| The Giants vs. The Little Guys |
I am positive that at one point or another every Webmaster has dreamed of growing his small porn operation into a mega porn empire. We are all aware of the big porn entities out there that dominate the trade shows. We see the expensive cars, the fat wallets, and hear stories of or have experienced first-hand the lavish parties. We all look at that with secret envy and carry some inner hope that one day we could be the masters of our own profitable porn corporation. We equate these lifestyles and behavior with success and to many this success means being at the helm of a ship. We have heard talk and rumors lately that the larger porn operations will dominate the industry once again due to the fact that VISA has implemented fees and stricter regulations on Webmasters. This has made me think about the differences between small webmasters and big porn corporations and how it can be to your advantage to be one of the small guys. The smaller porn entrepreneurs will survive this latest crisis and I want to examine how sometimes being a large corporation in this industry can actually become a handicap.
The reason that I chose to discuss this topic is because I just have recently witnessed the downfall of some of the larger porn corporations. Let’s examine the situation of a hypothetical porn company, Sexxx Inc. Sexxx Inc. was started by two entrepreneurial individuals who decided, at the time that the Internet was just beginning to become a household name, that supplying porn via the Internet could be a profitable venture. So, they decided to use their design skills and Internet knowledge to put together a porn paysite. They purchased their content via lease from one of the few content providers available at the time. Due to the fact that competition in the online adult business was not that fierce at that time, their small site did pretty well. Since their site was fairly successful and they were bringing money in, they decided to open a couple of other similar sites while at the same time hiring a couple of individuals to help them out.
The few sites that Sexxx Inc. had were doing well as the market was not yet over saturated, so they decided to expand and they added a partnership program to allow other webmasters to promote their program in return for a revenue percentage. In addition to the program, they also added a few more staff members to their payroll to assist with traffic and marketing. Everything was still going well but they had entrepreneurial spirit and noticed that the paysite market was gaining some very stiff competition. They realized that maybe they would be able to get ahead of the game by becoming content providers as well because this area of the industry was still rather underdeveloped. They started producing their own content and along with this had to add some more staff to help with production, editing, and sales. They also had to hire girls and guys to do live shows and performances.
For a while, Sexxx Inc. was on top of the world. They were recognized as being big guns in the business, they were at all the trade shows, and you could see their advertisements on just about every adult resource site. They had a staff of 35 full time employees, numerous full and part time performers, and three floors of offices. The executives drove fancy cars, traveled all over the world and threw some pretty wild parties. However, the good times were not to last forever. The company really got too big for it’s own good and there no longer was any corporate structure or a business model that was being followed. The management along with the employees soon forgot what they were there for and focused more on just doing their jobs instead of coming up with ways to be innovative or even keep up with what the competition was doing.
The memberships to the sites started to decrease, the content being provided became stale, the partnership did not evolve, and therefore the revenues started drying up. By the time that it was realized, it was much too late to make a comeback. There were far too many employees on the payroll, too much money had been spent on the highlife instead of being put into the company, and they no longer had a grasp of what types of sites and products were driving the industry. The executives of Sexxx Inc. tried to cut down their staff while at the same time cutting expenses in order to make a last ditch attempt to get back in the game, however by the time they did, it was too late. They were too far behind and they had already developed a bad name for themselves because they were not progressive enough to keep up with the rest of the industry. Sexxx Inc. was forced to cut their losses and close up shop.
So, why do I tell this tale of woe? I want to let the small webmasters know that success is not necessarily measured by how many employees you have, or how expensive your car is, or even how big your booth is at the conventions. I know many small webmasters and webmistresses that are extremely successful with just their small sites. They become successful because they set an attainable goal, something that they know they can reach using their own skill set and knowledge, and they achieve that goal by doing it themselves. Webmasters should be more concerned with being innovative, creative, and unique instead of worrying about how they can become an industry “player”. |
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| Article Details |
| Author: Muffy |
| Date Posted: March 26th, 2004 |
| Topic: Adult Industry News |
| Reader Rating: 0.0 / 5 |
| Comments Posted: 0 (see below) |
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