If you are smart enough to make millions, you will never sell off and retire. You will find ways to making more millions, whatever job it may be, or business. Most people work to live, but I think most Millionaires live to work. It's fun and it's challenging.

I personally wouldn't know how to retire.

I don't think that applies to me but I will let you know if I still feel the same way when I get to the point that I could retire if I wanted to. The way I see it now, I work 80 hours a week as a means to an end. To make money. When i've made enough and invested it wisely and can live off the passive proceeds I plan on "retiring". Doesn't mean I am going to move to a remote island where no one will ever see or hear from me again. But my ass wont be working no more 80 hour weeks. I will still have investments, may still play around or over see a couple active projects, but my "work" life will be cut by 80%. I want to enjoy life. While working, making money, and taking on challenges is fun... I would rather be spending more time with my family, taking vacations, fishing and playing golf, traveling to sporting events, and even laying on the beach all day vs continuing to work my ass off.

The people who say they could retire but don't want to either:
- are full of shit.
- really can't retire and maintain their current life style.
- are money hungry and money gives them more happiness then any of the stuff i mentioned above.
- Or just don't know how to enjoy life and relax.



I kind of think of it as going to the casino and gambling. When I get up $500 I color up and put the chip in my pocket. They wont get that back. If you go up and then continue playing because it is fun, don't know when to walk away and wind up losing it all back, then you might be the type to never be able to retire. When I reach the financial success point where I can retire, maintain my lifestyle, live off of safe passive investments, and have some money to play with I'm cashing in my chips. I wont continue to gamble what I've made nor waste my time trying to make more and more and more.

Everyone is different for sure, If you are working 80 Hours a week, to you, working 20 hours a week would feel like retirement.

You need to cut some of those hours down bud. That's a lot of hours. :2 cents:

Mistake
I Am Happy to Work for a Company WHO KNOWS where they come from .. and are seeing always a Step ahead... There is not a single day where I am not feeling at School Learning something ... Why cause they know why they are here ... and Where they want to be, What it will take to get there...

One thing still ..

When I arrived here I did not know a damn thing ...
People with knowledge and patience show me .. 5 years now and Still here...
Thanks to Gamma Joel, Charles, Karl... Roald ( FreeOnes ) and Michael ( Yep Twistys got good peeps also ;) lolll

Not so. The problem with that is those are all prepaid spots. And even those spots are probably being "monetized" for the traffic instead of actually selling a product. :thumbsup:thumbsup

FUCKING RIGHT

I agree that it's a confluence of events, but I think it also has to do with how the economy might be disproportionately effecting the paying target demographic.

Dave I know exactly what you mean. If you would have asked me when I started what I'd do when I got to the point I am today. I would have answered retire and never look back. But it doesn't work that way. Your personal goals change. Your lifestyle changes. Your long term goals change. Your network of contacts changes. When I started in this biz all I wanted to do was make $120,000 a year. That was my goal. I thought if I could do that I'm Set. I blew that out and along the way everything changed and continues to change. Even a few years ago I would have said I'd retire if I got to where I am now. But now that I'm here it's opened up a number of doors and I'm seeing what making more means to me. So to continue making what I'm making plus keeping myself current, up to date and well informed is important right now.

All that to say my once long ago thoughts of retirement no longer apply. They will never happen. In fact the retirement most of us grew up thinking about doesn't exist anymore. I always envisioned retiring early and having all the time in the world to spend with my family and do whatever I want. But now that I have a 2 year old little boy I think to myself 'do i want him to see Dad at home everyday doing whatever daddy wants?' Or do I want him to see that WORKING your ASS off pays off HUGE. WORK HARD PLAY HARDER! :winkwink:

I am not much of a board person anymore, Hustler and my own projects keep me busy as is; but here are a few observations that come to mind for me, based on your post, Shap. Hopefully it doesn't lend itself to digression of your original thoughts and points.


1) Everything you said, without question, contributes to a variety of failures and breakdowns.


2) A complete and utter lack of realistic expectations and patience.

