What I have done/been doing:

[Bippy]

Hey there, in case what I have done and am doing is of ANY use to anyone else, I wanted to share it here.

My business that I am trying to turn into my muse is my moneymaker, it's my adult business. I know, I know, a lot of people look down on it, whatever. It's not like the internets have seen me nekkid or anything like that. :p A lot of what I have to say still carries over nicely, even if you're not in the adult industry.

So, the first thing I did when I knew it was going to stop being JUST me and I was going to start hiring people was register for an LLC for the state I'm in. It's a damn good thing I did that the first day, too, because I am STILL waiting for the paperwork to get in. Once that's in, I can get an employer identification number and move forwards with hiring people, and when I start HIRING people I'll start making a lot more money, as I take a cut of what they earn (oh, delicious cash flow).

So, if you are going to need any government documentation to get rolling, I reccomend grabbing that ASAP. I got a nice, bland corporate name. I will use that as an umbrella corporation for the rest of my businesses, which I will file a DBA (doing business as) certificate for. That total upfront cost was $300, it varies by state, but for the piece of mind of knowing that it's taken care of it's priceless.

Second, I have been using Elance with GREAT success to find graphic designers, web designers, and freelancers, but it takes several days to get cash into their system from a check. If you don't have a business credit card, plan ahead for this. I didn't. That has been my second big delay.

My third big delay? I haven't fully thought out how to TRANSITION from me doing it all myself, to a VA firm doing it all for me. Figuring out how to hand things off is a lot trickier than I thought it would be. If I'd spent a few more hours figuring this out at the start, I wouldn't have turned myself into a bottleneck AGAIN. I am a bit of a control freak and letting that go has been difficult.

I hope that's helpful, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

[luv2trvl1]

Hi Bibby,
Thanks for sharing your learnings along the path...some good things to think about here.

I'll second the time requirements involved in lining up and starting working with VA(s). I haven't given out my first assignment yet, but have spent lots of time on email explaining the types of task/activities I will need their help with.

Please keep us in the loop as your Adult muse turns into reality, I will admit that a couple of my notebook/brainstorm muse ideas fall into this category as well.

[diglyd]

is your adult business currently profitable? if you don't mind me asking how long have you been at it and is it purely online or is there any type of brick and mortar component?

A few of my friends have tried adult businesses and failed and I myself contemplated it on more then 50 occasions as probably most men do during some drunken converstaion over a couple of beers at a bar while looking at girls or while discussing making it rich quickly (which I know that in the adult business is not always the case). How much marketing do you have to do?!??! When once I researched the various aspects of the adult industry I found that the whole marketing aspect including affilaite marketing, soe optimization and adds take site admins alot of time. Do you outsource these aspects inclduing graphic design and the web development?

Btw the nice thing when you get your paper work back from the state is that your bsuiness start date will be backdated from the day you filed not from the day you got approved. That also sucks depending on what state you live in if you have to pay any franchise taxes ahead.

If you don't mind do you do you ahve any tips on who to effectively use elance and give us a little bit of background on what type of projects you did through them? In the past I have not had good success with some of the developers I contracted.

[Bippy]

is your adult business currently profitable? if you don't mind me asking how long have you been at it and is it purely online or is there any type of brick and mortar component?

Yes, my business is currently profitable but I am the bottleneck. When I don't work, I don't make money. I am far too lazy for that sort of thing. :D

A few of my friends have tried adult businesses and failed and I myself contemplated it on more then 50 occasions as probably most men do during some drunken converstaion over a couple of beers at a bar while looking at girls or while discussing making it rich quickly (which I know that in the adult business is not always the case). How much marketing do you have to do?!??! When once I researched the various aspects of the adult industry I found that the whole marketing aspect including affilaite marketing, soe optimization and adds take site admins alot of time. Do you outsource these aspects inclduing graphic design and the web development?


So far I don't do any marketing. It might help to mention that I'm female- I think being a woman gives one a distinct advantage in the adult industry for a variety of reasons, especially when managing things.

If I was making adult sites I would doubtless outsource almost all of that. If you are interested in adult sites, I'd check out cozyfrog. They offer something along the lines of Cozy University that walks you through a lot of common mistakes and why they are mistakes. It's really nice.

