

According to Google Keyword Tool, the main search term for this niche has 201,000 global monthly searches. 60,500 local.

What do you think... Is there money in porn or am I going to fuck myself by quitting my day job.

don't quit anything till you know answer to your question

welcome and gfy!

Give it an honest effort, it's the only way you will ever know.

.

Welcome to GFY :)

Yeah better keep your day job until you will earn some serious money online :)

what he said, and don't quit your job beforehand :2 cents:

think of it as a marathon not a sprint. slow and consistent a little baby step at a time. But also think about the bottom line like any business. Figure out how to do it without spending your life savings or giving up your day job. It all comes down to cash flow. You would be crazy to quit your day job. Spend a few hours a day on the project until you can cover your monthly expenses. if you have a concept that gets 200k searches month it sounds good. Are there other searches for similar keywords that relate to your niche? Maybe there are 1 million searches. Are there good affiliates that would want to promote you? If there are a few dozen sites that could promote you then you could see a nice little business.

Thanks for the input guys.

Well, either way, I will have to take a month of unpaid leave to get this thing started... First I have to be in a porn-friendly place to cover the legal aspects, have to incorporate everything, and of course... Produce at least a year's worth of content as it is expensive for me to travel back and forth.

As for other similar searches... Yes, other similar searches bring up 201,000 hits and so on, but in my uneducated opinion, I'm guessing it's usually the same people doing the searches.

Thanks for the heads up everyone.

Don't quit your day job thats for damn sure. Maybe someone can shoot stuff in this niche?

Why is that I dont have a day job? My content makes me mula :)

is this content for view on tubes?

Some... But nothing high quality or new.

Surely it's already covered on AMP ;)

Yes, there is money in porn.

Read, listen and learn.

Go for it!

welcome to GFY and good luck with your new business!

No guts no glory so go for it, but like others have said don't quit your day job just yet.

99 out of 100 webmasters fail in their first year.

First step - quit your day job immediately.

don't listen to what the majority of the twats on this board have to say... for like 6 months a few years ago I used to skim through paul markham's posts thinking... wow this dude knows his shit but I'm a little too impatient and out of the loop to completely get what he's saying. Turns out he's a senile broke old fart still trying to peddle porn he shot in the 80s and hasn't a clue about what the fuck is going on in the world of porn.

porn industry sucks balls these days, especially for newcommers, if you've found a great niche it would probably be your only chance of succeeding... Of course, you'll need some money to get a site going, especially if this alleged niche involves hardcore acts.

By the way, the couple of rich/successful people on this forum amongst the useless broke trolls are typically just as stupid or are greedy backstabbing cocksuckers. :thumbsup

Back to all these clowns saying don't quit your day job... wtf is your fucking useless day job? Get out of it... go big or go home, no guts no glory, etc, etc. If you're going to do it, go all the way or don't do it at all.

As far as "quitting your day job" ....... No one here knows your situation.

Weigh these points when deciding.

Porn is a very different business right now, a tough business.
How old are you?
Do you have a family depending on you?
What is your minimum monthly $ requirement for living expenses?
Is your job a career or just a job?
Is your idea a good one only because you are an uninformed newbie?
Do you have a nest egg to live off of?

And to quote my grandfather "Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Do some honest thinking ... Good luck.

Same here but it takes time to get there, you can't just quit and hope to make money in porn, this isnt fucking 1998. I've been working for myself since the end of 2001 but there have been many ups and downs.

If you have a passion for anything you do, then you'll succeed at it(most of the time).

If you don't really have much interest in your subject and are just looking at a possible opportunity to make a quick buck, then don't bother.

Not porn specific advice -- just general business advice. I can't see why anyone would want to get into a tough, failing industry if they weren't totally in love with what they want to do.

If politicians got this kind of advice, the world would be a much better place. My two cents (that is ALL its worth): things take a lot longer than you think they will; quit your day job when you make your second month of sales.

