I would make it a Colostomy supply store creating custom filtered colostomy bags with an easy disposal system and integrated composting system as an upgrade. The bags then become a subscription based business.

Good luck ;)

I keep meaning to ask you this, but I had a friend a while ago who asked me where he can get "shitty anal" videos. As far as I know, this is illegal to promote in the US, but Id be willing to be there is a HUGE market for it... as long as you live in a country where you can promote it. Which looks to be Germany or Brazil :1orglaugh

To be honest I don't know. As an example I can't see a site like Twistys gaining much from having social bookmarking on it's tours. I may be wrong. I don't think it can hurt but I don't think it would make a noticeable impact either way. That's just my thoughts without having done any real testing on it.

I would find a way to market the weird niche on tubes. If you have a weird niche that is of interest i could see it killing big time on tubes. if it does hit it hard as hard as you can as fast as you can

I'm outta here for today. I'll be back on tomorrow to catch up to the other questions. Keep firing them I'll get to them all :)

A fuckload lot more than you I would guess. :D

Nice post Shap. I'll be absorbing this one and make it happen. Hopefully help others also.

Thanks again for stopping by :thumbsup

An amount that allows me to go to bed at night feeling good about what I accomplished. I have no regrets of selling and no regrets that I came up short in anyway.

yes Shap, I do a few questions. would you email me pls? sell at bmbhome.com thnx.. B

Come and get your FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE advice:pimp

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.