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11. Talk about MikeAI, Marc De, and Lou.
Wow....now there are three guys that I think the world of...these guys are as good as gold in my opinion but I will try to touch on my relationship with each of them....
MikeAI: Above everyone else in this business, Michael is the single biggest reason that I am here. I was nothing more than a surfer back when Micheal had his first Amateur Sites out. I was a member of "Ravishing Renee" and "Hunter Something-or-another" and looked at this medium and thought that I could do it just as easily as anyone. I knew that getting girls to take their clothes off was easy, but this whole internet thing was way over my head. To that end I hooked up with a guy who later became known as "Silent Bob" who was my webmaster for many years...some of you know him. Once we built out first site, we knew that we needed traffic so we submitted to Amateur Index. We waited and waited and got no response. So we submitted again. Once again we waited to no avail. So, I decided, being the Newbie Idiot that I was, that I would send them an email and "give them a peice of my mind". I sent the email and about 2 days later I got a response from MikeAI. It simply said "Rookie". After a day or so of he and I going back and forth in email we realized that we were much more alike than we are different and from that rose a great friendship. I should also say that when he finally listed my sites on AI I was like a kid in a candy store. I remember sitting at my pc the first day clicking "Send/Recieve" on my email and getting 5 emails from DMR with new sign ups and then clicking it again in 20 seconds and getting 3 more....and 20 seconds later clicking again and getting 7 more. This went on for the whole week....I was dumbfounded.
As most of you know, since that time Michael and I have become dear friends. He and I teamed up later and started Club100, which was the industry's only succesful 100% Revenue Sharing Program. He is one of the best people I have ever met in this business and I will always consider him a true friend.
MarcDe: Now this story is great. I remember getting a call from Marc De over a weekend asking about hosting because he wanted to have a single day in which he was going to pay people $75 for each signup. I laughed my ass off. I asked him if he were crazy and he said he wasn't. I asked him if he was filing backruptcy the next week and he said he wasn't. I asked him if he was taking medications for his dillusions and he said he wasn't. He was convinced that he could build a brand identity by offering this type of promotion. I told him he was off his rocker but that I would happily take his money. Needless to say, Who is the sucker now? Marc has parlayed that into one of the biggest and best run enterprises in the adult internet. Now, as a vendor and as a friend let me say this one thing....do not let Marc's easy demeanor fool you....that guy is as fierce of a business man as I have ever met. He is feirce but fair. He will not hesitate to say or do anything that allows him to reach his ultimate goals...which by now I am pretty sure have to do with World Domination. He is, by far, one of...if not THE.... brightest minds in this industry....and I am proud to just have had a ring side seat to watch his rise to greatness.
Lou: Lou and I have known each other for many, many years from a distance. I remember having some very good discussions with Lou and his brother back in the old days on the YNOT Members Board. I remember watching KarupsPC grow into one of the most content-rich mega-sites in exsitance. I remember being in Detroit a number of years ago and going to this place called "Flight Club" and seeing a really cool, yellow Lambo parked out front with a few people gawking at it and thinking to myself that it must be the owners car....until I go in and see this corner booth full of hot girls with dozens and dozens of candles burning everywhere and Lou posted up in the middle. We briefly spoke but I went on about my business and thought to myself that he likes to do like we do. A year or so later we had the opportunity to treat Lou and his Senior Technical People to a trip to Atlanta to talk hosting and he and I ended up becoming great friends.
Lou runs his operation like I wish everyone did....I remember sitting in our original meeting and me telling him how we could solve his issues by building this elaborate cluster of servers to host all of his tours on that would make sure that his tours were always fast and converting so that he could make more money....this is the same converation that I have had with dozens upon dozens of the industry's largest players. Lou looked at me like I had three heads and asked..."Tony, that is nice...but where are the members areas?" I said that we cold probably put all of his members areas on one small cluster like we had done so many times before.....he laughed at me. Yes, laughed at me. By the time the conversation was over we had built Karups a solution that rivaled anything we had put together for anyone...for his members areas....the tours sat on regular servers. Lou's contention is, and always has been, that he concentrates more on his exsisting members than he does on attracting new ones. I was shocked, but pleased. With all of that said, it is nice to look around now and see more and more people taking that approach. It is a welcomed change in this industry and as far as I am concerned, Lou started the trend.
--T
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