Shap, I don?t want to undermine the amount of business proposals you have heard, I am sure you have heard more than your fair share. But I can?t tell you the amount of business opportunities that I have been pitched that inherently reveal how short-sighted people in this industry are is without scope. The dynamic of the plan is usually something that was conceived in a car ride home from a Chinese dive restaurant between two former webmasters and a Chinese chicken chef. It?s usually pitched from the fervent randomness that it was conceived with, which is sort of like listening to a monkey chirp on two eight balls of blow. There is nothing written down at the time of the call, but rest assured, details are coming. And when they come, it?s all different. Why? Because when something is written, it?s like a Heidi Montag without any makeup on, all the shit that is messed up comes shining through. Now the new idea is basically a copy of everyone else?s products that they copied from someone that copied?..Why? Because if you can think up an idea at a Chinese shithole restaurant in Van Nuys, it was likely not an idea that hasn?t been thought of before.

Now comes the timeline and Action Items, because without the mirage of these two functions, the plan is still short of a total waste. The timeline is typically around 30 days, and involved in this timeline is a 15 day risk of total and complete change of focus. If the product doesn?t actually work within two weeks, you can pretty much rest assured that it will fall into a half-designed-half-programmed-kinda-functioning-business-cards-were-made-too-fucking-early graveyard.

You might be thinking, but what about the marketing plan? Well, that was started already with the ?something huge is coming? post on GFY and the icq logs with Eric covering how much a banner and skin would cost if this ChineseShitholeCash actually got off the ground.

The point in this is that companies and individuals are short-sighted and grasping at straws so often, they fail to realize that if they would have taken some time and attempted to create a true working product, with a unique marketing plan, and some focus, they?d fair way better.

Let me tell you a true story, when I started my ?mainstream? portfolio (that?s in quotes for a reason to be addressed momentarily), I told my partners that if we did this, no one asked about profits for one solid year. The only questions I ever wanted to hear needed to revolve around how we could make our sites more surfer friendly, how we could more succinctly and efficiently divulge information to our readers, and how, in a general sense, we could engage our communities and keep them happy. Over that year, we grew slowly, but every couple of months, we?d look at where we were and we?d semi-celebrate the achievement. There was no profits involved, only monthly losses that got greater with each passing month.

We also had a marketing plan. Much of this plan included picking up the phone and calling people to pitch why we should be considered in their lineups for news. Some of it included creative traffic portals. Some of it included flying to places to get content that served us only for viral marketing.

Now, what type of responses did I get at shows?

?Does that shit actually make money??
?Why don?t you have a Sex Search ad on there??
?You should at least be feeding them installs.?
?That?s a fun hobby.?

Of course, how much does that change when business takes a dive? That?s the fantastic part, it doesn?t, which safely gives even more validity to what Shap said. Whenever anyone hears un-inflated profit margins alongside a natural business timeline, they are out. When I tell people a year, they are already refocused on the next idea they can come up with while on the way to an Springroll lunch special.

Let?s try this for a second. I am 34 years old. If I could have a long-term product yielding me nice living by age 40, would I take it? The answer is yes. With all the energy and time that so many people have spent going for the quick cash grab, you have to wonder how far along they?d be today if they?d worked on creating a quality product. Something I have preached from day one, if something feels too easy, if it happened to fast, it?s not likely to last. Nothing wrong with taking it, but everything wrong with building your life around it. Eventually they are hauling the boat away, that?s life.

3) An observed contrast between mainstream and adult. It?s all one web, when you disregard morality and delivery issues, you aren?t left with that much of a difference.

I constantly hear people creating this great divide between mainstream and adult. Unless you are talking in terms of delivery of content (regional, work places, age limits), you aren?t left with much of a difference. And really, the aforementioned differences don?t really account for much of the overall transpirations of your business ideals. The only real separations I see are self-applied. Mainstream focuses on longer term plans, as well as solid, creative and unique marketing plans. They don?t give up on an idea in two weeks.

The main differences are the people.

I recently sat in the Adtech opening seminar in San Francisco. They had the President of Marketing from Levi?s Straus give a speech. He broke down several Levi Straus marketing plans, along with marketing plans from various companies. The marketing breakdowns included television, print and of course, social media. With almost every marketing aspect covered, I could invariably not draw a line in the sand between its application in adult or mainstream. Included in these ideas were marketing plans by major companies that were budgeted at 0. Something to think about?


