What kind of life advice would you give to someone who just turned 25? Life, love, women, friends, business, family, let's hear it all! :)

Hey Shap,

Good to see you around GFY still here is a question for you.. How do you keep striving in business while keeping a great family life? time and passion wise?

Jason

How much do you feel contributed to your last years success the decision to move back to Canada from the sunny island?

Interesting question.... from a tax standpoint, I'm sure he wished he waited until the big sale so he could have repatriated the funds to Canada tax-free.

sent you an email Shap...

Hey Shap,

I know you've told your story before but the oldtimer's has my brain fried. What was your initial investment when you got into adult?

If you were starting in adult today from scratch, where would you invest your money if you had A. $10k B. $50k C. $250k?

Do you think it's too late in the game to start niched paysites? If you think theres still good money in paysites what niche would you choose?


Thanks, I will subscribe to this thread bud.

so how long till your next business venture, or did you already start yet ;) ?

I think my staff would tell you dealing with succession planning is probably one of my biggest weaknesses. I get so involved and so attached that i have a hard time stepping back and hard time handing things off. The best advice I could give you is research a few people that have done it successfully and see what common trends lie between them.

Also, in the industry especially, I'd be very careful who you hand the keys to the kingdom over to. You want to make sure the person who takes over and runs your baby is not only qualified but trustworthy and continually focused and motivated for the company to do well. Align your interests/goals with his.

Interesting. Never looked into that. So it's a market that's limited by capital requirements and not a lack of need? The companies they had in bahamas looked like they were doing well (but not killing it) or dying. The problem with Bahamas in particular I think is that if you aren't careful you'll get killed with a bad reputation from staff not giving a shit lol.

thats what i call "see through" the ability to see through the eyes of your customer.

Email sent, Shap...

It's like any higher end investment market really... it has risks, so you get insurance on your risks. So yeah, it's more limited towards capital, it's also a world wide market, it wouldn't just be in the islands.

No part of it is cheap, from buying a boat or doing a charter, lots of money moving around. Just gota make sure you get into a good world wide fleet, so the boat goes all over.

We should take a trip at the start of next slow season, the charters slow down and the captains and some investors are around to talk to. Get a place near the port, hang out at the local bar on the marina, and let them tell us all the secrets after a few drinks. :)

What type of niche is hot right now, what people buy nowadays? it will be great if you answer this one :)

Hey Shap, is the big break opportunity still valid (in your sig) ? Is your email in the thread working ?

~
 

I'll try to keep it short. here are the cliff notes time line :)

1996 had just stopped playing Junior hockey and found out about the web.

- Found PK's site. Ripped it and changed the logo. Got a link trade with Slick Rick (my first link Trade) those of you who don't know Slick Rick then started Ynot and then TheBestPorn :winkwink:. After a few days I received a letter from PK's lawyer so i had to pull the site.

- Since PK was so powerful figured I'd get listed on her site. Created a little free site on my university account I think it was concordia.ca/~shap LOL. I got listed on friday 5:45pm and monday 8am I received a call from the head of the department informing me that over the weekend I had used 99.5% of all bandwidth the school ever used in 3 days and I was banned from any computer services.

At that point I knew I was onto something. Around that time Ynot was hopping as the industry community. I wanted to make my mark with the big boys like Serge, Fantasyman etc. So I started a site where they each had to submit their best picture and my surfers would vote on the best pic. The winner got a free banner spot on the site for the month. It was great these guys pounded me with traffic. Was a great way to build up.

Then i started PicWarehouse as a link site and then it became a CJ site and was one of the bigger ones. Then started clean tgps bigbreastlovers and sexape to capitalize on all the traffic I had on picwarehouse.

After 5 years of playing the free site game and seeing only a few really good paysites (Karups, Scoreland, ATK) my wife and I decided it was time to get into the paysite game. We came up with the name Twistys and decided to have a babe site. The idea was for $10k we could get really hot content from matrix and jokersx and get launched and be able to test the market. Oct 10, 2001 we launched. The site only would get a handful of sales until June/July of 2002 when it really took off. We held back on promoting it because we didn't think the site would convert or do well which was silly. Never hold back without testing and knowing for sure if something will work or not.

When you say affiliate site you mean your free site that is an affiliate to other sites right? (I ask because when I hear affiliate site I think it's a paysite or cash program).