Go for it dude...
Don't listen to the people who says don't do it...

here's what I think: find a niche you really like that is underserved... like 'vour' or 'carry' or something equally off the standard norm AND is realitivly cheap to produce.

figure your basic net profit off a site with say 500 members will be in the area of 30-35%... if you can generate your own traffic your net will be in the area of 50-60%. that's if you produce your own content.

not being a webmaster but knowing webmasters and program owenrs I would say this is pretty realistic... also be prepared to wotk 100+ hours a week

don't do it :winkwink:

Shit....That sounds like GFY :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

sorry if was replied already, but - are those search numbers for EXACT keywords match or for broad. Seen many people fail here so had to post :)

Where did you pull those stats from? Though a lot fail, I doubt it's 99%. I can believe 80% fail, even 90%

That's a good question, it's also worth noting that only a percentage of people actually searching for those terms or term will actually buy anything.

They are for exact keywords. Just trying to get a grasp here...

Search term is literally "__________ porn"

Are those numbers good, average, or bad?

I hope you are one of the one's to succeed! So.....Don't quit your day job until you are sure. I like the guy who said take it in baby steps. Learn to do as much as the technical stuff as you can by yourself to save mula. Purchase content as much as you can in the beginning to make your site look bigger. You can purchase 5 videos for your site for the same price you can produce 1. Put original content up as soon as possible. Hopefully in a year or two you will be off to a good start and then you can decide about quitting your day job. Learn to SEO your own site. Just a very small beginning checklist. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] anytime you have a question. Don't worry I have nothing to sell you I'm just a small time webmaster trying to pay the bills but maybe I can help if your still interested. I've been where you are, oh and once again, good luck I hope you make it.

Compare them to search terms for "someword porn" and then make a deduction from that.

Also try the tool that keywordspy.com have, however these are all indicative only.

Keep in mind, only a percentage of the people searching for "someword porn" will actually be interested in paying for "someword porn", also deduct the people in countries from which nobody buys anything, as you deduct the negative contributors to those search results your figure becomes much much lower.

start a tube instead.

There's still money in porn but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to make a decent living at it. Good luck with the site but definitely don't quit your day job until you've established yourself.

Word of advice
 

Don't

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Best post so far.

Without knowing the niche we are guessing. If it isn't available already there's probably a very good reason for it. People searching is a good indication of demand. What we have to figure out is why hasn't that demand been satisfied already?

Do you have the skills, knowledge and talent to shoot the content? Do you know the niche? Can you find the models, location, equipment, etc? Do you have the money required to fill the site with content. Then keep updating while memberships are low and building?

These are the biggest problems and most expensive for a newbie to get over.

Then do you have the skills, talents and money to build a site?

Solo girl content can cost between $300 to $500 a scene to shoot. Including buying the initial equipment and assuming the models aren't charging a fortune or working for free. Add up all the equipment costs, models location and expenses per shoot and divide it by what you will get out of it per day. Aiming at kicking off with 100 scenes. Shooting good content takes time, don't expect to shoot 5 great scenes in a day.

Once you step into couples content the cost rise.

Yes you can start on a show string, be careful a lot of those guys failed.

What is your budget for equipment?

Shooting and the content produced?

How long will it take you to create enough to fill a members site?

Do you have a credible business plan and budget prediction and the money to see it through?

Spending $10,000 on equipment, $600 on each 3 scene shoot and kicking off with 100 scenes will cost $29,800. $298 per scene. Add a few drinks to the shoot and it's $300+ per scene. Haven't even included a decent location per shoot, props, clothing, travel, agents fees for models, make up, etc. Start adding that at a decent price and the cost per scene could double.

Building a site you might be able to do yourself, can you do that and design it? Others are better qualified than me to budget for that.

Hosting is pretty inexpensive, but aim at $1,000 a month to start off with a decent server with service. Once traffic builds it will escalate. If you have to go the affiliate route, some sponsors spend more on servers to look after non paying customers than paying customers.

It can all be done cheaper and it can all be done more expensive.

How much money do you have to gamble with?

When reading posts, look hard at the posters signature. Many failures can hide behind a wall, with nothing to prove they make more than a living wage being an affiliate. Which cost them nothing to start and nothing to continue.

I've been doing porn for 33 years, so must have some skills. Shooting and selling to every market there is. Now semi retired on the money I made. :thumbsup

I wish you well, hit me up on ICQ or Skype if you want to chat.