4) The business is over because everything is free now.

I recall the first time it ended, I think it was 2003? Not sure how many of you remember those old dinosaur AVS setups. When those went down, they went down faster than last year?s Versace. One noted example would be Cyberage.com. For those of you unfamiliar with this period of time, the closest thing to an iPhone was talking to your TV while listening to your iPod, Chlamydia still trumped HPV as the socialite bar scene ?must not get? VD, The Buccaneers were on the brink of winning a Superbowl, and Cyberage.com was an enormous brand in the adult industry. Of course, if you visit the site now, you will see that the market corrected itself and eliminated it all-together. Or is it? So wait, Dave survived the end of the world? And today's Buccanneers couldn?t beat a high school marching band in pads if they didn?t get a handicap on the line? Say it isn?t so?time sure is a funny thing.

Remember when Shap was annoying everyone with his trademark infringement, I think he sent me a C&D for BROmaster when I used the color canary yellow in my logo. I guess Shap once owned a canary yellow golf shirt and he thought it brought out his tan. Maybe he was foreseeing the turbulent times that are now? Protecting a brand yesterday looks a little savvy today. Or maybe it was just one aspect of a long-term plan? Or maybe Canadian summers cause Canadian people to go to despicable lengths in order to preserve the semblance of a tan? I?m torn, to be honest.

When you look at what is happening in billing, and in the tube genre, much of it can be attributed to a pretty basic level of market correction. I am not speaking to ethics, in terms of tubes, but no matter how you deem it, it still has its place in market correction.

The issue with today is that every foundation shakes from time-to-time. But sometimes, a foundation goes a long time without shaking at all. It looks like a prime place to build a house. Some people choose (know how) to build a house that can withstand shaking, while others choose (only know how) to build a faster house. When the foundation shakes, it?s obvious who is who.

That's my thoughts. I'm out, gotta go meet some guys in Van Nuys for lunch.

Shouldn't you be on vacation somewhere. :1orglaugh
Not sure how we ended up back in this thread, sorry.

I totally agree with what you are saying here, for a change 100%,. :1orglaugh

I think you are forgetting one. They are SUCCESS driven. I'll tell you right now I'm not money hungry. I'm way more SUCCESS driven than money hungry at this point. Success has rewards that money alone can't deliver. To be honest it's probably all about ego. Being successful comes with an ego boost that being money driven doesn't provide (once you've got it).

LOL Yeah. Had 3 straight days of perfect weather and golf. Had my best round ever 79 :thumbsup Today was a rain out so I was just checking it out.

Cory,

You are such a good writer, do you have any books in the works. I'll publish it.
I love reading what you write, even on your blogs from back in the days.

Hope all is well at Hustler.

This is the kind of post that makes me want to stand up and say "Hallelujah, preach on, brother, amen to that!"

Best to over-estimate what everyone else is doing. Accept that they already know how to do it better, smarter, faster, then determine to forget "what you think" and figure out what actually works for you.

Another real life example from the book I call "The Everlasting Pain of Learning the Hard Way" - we decided that we should test cutting our price on titles to match what other companies were sliding to. We ended up selling less numbers at a lesser price, a sure fire recipe for disaster. Fortunately, testing tells those stories quickly. We continue to test everything and I agree that years of experience can sharpen the skills of intuition but one must be prepared to face the counterintuitive things - like how great something like hairy bush niche sells or stuff like that.

Everyone tends to jump on bandwagons of what they think is the next big thing only to find out that it was over before they even got there. No one wants to put in the work of the day to day due diligence required to ward a company through ever shifting market conditions.

Why does everybody want to have the biggest /cheapest site and use just 1 business model for the same content? I just don't get it to be honest.

Porn/sex is a brief impuls fantasy in the mind for a short time programmed in our DNA and payment get triggered only by the right girl/niche/look/smile/position/etc. at the exact right time.

Most surfers pay for porn as a impulse buy or they are serious dedicated niche fans.

Yet <1% of most programs offer a quick fix in billing pages. The whole process takes too long when you have a hard dick and want a quick fix (my personal experience).

