Like the fellow who spent $300K and it didn't work out - we only spent $100,000

[SurfDog]

We set up a company called AdultSite Leasing years ago and built a 'Sex Emporium' called the LoveGirl site with all the bells and whistles - hundreds of pages, great design, graphics, navigation, thousands of pictures, and links to the best adult features & services.

Rather than trying to produce, manage, update and maintain all the content ourselves, we believed that sharing profits with sites that already specialize in the best adult content was the way to go. We provided traffic through our leased sites, and shared revenue with the content providers. This allowed us to offer the best adult content on the Web without the hassle of site updating and maintenance.

We then made up a sales video, fancy brochure, contracts etc. to _lease_ customized versions of the Lovegirl site to investors. The site leasees would publicize their site, and after a sign up fee of $2,500, we would take 20% of the revenue and the investors got 80%.

We actually received quite a good reception, but it didn't do that well. After leasing half a dozen customized sites we found that the leasees didn't fulfill their obligation of buying a minimum amount of advertising per month, so we shut it down. The whole thing cost us about $100K.

The site is at http://www.sky44.com/lovegirl if you want to see it. Oh well, you live and learn . . sure beats working at the post office!

[JFK]

some people would love a job in the post office

[Paul Markham]

Why didn't you get a proper designer in?

That design will never sell to a surfer.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Why didn't you get a proper designer in?

That design will never sell to a surfer.

Why didn't you get a proper designer in?



?

[Voland 13]

It redirects me to nick dot com

[RazorSharpe]

Originally Posted by Voland 13

It redirects me to nick dot com

I made the same mistake - you clicked on the "Leave" link ... click anywhere else on the image and you'll be fine.

[NaughtyRob]

In 98-99 that was top of the line.

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Why didn't you get a proper designer in?

That design will never sell to a surfer.

[LushBoobs]

1996 called, it wants it's website back.

[Relentless]

It seems the recurring theme of these stories is too much initial capital investment without a successful soft-launch to test the market before ramping up the project.

Quiet once told me:
1) Have an idea
2) Test it as cheaply as possible
3) See if it works
4) If it makes more than it costs scale it up slowly
5) If it keeps making more than it costs, scale up 'the fuck out of it'

As he put it, leaving out steps 2 and 3 can cost you a fortune, leaving out steps 4 and 5 can prevent you from making a fortune.

RIP Quiet... you are missed.

[blackmonsters]

Maybe the problem is with the "Click here" link.

Why say "click here" to exit?

Everybody is looking for "click here" to enter.

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by Relentless

It seems the recurring theme of these stories is too much initial capital investment without a successful soft-launch to test the market before ramping up the project.

Quiet once told me:
1) Have an idea
2) Test it as cheaply as possible
3) See if it works
4) If it makes more than it costs scale it up slowly
5) If it keeps making more than it costs, scale up 'the fuck out of it'

As he put it, leaving out steps 2 and 3 can cost you a fortune, leaving out steps 4 and 5 can prevent you from making a fortune.

RIP Quiet... you are missed.

Quiet, even though me and him argued, knew what he was talking about. Too many without a clue launched paysites thinking it was just a matter of traffic.

Traffic are real people and need to be treated as such.

RIP Quiet.

[PiracyPitbull]

Originally Posted by Relentless

It seems the recurring theme of these stories is too much initial capital investment without a successful soft-launch to test the market before ramping up the project.

Quiet once told me:
1) Have an idea
2) Test it as cheaply as possible
3) See if it works
4) If it makes more than it costs scale it up slowly
5) If it keeps making more than it costs, scale up 'the fuck out of it'

As he put it, leaving out steps 2 and 3 can cost you a fortune, leaving out steps 4 and 5 can prevent you from making a fortune.

RIP Quiet... you are missed.

So true, and ignored too often.

[ruff]

Nobody ever made a fortune by being timid. Like Daniel Boone said, "Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you".

[_Lush_]

Originally Posted by SurfDog

We set up a company called AdultSite Leasing years ago and built a 'Sex Emporium' called the LoveGirl site with all the bells and whistles - hundreds of pages, great design, graphics, navigation, thousands of pictures, and links to the best adult features & services.

Rather than trying to produce, manage, update and maintain all the content ourselves, we believed that sharing profits with sites that already specialize in the best adult content was the way to go. We provided traffic through our leased sites, and shared revenue with the content providers. This allowed us to offer the best adult content on the Web without the hassle of site updating and maintenance.

We then made up a sales video, fancy brochure, contracts etc. to _lease_ customized versions of the Lovegirl site to investors. The site leasees would publicize their site, and after a sign up fee of $2,500, we would take 20% of the revenue and the investors got 80%.

We actually received quite a good reception, but it didn't do that well. After leasing half a dozen customized sites we found that the leasees didn't fulfill their obligation of buying a minimum amount of advertising per month, so we shut it down. The whole thing cost us about $100K.

The site is at http://www.sky44.com/lovegirl if you want to see it. Oh well, you live and learn . . sure beats working at the post office!

That design reminds of of the old clublove design.