AND and it's a big AND!!

What's your history and experience in online porn?

Maybe that's the biggest question of all.

History and experience as a producer... Zilch.

I know the niche inside and out.

I also have fundamental knowledge of video and image editing and web design, as I used to and still do these things as hobbies minus being a cameraman.

Why no site exists to satisfy this niche, I also know the reason and I feel like I have a plan to combat that reason.

My budget is $50,000 in equity plus $20,000 in liability (aka credit card at 0% APR).

The only concern I have is: Is the demand actually there? So I posted the keyword tool figures to try to gauge if this is actually a viable niche or not.

I have a business plan, and I believe I have things quite organized, as finance and logistics are my day job, but it's hard for me to actually project revenue....

If I can hit 1000 members a month, that will be enough to make this entire venture worth it for me in terms of covering opportunity cost, expenses, and debt.

You seem to have a lot covered. A lot more than most start ups in porn. The only gap I see is shooting, it's about dealing with models. Camera skills can be picked up, people skills are tougher. Maybe in your niche you can get devotees to model.

If you can 1,000 members a month then on a normal paysite at $30 a month you're going to be a millionaire soon. Because in a hard to find niche retention will be awesome.

Good luck and keep us informed. :thumbsup

You don't have to take that much of a risk. A lot of the biggest programs in the industry started with a modest budget, and a handful of scenes shot locally. You'd be surprised at what percentage of the USA is "porn friendly". You could shoot a dozen scenes over a weekend near your hometown, throw up a quick site, and have a good indication in a couple of weeks whether or not the niche is worth scaling.

At least that's how I'd do it.

what sort of traffic and amount would you go with over that couple weeks? :)

There is great money in porn for type A personalities.

Yes a few people are very successful in this business. Most of the people left in this business make enough to support themselves or their family, but are not financially rich.

Yes there is always room for something new and unique, or something old but done better.

Yes you have done some research.

Yes you have a plan.

There's a lot of bad advice in this business and some really good, hard working people. Follow your gut and don't let yourself down. You already know what you're going to do. Good luck and may your dreams come true :thumbsup

I tell people the "truth" all of the time about the difficulties that they will incur, investing in porn.


And as I have learned, people still want to do what they originally set out to do even after I told them what to expect.(The Truth).

Its funny, I could have told investors that they were going to 100% get HIV and loose all of their money, but they still want in. Porn are way funny like that. Porn is the business people love to loose their money in.:1orglaugh:1orglaugh


No matter what I or others on this board say, you already know you are going to do what you want to do.





So, with that in mind, have at it and good luck and welcome to GFY.:thumbsup

from my experience the keyword tool can vary in it's accuracy. you should test the traffic before and the actual volume before you commit.

Get me on icq and I will tell you whether you are on to something, or are just a dreamer.

isnt that fucking truth! :1orglaugh

Stay with your day job, spend $5-10 000 USD to build and shoot a site and some content to start off with. See if you can rank fairly well and bring in traffic. In other words, start out small. No need to stock up 1 year full of updates if you're not getting visitors to your site quick enough.

Buy 10 domains, and some cheap hosting. Get some blogs up now and maybe do some 5 -7 test shoots with one or two models, get their pictures up on those blogs and see how people react. The blogs can later be used to link back to your main site, so it's not wasted time to get some up. All that could be acheived for less than $2000 and would give you a fair idea of the general and special interest and also for comments, geographic origin and how responsive the users are.

So stay with your day job and do a "market research" at night for a few hundred dollars. Getting tens of tousands of dollars worth of content shot upfront will be close to worthless if you can't bring in enough visitors quick enough. And if they never come, you might sit there with exclusive, unique content that no one wants to buy.

I'm working on adult animation and a graphic novel, but if I was going to get into the "real" side of porn, and actually shooting, it wouldn't be worth it to me unless I was getting my dick wet.

It would drive me crazy to shoot other people having sex, sitting behind the camera wishing it was me.

Anyway, it might sound naive to people in the industry for a long time, but sex with hot girls would be my main payment. Any profits would be gravy.