Ever thought about recurring coud scare off surfers? Is that why VOD's have better conversions? What you see is what you get is what most users want I assume, so why do programs make decisions based on fear! and assume a surfer won't come back and take as much as they can this instant instead of keeping him coming back for more if he/she is happy with the service/content/price/experience?

Maybe a satisfied surfer WILL come back every few days and buys a "little" every day instead of joining a "club" for $360 per year (where it comes down to in the eyes of the user maybe).

Ever thought of a user just paying $5 to $40 for a single dvd/scene he likes? It would surprise you what the results could be.....if you have the languages/Geo-ip/local billing set up correctly that is and use local marketing and local affiliates that send targetted pre filtered traffic. Aebn, vods & clipstores do that also, they seem to be doing well as are PPM/PPV sites.

You could end upo doing 1:50 to 1:100 easy with the same content now being sold at 29,95 a month "all you can eat".
Why would you ONLY offer 1000 or 10000 videos at 29,95 a month (=1$ per day, per 24 hours for ALL movies)?

Why don't programs offer (next to a membership) a possibility to buy per scene, per dvd, per day, per week, per minute, per hour, per channel, per niche, per 24 hours..and so on?? Programs already HAVE!! the content!! and the traffic!!...why not test other business models to see if it works (and works locally).

"No it's the tubes" ...that's just too easy.
Looking for a scapegoat that is. Offcourse tubes influence the industry but not for 100%. I don't believe that at all. Some serious self reflection could come in handy sometimes.

There will always be people with money and willing to buy users. You just need to figure out and test HOW and WHEN, in what business model they wanna have it in and how they want to pay for it.

Who cares that SMS or other billing methods eats up half the profit if it could bring 5 times as much revenue and make the hard dick impatient users happy by paying safe/anonymous within 3 seconds so they can continue to fap on a 120 minute dvd for 5 or 10 mins. tops?

Not everybody has a creditcard or trusts (porn) sites with their creditcard info.

Make it easy for the user! The tubes did... Why not the paysites? Only difference is a small payment within a few seconds. Take a step back and surf/fap to all that is out there...what are your fapping end user thoughts?

Just think about it for a second from a users point of view...

Sucessful businesses can spring ONLY from a vast number of happy end users using a good solid working business model, if the business model would suck and the users would not find the appealing X-factor on there, programs would/will be whining and looking for others to blame most likely. Unless they fraude with the users, which is option No. 2 which I would never recommend.

X-factor/Idols is a nice parallel here btw. Sometimes it's not enough just to be able to sing...some singers can make people cry, stand on their tables, become a fan and get a dedicated crowd visiting their concerts. Think about it for a second. Same emontion as porn most likely; either they hate it, they love it or it's just "ok", which is not good enough to succeed.

I am off to bed, way past midnight here in Holland

If I cut down then retirement is that much further away. Unless I hit the powerball tomorrow. :winkwink:

You pointed out a lot of key points that I was touching on.

your goal was to make 120K a year, obviously someone can't retire from making 120K for 5 years muchless one. So that really had nothing to do with retirement. Your comments on the more you make, the more you life style changes. A lot of people spend more when they make more. You right, when that happens you really can't retire and maintain your life style. For example when you started you prolly lived modest and thought if you could get to the point where you had a nice house, 5K a month to spend on enjoyment an and 1 sports car you probably thought you would be happy like that the rest of your life with out having to work much any more. But once you got to that point you might have had 3 sports car, 5x nicer house, and spending a lot more than 5K a month in entertainment, maybe a summer home etc... Well now you can't stop because you would lose those things. So you push harder to make more. Then when you get to that point since you spend up as you make it, now you got a taste for what it is like to have 3 vacation homes, travel all the time, etc etc... if you stop you would lose it etc etc...

I completely understand and get the challenge part and want to create new projects etc.. but I can't believe any of you WANT to work your ass off for ever and never retire. It makes more sense to me that every time you make more you increase your life style and you keep working because you don't want to lose it. Or you are already semi retired and only working 10 - 20 hours a week but you don't consider that as being "retired".