My first thoughts were that the domain name is misleading. If I saw the domain wehateporn.com i'd think it was a site about anti porn people. Not borderline porn. In fact if you showed that to most porn haters they'd say your site is a porn site. I think a better branding of the site would be toohotforporn.com or something like that. Girls that are so hot they are too hot for porn.

Maybe others can add their thoughts. I just feel the site and domain don't go together. I'm guessing if you are going to stay away from adult sponsors you should see which mainstream sponsors that blacklist adult guys but make $$$ are open to you (although my guess is they'd deny you and call you an adult site).

Got your email I'll reply

No clue. The only thing that has become very clear in the past two months is that kids are a full time job. I've spent pretty much everyday hanging out with my 3 year old (while my wife has spent most of her time with our new born). I have to say 3 year olds never stop. I'm so tired at the end of the day LOL :winkwink:

I don't want to hear that. My five month old wears me out each and every day! I can't work unless she's napping or the wife is off and taking care of her. :upsidedow

Hey Shap, what's your e-mail - if you're serious in giving away free advice - I'd like to ask you on mail...

Thanks.
M.

thank you Shap...

Thanks Shap, I appreciate it :thumbsup

Yep, it's a free site that promotes others. My idea for the domain is to make people have to think about it, so as then if they like the site they are more likely to remember the name having consciously thought about it. Also I know a certain amount of people will go to the domain out of curiousity i.e. "What the hell?"

I like the name Too Hot For Porn, very good thinking. It would be difficult for me to back track on my domain as it's been going since 2007 and has been on FHM a number of times, but if I could go back I would go for your name.

My current sponsors are adult, but generally very soft. The most you see in the majority of the members areas is nudity, if that. This has enabled me to pick up mainstream traffic from a number of sources which has been useful, but I don't intend to promote mainstream unless there's something that pays well.

Thanks again :thumbsup

Good question. Take my advice with a grain of salt everybody is different.

I believe great success does not come without great sacrifice. I sacrificed my 20s for the rest of my life. Obviously I have no regrets (because things turned out well) but I think even if things hadn't turned out as well I wouldn't have any regrets. When you see an opportunity you have to go for it. They don't come along too often so don't let the good ones get away from you.

One of the reasons I'm happy I worked so hard in my 20s is because it set me up to be prepared to have a family in my 30s. Both time wise, business wise and financially. Working your ass off while raising a young family would be extremely challenging. It's best to work your ass off when you have nothing but time on your hands.

Financially don't think you have forever to save money. Every penny counts. It's important to enjoy what you've built but be sure to always be saving money. If you go a year without putting anything away (or even worse going into debt) then you will be playing catch up. Get into the habit of always putting aside x amount that you are saving up and not touching. That way when the right opportunity comes along you are ready.

Be careful who you go into business with. Family and friends can make the best business partners or the absolute worst. Be sure you can be honest with your business partners. If you are always candy coating your thoughts or the reality of things then they probably aren't the right partner.

Probably the best advice I could give you is NEVER think there is anything as easy or quick money. Every get rich quick project I tried failed and became and blow money fast project. There are no shortcuts to acquiring wealth.

88shap at gmail

Hi Shap

A couple of questions.

1) Where have you found your best programmers/designers from?
2) How did you keep the drive/passion going after the initial couple of years for the same site.

Don't listen to this guy! If you're going to take business advice, at least get it from someone who actually HAS a business..

:banana

q.

In what regard do you hold people who do business with people who are stealing from others ?

Thank you Shap ... Besides google what is your professional advice to accumulate and retain traffic?
We have many trades but it seems we give away more traffic than we receive ...
I am well aware the amateur industry is ridiculously saturated.. any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated ...

Sincerely
Deidre

mail sent.

How to profit from indian search engine traffic coming to my blogs? At least 10 cents from 100 search engine uniques? :)

I get the feeling this is a question trying to set me up for an argument (I can't remember you ever having any kind words for me :winkwink:). I'll still bite.

I'm against stealing. The problem with our business is if you decide you will only do business with people that don't steal you will have a very short list of companies to work with. Are people guilty by association? Are you referring to b2b stealing only or b2c as well?

I would say that was one of my biggest challenges over the past 3 years (since my first son was born). I think there are two things that really helped. Loving and caring for the project and having a personal goal. Without either of those I would have been screwed.