There is a lot more to the adult internet than porn sites and pictures. A lot. I'd go into it, but 1) it's not appropriate to this site and 2) I am not crazy about sharing my niche, as it's already approaching saturation.

Btw the nice thing when you get your paper work back from the state is that your bsuiness start date will be backdated from the day you filed not from the day you got approved. That also sucks depending on what state you live in if you have to pay any franchise taxes ahead.

Really, the only thing I care about at this point is being able to hire people and get my direct deposits going to my bank account, neither of which I can do without the paperwork. I already have people lined up and ready to work for me, AS SOON AS I GET IT. I'm like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes when he's waiting for the battery powered beanie.

If you don't mind do you do you ahve any tips on who to effectively use elance and give us a little bit of background on what type of projects you did through them? In the past I have not had good success with some of the developers I contracted.

Well, elance is a platform and there are service providers on there that are both good and bad. It's sort of buyer beware. I read all the feedback that was given, and the negative feedback I read the OTHER feedback that was given. Some of these people were just asses that never gave positive feedback, but some generally gave positive, well reasoned feedback, so the one or two negatives carried a lot of weight with me.

I chose the people I did because 100% of their negative feedback was from the flaming buttheads, not from the irritated but well balanced business folk.

I'm still waiting to get my website from the developer (as soon as my account funds, ffs!) and I have everything lined up for the next phase of roll out.

After that hits, all I need to do is systemize everything so I don't have to interact with the business much. That's one of those things I am pretty sure will be easier to say than do.

HTH

Bippy

[Bippy]

Luv2travel1, I want to say that succeeding in adult business, ESPECIALLY in the adult internet, is a lot harder and tricker than it looks.

Seriously. If you want to run some of your muse ideas by me after you've done testing on them, I'd be happy to point you to some resources, but I want to make it pretty darn clear that it's a business just like any other, but with half the elected officials going after you during election years and a cubic asston more regulation, PLUS a lovely underbelly of fraud that leads consumers to not pay you for things. Chargebacks on the customer side and genuinely sleazy and fraudulent transactions on the provider side combine to make it a lot harder than it has to be to get rolling.

The real trick is getting a decent merchant account!

Hope that helps.

[final_id]

There's a website out there -- google it up! -- about "how to not make millions in internet porn." The gist of it was, that getting up high in search results is very difficult because of the high number of competitors. The author used a metaphor such as, it was like trying to keep a matchbook burning by continually throwing burning matches at it, while other guys could quite easily bring in ten gallons of gasoline instead. Your own efforts both exhaust your fuel, and are paltry in comparison.

My "dream" adult business wouldn't be running the business, it would be PARTICIPATING in the videos. :) I wanna be that guy whom thirty nude drunk college girls get excited about. I know it seems a silly point to bring up, here at 4HWW, because it's so self-evidently not germane to whether or not the business succeeds. But it's worth thinking about, because it's the mistake that most men make, when they dream about making a porn website. They forget that the success or failure of the business enterprise has nothing to do with the enjoyment or lack thereof, of the act of filming.

[Bippy]

There's a website out there -- google it up! -- about "how to not make millions in internet porn." The gist of it was, that getting up high in search results is very difficult because of the high number of competitors. The author used a metaphor such as, it was like trying to keep a matchbook burning by continually throwing burning matches at it, while other guys could quite easily bring in ten gallons of gasoline instead. Your own efforts both exhaust your fuel, and are paltry in comparison.

My "dream" adult business wouldn't be running the business, it would be PARTICIPATING in the videos. :) I wanna be that guy whom thirty nude drunk college girls get excited about. I know it seems a silly point to bring up, here at 4HWW, because it's so self-evidently not germane to whether or not the business succeeds. But it's worth thinking about, because it's the mistake that most men make, when they dream about making a porn website. They forget that the success or failure of the business enterprise has nothing to do with the enjoyment or lack thereof, of the act of filming.

Hah, yeah, most guys want to be involved in that part of the business but I can tell you that even that isn't all it's cracked up to be. While i've never been a model/actress (oh good god no), I know a few directors and such.

Since this thread seems to have been pretty well derailed, I'm going to start a new one to talk about what's currently happening in my business. No offense, guys, but thinking about thirty nude, drunk, excited college girls, I don't think any of the men reading this thread will be able to focus on what i was saying. :p

[Marcie]

Lol! ^^^^^^^^^