It's like the rich person's rate race. The more they make the more they spend and increase their life style, the more projects and chances they take. They are never satisfied with what they have. Unfortunately, sometimes people push to far or risk too much and the lose most of it or all of it. Either through bad investments, lawsuits, or the market changing.

I wonder how much you two (Shap or Dave) has set a side for retirement. Not having money in your business as a retirement, but a real retirement like IRA's, 401K mutual funds, Annuities, etc... I hope you aren't the types that spend or reinvest in their business and new projects everything you make. That doesn't always turn out for everyone. If you making the kind of money it sounds like you guys are making then you should have a couple million locked up so no matter what happens you can retire if you "change your mind" in the future :winkwink:

best hyphenated word ever lol

ya people dont make a 7 year to profit plan cuz they have bills to pay. thats why only the rich get richer.

this was good too..

Are you guys getting Chinese by any chance ? :winkwink:

Great post, enjoyed reading it....

Couple things I like to add besides that I agree with everything you said:

- My best ideas just so happen to come to me in the bathroom or while driving. When you think about it though, those are rarely the only two times where I am alone and with out distractions (most times in the car when I am not on the cell).

- The short sighted people you talk about are just merely pretenders, the biz plan, got the business cards made before one ounce programming has even started... and never does. It is the people who want to look big but never execute or can follow through if they do manage to get something started... when you talk to them 2 months later and ask them how its going they don't even know what you are talking about lol.

- I've can relate first hand to a lot of what you are saying when I talked to cam sites about me helping them make their sites better, the response i receive almost every time was " sounds good... would you like to be an affiliate and send traffic to us, what do we have to do to get your traffic?". They were more concerned with how they can make a buck today vs me helping them make 100x more in the not so long run.

- I've recently started helping some people I know locally with Financial matters. I wonder how many of the people who don't want to wait 6 months or 1 year to make money are putting money away for retirement that they wont be able to touch for 20 -30 years. I bet less than 10% of the people on GFY has any type of retirement plan that they have already started funding (except the ones who have something provided by the company they are working for). What is even more sad about that is that it's not just all the broke sig whores without retirement planning, but likely people who are making 100K a year or more that have done nothing yet!

That's how employees think.

I for one love working. I don't ever want to stop because I ENJOY the creativity of what I do. And so do lots of others. Why doesn't Mick Jagger "retire" ? The checks will keep coming even if he did. But he doesn't. He LOVES what he does. Why didn't George Burns retire right up until he died? Because he loved it.

Will, I'm an entertainer. This whole porn thing is just another form of entertaining people for me. It's a stage. I LOVE making things to entertain people. Just like I love playing in a band for a crowd in a bar.

It's not all about the money for me at all.

Now if all I did in this business was updating the site and making graphics or doing programming or any of that stuff...then I would be chomping at the bit to "retire". But it's not. And I don't ever want to quit "working" for the rest of my life. Whether I'm creating a porn vid, recording music in my studio, shooting a music vid, or playing guitar in a piece of shit redneck bar in BumFuck...I simply love all aspects of entertaining people.

This just doesn't feel like "work" to me. It's totally like being on vacation and getting paid.

Some people don't understand it...but it's true.

I think that fits perfectly into: " - Or just don't know how to enjoy life and relax. "

If you are about ego and wanting to do better then everyone else I think what I said above is a fair assessment. If it was truly about success and not money then the life style wouldn't be increase step for step with the success.

I understand and agree with that. If it is something you enjoy doing and the money is just a bonus, and you don't see it as work, you don't need the money. Then its not work its a profitable hobby. I can't imagine that applies to many people here though. I would think 99% of the people here are doing something to make money and if given the choice they would rather be doing something else. I am here 100% for the fact that this is what I know best and where I can make the most money.

no matter what you say - if i had the chance to retire, living a comfortable life (i dont need bling bling, yachts and houses with 10 bedrooms), i would instantly format c: my computer and never work (in the sense of making money) again. i would do some fun things though.

Count me in but damn. Isn't frustrating ?

i know what you mean btw...

i loved being a DJ, i loved being on stage with my band.

but: being a DJ every weekend, at the same club, with the same guests - thats what kills it. even the things you love the most make you sick if you do them once too much

I'd take a guess that one of the reasons this is what you know best and have the most success with is because you love what you do. Something drove you in the beginning to pursue your particular field of expertise and if you are any good at it, it becomes almost a part of who you are.

