Quote:
Originally Posted by His Infernal Majesty
This is a very interesting conversation, even though we totally hijacked this thread, which makes me feel bad. But I am always very much interested in things that you say since you are one (and probably only) of the successful solo webmasters to come along in the past couple of years. But I do not agree with your numbers here at all. Why would she be paying $150 a month for a CMS or affiliate software? And if she is paying that much, why does she need a full time webmaster AND someone else to edit the pics? What would the webmaster even be doing then? Not taking pictures, not updating the site, etc.
Like I said before, I would help her for free. I agree with what Mutt said about the majority of bigger solo affilate webmasters would just find out about her site. It doesn't take much to send them an email. She's not a model who has to build a name for herself, she already has that. I would like to promote a site of hers that would stick around and not be dead. And she seems to want to do the work involved, it's very rare to find that. She probably just needs some help with the technical stuff: installing scripts, implementing a design and having an easy way to update the site on her own.
I also think part of the reason solo sites today don't do numbers like Nikki, Tiffany and Kate did, is because most models coming along today aren't like those girls. Do I think even those girls specifically would do as much business today if they just launched? No, of course not. There's a huge economic downturn and rampant piracy and MFC. But it is very difficult to facilitate any kind of growth without those kinds of models.
I would also like to see what kinds of numbers Mutt's projected sites do. I am at a crossroads here myself about opening something new or just continuing to refine what I already have going. I am just waiting for him to open them...and waiting, and waiting  I think both Destiny and that Carlye model would do excellent business under his watch. I think both your sites are great, too. I mean you ask me to name sites that have opened in the past two years, there really isn't even that many. |
If shes paying that much for a CMS, why does she need an editor or a webmaster? How long you been idle for? lol content management systems dont edit your pics, they also dont make promo tools, they dont setup your design, get it integrated, they dont find you security software, they dont work with techs in order to install stuff, they dont tell the designer how you want things with a detailed outline, they dont insert the codes into ur header, they dont setup your affiliate program, i could go on forever with all the things you need to do in order to startup a solo program. if youre talking about her hiring someone to do the months of ground work and then having them make tools for the next 6 months and having it all ready so she just mails it out, that would take forever and months and months of salary and hard work and shes going to shell that out of her pocket? (and the webmaster wont ask for a percent? :O ) and since when has gisele ever shot that long in advance, its always been shoot as you go, which means the webmaster has to stick around. if she were to stockpile and do the thing where she shoots 6 months of content, then on top of the costs she paid in order for him to do all that, she'll need to pay a photographer to shoot her content ... 6 months worth...
also gisele doesn't have low standards when it comes to photography, she aint shooting oldschool backyard content or spunkyscash content, shes shooting content which will require a half decent photog, so i doubt 6 months of content out of her pocket wont come that cheap
the idea you have in your head requires a ton of capital and alot of time. capital i dont believe models have, especially not ones that been screwed over for a while. hell most webmasters here dont even have capital to invest.
as far as affiliate software? the cheapest is 150 a month, ccbtools is 150 a month and thats as basic as you can get. you can get cheaper if you dont offer flash tools.
if youre requiring the webmaster to also edit 50 sets and launch her site? wow, the way your suggesting everything, it sounds like it'd take a year, he basically would need to set everything up, make promo tools for 6 months for her to just mail out. nevermind the out of pocket cost. launching a program and a site requires a ton of tedious tasks. start to finish.
anyway all this debate about costs of things doesn't matter because you know theres costs involved in running it all yourself. the only reason solo programs survive and do well is because you launch more and more. thats how you make sense of things, having a program for one site, costs make up a more significant amount. that combined with launching in 2012 with a part time webmaster. Well... Good luck :/
Also i dont think we're hijacking her thread, i believe she'll get more useful information from our conversation than shes gotten from her old webmasters and webmasters that are trying to convince her to work with them ;)