Thank Someone That Made a Huge Impact or Difference in Your Business....
 

All of us have had a moment where something happens that changes your business forever. For some it was the first listing on the hun. For others it was meeting someone.

Here are some of mine.

PersianKitty was the first adult site I ever visited. Was the site that first listed a site I made and helped crash my university server. The rest is History :)

Danni Ashe Absolutely smashed it promoting her site.

Wifeys World had a link exchange with them when they went live on Dateline. Got me 250,000 uniques in less than 24 hours. This was back when the biggest sites didn't do 250,000 uniques a day. Game Changer.

Atk Kingdom and Karups Shared with me their philosophies and approach to paysites which i used as my basis for everything that went into the Twistys Members area design and layout.

These are just a few people that came along and exactly the right time for me and my business and really helped shape my future.

Who are some people (or companies) that made an impact and difference in your business? It could even be someone who doesn't even know they inspired you. It's always nice to give someone who's helped you a little kudos and appreciation :thumbsup

This thread's gonna get Huuuuuge:2 cents:

Leo from myfreepaysite
Timbo
i am sure there are others

What did they do for you?

Thanks to Beau Flexxx for being the first real big cock I shot, and letting me be the first to shoot you jacking off and getting blown by a guy.

To this day people searching for him find my sites and bring money in 10 years later. A quality great person off camera too :thumbsup

:thumbsup:thumbsup

That's awesome. How did it happen? Where is he now?

New Line Cinema (now merged into Warner Brothers) who bought a WIP movie from me in 1993, paid me a lot of money for 25 year license. The flick was # 1) for 7 weeks on US video charts back then. WB are sending me roylaties till this day.... So, when action B flicks went down to the tolilette along with the VHS casettes .. I have rekindled this genre and it keeps me going ever since...:thumbsup

Steve Lightspeed taught me HTML and how to make web pages. This was back in the day when webpages were few. I come across one of his sites and shot him an email, and much to my surprise he responded. I said something like "I wish I could make a website" and he replied "Why don't you?". He made me a short list of of what I needed for software, I went out and bought it the next day, and that night I had a simple webpage hosted on my computer he could see.

I did my interview with Porn & Coffee the other day, I mentioned this during the Interview. Steve was kind enough to hit me up and thank me. He doesn't seem to understand how big of an impact he's had on me. Everything I have today is directly because of him.

Thankfulness is next to godliness :thumbsup! ...

Seems like a top notch guy :thumbsup

I thank ebay.. with out ebay my current business wouldn't exist. I'm mixed if I should thank Amazon or not.. While amazon can be a great selling platform they really make it hard on smaller operations and give very little recourse to sellers.

Joe Lensman, Larry Flynt and, most recently in my latest incarnation, Casey Neistat.

Eva Markham has to be top of that list. Then a few other photographers like John Mason and Steve Colby helped me to sharpen my meagre skills.

And thanks to all the programmers we employed.

Shap: I thank you for all the help and insight you have given me without even knowing it throughout the years. :)

Ruff Davidson: a good man who mentored me back when I knew jack shit about shit (unlike now, where I know jack shit about some things).

JFK: the first person to ever say hello to me at a show. (He rightly ignores me now haha!)

Robbie: inspiration and spirited debates.

Tubes: Yup, deal with it. Without them I'd be nowhere.

The Porn Nerd: I always forget to thank myself for my never stopping even when things looked bleakest. You have to remind yourself that however many people help you it's always ultimately up to YOU to get shit done. :)

I especially like that bit :thumbsup

yup... got me started, both of them....

Twan, for both good reasons and bad reasons...

:) both of them great companies

Robert Mooney, Serge Birbrair, Ron Levi. Learned from all of them. Just wish someone would have told me to put my money into cam sites instead of real estate back when I still had some.

While it is not specifically stated I think he meant in adult business...

Thanks GFY for being the place for this industry :)

Meloman hounded me for a year to try pushing dating seriously, changed my life.

Want to take this time to give Shap's old buddy a shout

Michael @ ZTOD - Thank you! You make me think and I love you amigo!

Thanks Fuzebox :thumbsup

Everyone else, please see sig :winkwink:

I *always* forget people in threads like these, because so many people have helped over the years, and shaped new directions for me, whether directly or 'just' from reading their posts. Lot of people over the years have had a heavy influence in where I am now, so to start with I'll name these:

Rowdy - pure class act, owe that guy so much
FacialFreak
LB
nekrom
rednax
sexvilly
greenguy
Ramster
Nickatilynx
Tommy
12 Clicks
JT
Relentless

Those are the main ones I can remember off the top of my head. Of course a ton more teach me different things both in the past and on an ongoing basis. Truly grateful to these people for sharing their shit and/or 1-on-1 help they gave/give me. I think most people underestimate just what a huge impact we all have on others (good or bad!) so a very heartfelt thanks to you all :thumbsup #nohomo

Lensman was my first affiliate check - I think it was Amateur Pages.

A short time later he offered me a job. It turns out ICS was located at the time in Livermore, California, which was where I lived - their office was on the same street where my wife worked. I told them at the time there was "no money in online porn". LOL. Ten years later Playboy bought ICS and then hired me.