One way you find out real quick is when you try to retire. For instance, after playing on the road for 20 years in rock bands...I tried to go "cold turkey" in 1998 and stopped playing in bands completely. Just stopped dead cold after playing all the time from 1978 to 1998

Well, the very first night that I sat at home (I played 6 to 7 nights a week every week of the year until then), I felt BAD. I couldn't take it. I felt like I was not doing what I was born to do. But at the same time, I was tired of traveling.

So the next thing I know...I'm in a male strip show and wrestling at a local indy pro wrestling fed...just doing anything to get in front of a crowd and entertain. Then I picked up that damn guitar again and joined a local band playing weekends.

So I was wrestling on Tuesday night. Male strip show on Thursday nights. And playing in a band on Friday and Saturday nights. And during the days I was running all my TGPs AND shooting all the content for the company I owned then (Pure Candy Images).

And then I felt complete. lol

I can't STAND to have free time. It drives me nuts. I love showbiz too much. :)

I think if you work online, make your money this way - whether it be adult or 'mainstream' - then you have to be 'hooked on accomplishment'. Creating something, finishing something, accomplishing a goal is like a drug, and when you get hooked on THAT kind of drug - accomplishment - then the World's yer Oyster.

I have a good friend, with an IQ like 800 or something. he works in mainstream, for a million-dollar company, and writes accounting software. Some of the most boring stuff I can imagine but he makes $150,000 a year, and has done so for ten+ years. Now, he's also into fetish, like S&M, spanking, male dom stuff. So he's got a kinky interest in what I do.

Trouble is this - and this is a trait that I see a LOT of people in our soceity have: my friend 'gets off' on ideas. he comes up with a million-dollar idea ten times day. "Hey, someone should create a business that does THIS" or "we should try and sell THAT". Everything is a clever ".com"-idea: www.monkeybrains.com! www.littlechocolatebunnies.com, on and on.

When you get a "great idea" you immediately get an endorphin rush. Talk about a DRUG! WOO BABY!! Feel the rush of possibility, of hope, the excitement of the clever idea...

And how many of these admittedly great ideas does my brilliant friend actually take action on and do something/anything about? That's right, 0. He gets off on the idea, the endorphin rush, he's hooked on ideas and possibilities. But the actual hard work needed to implement his ideas, try them and make them an actual real-world success is simply too inconvenient and hard for him to actually DO.

Many, many people are like my friend, and I used to be this way, too. 'Mister Peabody' was an idea in my head for a couple years, the name made me laugh, the whole idea of filming homemade porn in my mom's basement while she cooked dinner upstairs was hysterical to me! But it wasn't until I got off my ASS and learned HTML, tried this and that, learned every single day and took action every single day that I started to get anywhere. And once I got going I found I had 'momentum' - what a concept! What a shock! - so the success gets easier and easier.

As I said, I understand where my friend is coming from; when you have a great idea you get your fix NOW whereas implementing your ideas can sometimes take a long time to feel that "high".

So get hooked on ACCOMPLISHMENT, not IDEAS. Feel the amazing, self-satisfying, self-esteem-building wonder that is finishing a project. Even if it doesn't make money. Just completing projects, one after the other, or tasks, again and again, leads to success. Those that can do this thrive, those that want the drug of possibilities seek their jones elsewhere.

Sponsors not paying affiliates or paying them late. That could hurt the industry. I won't even mention Teen Revenue in this post at all.

Shap used to have money but his wife went shopping in Miami now he is broke and I have to do payroll with mcdonalds coupons :( P.S. don't tell the office, or our photographers none of them like Mcdonalds :(

I'm probably one of the very rare cases in the industry. I save as much as possible and have always lived well below my means. In fact if you didn't know me and I was out with other webmasters most people would think I'm the suffering webmaster lol. Not because I'm cheap but because I'm smart and don't throw money around. I remember when I started I had no car and yet I still waited until I had $400,000 saved in the bank to buy my first car. When I did I bought a brand new Acura Integra Cash. That was almost 10 years ago. I waited and waited and waited. I've never had any debt.