That said I've always struggled with work/life balance. I'm either all work or all life. That is why i always tell younger people (ie people in their 20s) that now is the time to work. I know if I had started my business with a young family I would have either A. not been as successful or B. not had the same type of relationship with my kid.

I think once you have a family the key is to find ways to enjoy the family time without business involved. Family trips away from the computer.

I'm not sure. We had really good momentum going and have always had a few key players that played a major role. I think if anything it helped deal with industry change better.

It's all in this thread :winkwink:

I'm not sure. Our first priority is deciding on where we want to live. That and getting into a routine (2 kids is an adjustment LOL). My wife and I have tossed around a few ideas but nothing yet. I'm guessing it will probably be about a year before either of us is ready to commit to a new project.

My initial adult investment was zero. I came in as a university student. Made some money on a free hosted account and then re-invested that money into a domain then into hosting and just let it grow from there. Never needed any outside financing.

I've got to give your other two questions some thought to answer them properly.

My two cents on your question...

Life - Live it. Do everything you want to do as soon as you can do it. Don't wait until you're old. Tomorrow you may have a brain hemorrhage.

Love - If you find it, don't mess it up. But don't be a driveling fool about it either. If you don't know if you've found it, then you haven't. You will know when you do. But worse, you will know if you've had it and lost it.

Women - Unless you fall in love, rent them. (If it floats, flies or fucks... rent it.)

Friends - Be honest, be fair, be the friend to them you want them to be in return. However, cut off anyone who is dragging you down or full of negativity.

Family - Love them. Be honest with them. But don't let them dictate your life.

Work hard. Play hard. No regrets. :2 cents:

Nailed it!

Business-
Know your product and never try to sell anything you do not truly believe! Oh and never, ever, ever get into business with family, someone will get hurt.

I do this too, cut friends off, the kind who don't like to see you do well.

Yep use the email in my sig

I think things change fast so even if I mentioned a niche today it may not be doing great when someone else reads this. Instead I think you should look at how you can stay in the loop and know what's hot. I think a good way to do that is to research the biggest sites and see what sites or niches you continually see at the top. It's important to come up with a formula that works for you. Not all high traffic sites can be used as a measuring stick. You have to research it you have to figure out how different sites send traffic, is it prepaid is it sponsor account, are the spots set are the based on views (tubes). Once you get all of that together you should be able to figure out which sites are a good source of information and from there know which spots or areas of the site will give you an indicator of what's hot.

There is a lot to consider when trying to get your finger on the pulse of things, it's not an easy job but the reward makes it worthwhile.

Well Said! :thumbsup

I agree with that.
They have a lot of energy at that age. In my case, going to work is like taking the day of.

LOL I don't even work anymore and I go to work just for the day off :winkwink: I have to say it is fun though. Kids have such an appreciation and enjoyment of life.

Lazy bastard :P

LOL :1orglaugh

You know I've thought about this question a lot and I'm not sure how to answer it.

For A. $10k to invest from scratch. I'd probably tell you to start small save your money and make your investment almost entirely blood, sweat and tears. Spend your time trying to understand how others are making money and try to find an opening for yourself.

B. $50k to invest from scratch. I'd say follow A don't jump in too fast because that 50k will be gone.

C. $250k to invest. I'd probably look for a program/site that is a good investment to either partner up with or acquire. Important to get a fair valuation and to be sure it's not on the decline.

1. we were never stacked with programmers or designers. We've tried hiring inhouse and offshore. In both cases it was hit and miss for us. Looking back it was definitely a mistake we made. We were always heavily stacked with idea people but light on people that could execute those ideas.

2. I wasn't able to be on Twistys non stop for the past 10 years. One thing that helped was having staff that managed and ran the site so as I started to get bored of it they had it under control and I'd work on a new project. Then when I got the itch again I'd come back full steam on it. That helped. The other thing that helped was reading comments, suggestions, complaints, emails from customers (members). Somehow that always fired me up to be better.

You have to offer something the surfer wants. What site are you referring to? I'll check it out and give you some ideas. I've always tried to put myself in the shoes of the surfer. Look at your trades. See if any of them offer more than you are offering. Also, try to offer something catchy that gets them coming back day after day or week after week. Either a weekly or daily feature above and beyond regular updates.