Strange how these things work out.

Steve is a great guy really. He gets a bad rap because he was a bit out of control. But he took really good care of me and really good care of the models too.

n t pond power!

I'm feeling a group bro hug is in order

Big props to John Bennett (JB), not just for being my first affiliate check, but for making me see the light on the affiliate angle over consulting.
WG

Great Thread Shap

There are so many and I hope I don't leave someone out. The common thread with all these folks is unlike so many others they treated us with the same respect on day one in the biz as they did 10 years later. Our ideas and ideals always resonated with these people much more than our daily uniques and joins. I imagine that they took this approach with many people and it probably had a lot to do with why they are all individually successful.


Eric from GFY - Someone we met really early on and gave us a lay of the industry land.
Steve and Rochard from Lightspeed - They were the first big company to link to us and neither have ever wavered as fans of what we have been trying to do at Yanks.
Mitch from Netbilling - Has always reached out like clockwork to see what we need to be successful.
Mike from Webair - He treated us the same on a $20 month plan as he did when we were doing many multiples of that.
YNOTBob and LAJ - They had me on the radio show and introduced us around to so many people
Laura - formerly of NA has always been my north star for how content production should be done.

If I missed someone obvious, sorry and I appreciate you too! All these early assists were done with lots of booze well over a decade ago.

I think I am going to...damn I am. I agree with you.

Wow that is amazing

Thanks man.... I hope to see you in Vegas.

some guy named drewstar from psybercore hosting..i was using his free hosting in 1998 for some hobby music site and he sent out emails telling people how much money he was making with adultcheck trying to get people to sign up under him. it just kind of made me realize i could make money online and got me started.

since im thinking about it..

percy from topcelebs.com- got lots of traffic from quaility link exchanges with those guys for many years

tommys - always a quality source, could always rely on getting listed there getting me sales

yahoo - when i first got listed in their directory traffic took the fuck off and was a whole new level

I think you forgot Paul.

Thank you to Mark Greenspan at CCBill, Michael Plante of Qwebec Expo, Faye Sharp of Cybernext, and a broker who shall remain nameless. Thanks much!!

Too many to list, several are already mentioned in this thread. But I will give a shout-out to a few...

Slick from Slick's Bikini Page
Minte
Lensman (made a shit-ton of money from his programs early-on)
12clicks (got me and one of my mainstream sites on the front page of the NY Times biz section)
Everyone from Oxcash who was there back in '01-'06 (made a ton on bangbus)
Shemp (who didn't learn from Shemp back in the day?)

honest truth - paul *has* taught me stuff. I'll be kind as this is a positive thread, and leave it at that :)

:thumbsup

We seem to have a few in common from the old netsurprise and ynot days - I think in the long run working with Tommy and Greenguy had the biggest influence on me, however the parallel SEO world I was running in, Jay had an influence on me as well.

Many others from Amber to the Blatts to Patrick...the list goes on

However the two had the biggest biz influence on me were Shemp and Shap...two different time periods but reinforced the "give back" mentality and approach that is pa rt of anything successful in business :thumbsup

thanks for the mentions, much appreciated ... :thumbsup

Lol, there were a few people I thought up that provided the opposite of what Shap was looking for. But you are right, keep it positive. :thumbsup

You are welcome. Always buddy! We will be there! Coming form the EU for the first time. That will be weird. Vegas for me has never been more than a 90 minute flight.

Huge thanks to Studio 20 team. Love you guys <3

There are a lot who had some impact but only one who had a huge impact, Maurice from FreeOnes. From simple things like documenting things to never take no for an answer. If a developer tells you it's not possible it probably is possible but maybe in a different form or shape.

Freeones
Without them I would not have had the SE traffic 2008-2010 that made income I started my mainstream-company with, and got me my farm.

I gotta give big thanks to the following people.

Shap - First close friend I had in the biz. Always great and supportive to bounce ideas off of etc.

Kim from ATK - Smart and showed me a lot along the way.

Dameian - Passionate, smart and forward thinking.

Jeff and Lou from Karups - Always been great resources for ideas and doing things the right away.

Jigga - One of the guys I bounce ideas off of the most through the years.

Many others along the way have helped to inspire, help etc.

yeah GGs board kickstarted my freesite subbing back when I was doing that for sure. Wasn't sure if you remembered me from those subbing days, linkforsex was always on the 1st template of recips :thumbsup Also remember Tommy singing your seo praises in 2006/7? Loooong time ago it seems now lol. And Jay... I have a big soft spot for him. He looked after me back in the LL days :thumbsup

I should also mention Iceman from 4cfnm... no idea if he has ever posted here, or read/reads, but without him hitting me up to tell me that the images I was using for my fun galleries could continue to be used, just 'sign up to this program and use an affiliate link' kickstarted it all, and then led me on to ANS.

Gotta also mention Shemp who for me is on a par with Rowdy, just class all the way. Never even a hint of drama or having a shit fit - alas, my temperament - although I'd *like* it to be the same - is a loooooooooong way off haha. This industry gets a bad rep a hella lot, and lots of it is deserved. On the flip side it's also one of the most helpful and open ones, imo.