I'm not really interested in a 5x bigger house. Having money has afforded me the luxury of traveling to some really great places in the world. I've also had the chance to experience some absolutely amazing experiences in life. Each experience changes what is important to me and what type of life I'd like to live. Each experience has also opened me up to new people. For example when I started I knew no one making 40k a year. Within the industry and outside I've met more and more successful people. In the last year I've met a few guys worth over $100 million each. I would have never dreamt to meet people in that category 10 years ago. Meeting them has changed the way I think of retirement. Each new acquaintance and experience opens my eyes to what doors and opportunities money opens up.

I remember when I thought if I had $1,000,000 in the bank I could live forever without working again.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

LOL you aren't married are you? :1orglaugh:1orglaugh


My success came very fast. I remember when i started I made $3000 a month very quickly and then within 10 months I was making more than $30,000 a month. I'm very logical and reasonable in my thought process. There is no way I should have been making that money. I didn't deserve it. So based on that thinking I always felt the end was always very near and I'd wake up one day and the dream would be over. I always wanted to be in a situation if that day came I could walk away and say I Crushed It, saved enough to never work again and I have no regrets. I see so many guys that have blown it all and have nothing to show for it. The most important thing to me isn't houses, cars, trips, it's 100% the amount I have saved.

I have to admit I'm like you. I'd love to know how much people have set aside for the future. When I have industry friends who blow money I try to pull them aside and share with them my thinking. There are a lot of people that should have a few million set aside and set for life. Instead they are in debt and have NOTHING but memories to show for it.

#1 That was the longest post I ever read every word of.

#2 It was 10000% worth it

#3 I really envy your writing skills.

#4 I love you Cory. You are one person that I've always liked and had more and more respect for as I get to know you more (mostly from your writing).

Thanks for adding in your thoughts. Really well said :thumbsup

not even close for me. I came across ifriends looking for girls online. Realized it was a pay site and noticed a couple guys online. Figured if those clowns could make money I could to. For shits and giggles made an account and boom started making money. Would come home from my bartending job all night, spend 1 hour on cam and make 3x more money then go to class a couple hours later. I didn't particularly like having dudes look at me, so as soon as I made enough money I hired someone to make me my first site so I could retire my short cam career. I did well with it, quit the job, graduated school shortly after and then start working as much as I could.

It was addicting because I could make money 24/7 which was wild and the more I worked the more I made. Where as all the ways I made money previously was from a job, which I could only work so many shifts a week and could only make money when I was actually there. I learned as much as I could, and the rest was basically history. I stuck with what I knew best because that is what made me the most money, and vice versa. After 10 years of promoting cam sites, having been an owner, working with chat host, etc.. I guess you learn a few things.

There is nothing else I could do right now to make more money then I could from working online. I invest in other things but because of the real estate market tanking have been set back a few years from being able to retire. I am not here because of fun, because it is my life style or chosen profession or because I like looking at porn. I am here because it makes me the most money. When i make "enough" I am off to playing monopoly for a couple hours a week with my investments and spending the rest of the time chillin on the beach and taking it easy and enjoying life. The rest of you guys can keep on pluggin away, more power to you. That wont be me.

My success started pretty quick as well and like you I wondered how long it would last, and wanted to bank as much as I could for as long as I could. I also felt like I didn't do much to deserve it. My first year 99' I spent 1/2 my time building and updating membership sites and the other 1/2 promoting it. After a year of doing that i remember coming across an affiliate program and thinking, why would I want to do that and make only 50% when I could send it to my own site and make 100%... Thankfully, I tried it out and logic set in.... I was spending so much time creating and updating the damn site it didn't leave that much time to actually advertise it and make sales. Being an affiliate I could focus 100% of my time on advertising. With in 6 months I was generating about 3K a week with sexkey, then I noticed someone promoting the shit out of clickcash and figured it must be good if someone else was promoting it so I signed up and tried it. Over night I tripled my revenue with the same traffic.

I peaked in about 2005 averaging about 30K a week in sales just to clickcash and did 1.4 million with them that year. I was working hard but not 1/2 as much as I do now. I was smart enough to know to invest the money I made and to diversify knowing it might not last for ever, but unfortunately I was not smart / unlucky with the investments I made. I also neglected my online business which dropped in sales since I was once again splitting my time up and not focusing as much on traffic. I got back on track 100% on traffic a year or so ago and building it back up, but i now work 4x harder to make a lot less then I had in the past.

I did sock away a good bit for retirement, but that is age 65 money, as a worst case scenario. If I can't retire before then at least I know I will be set in later life and not working at walmart :)

When the money was coming easier, I was more agressive with my investing... i have learned a LOT from those mistakes and now have found investments that are very secure that offer the highest returns and doing well with them. Just need a few more years of pumping money into it and I should be done. One other thing I am doing just a little of now that is a passion of mine in helping people plan financially. I've seen so many people make mistakes there over the years, who have made millions and have nothing to show for it and are already working at walmart. I want to help people avoid that.

BTW, I am married for about 8 years, but no kids. The wife understands and lets me do my thing working a lot. I couldn't imagine having kids. I would lose a lot of productivity and/or be a terrible dad. At least now I'm just a semi terrible husband.

Shap, Will76, Cory w,Robbie, CyberAge-Dave, FarL - wow.
Inspirations all!

Now, I'm not an Affiliate, I'm a Program and Paysite owner, so I can't say if $30,000 weeks are still possible for someone like myself, who started MRPW in Jan. 2009.

But since I'll take a fraction of that (okay, a big fraction) and will be happy I carry on, hope foolosihly still in place.

Thanks for your stories guys - they keep people like me going. :)

Wow, lots of interesting stuff in this thread! Congrats to all involved!There are lots of great points here and taking them all one can have a pretty good idea about what's going on in the biz.

I'd just like to put in my :2 cents:
I'm not going to write about all the big problems we face as you all have done it much better than I could do it but I'd like to make a point. I think that sometimes it's a good idea to take a look at the basics, specially on difficult times like this. Sometimes, between all the business talk, we can overlook some things that in the end are, IMO, the ones that matter the most. In the end, surfers watching porn do it for a reason, to see pictures and/or movies that give them a hard on. Robbie said it better back on page 4:


That's the main reason people surf our sites, to see pictures/videos that make their cocks hard!
This is something that is a little overlooked IMO, as we maybe tend to think content is already great. And it is (well... almost always :1orglaugh), but it always can get better. And this is something we can work on. One alone can do nothing about tubes/torrents but one sure can try to give his surfers better content. Put better pictures/videos out there and more people will pay to see them.

and now don't let this thread die as it's a great, great one and personally has served as inspiration for me... and I'm sure I'm not alone!
Have a nice day!

nice aston and 911 ;)

in all seriousness, retirement is underated. and even if you are retired (like myself) you have deal with wealth preservation and investments, which is a job in and of itself :glugglug

and you can do a shitload of other things than just work. the world is your oyster!

I know exactly how you feel. There are aspects of this business I love. To be honest the majority of my best friends I met in this business. At the same time 10 years of being in the porn business is tough. I don't know if it's the secrecy, the nature, or something else. I've never done drugs. I don't party. I'm a married guy with a kid. So that may all factor in to why I find 10 years in porn is tough.

When I first started in the biz I was always looking for a mainstream out. I actually came close to buying Montreal.com for $75,000 lol. I had an entire plan on what I'd do. Luckily I realized early exactly what you said. There is nothing I could do right now that would make me more than porn. I realized that 10 years ago and stuck with porn all the way through. Starting Twistys helped keep me on track. With the amount of exclusive content we shoot and the importance of certain aspects of the site (Treat of the Month) I've always had to have a hand in what's going on. I naturally understand what the members want in terms of a site and content.

All that to say I totally understand where you are coming from. I'm pretty sure had I not started Twistys I would have gone down the same path. Luckily it keep me involved and didn't give me the chance to step away. Porn is the one thing I know REALLY well (the only thing I've done my entire adult life) and it's where I can make the most money.

I know it requires more hours, more work and more planning than ever for a far smaller reward. But I think guys like you that are busting it right now have a bright future.