Great things start from small beginnings, so they say.

I have made and lost and made fortunes. I have also had partners and worked alone. You need to try to find the right groove for your style, skills and personality. You also need to know your goals. KRL is correct but so are those who say partners can/will screw you if you do not do it their way.

Ultimately look at each experience as a lesson and if you do not succeed analyze why and pick yourself up and try another way; never give up.

You do need to either lever time or capital, otherwise you are limited to what you can produce in your waking hours.

My style is solo, I have a small team of trusted staff but have no need or desire to be the biggest; that requires both large capital and large staff. Been there, done that and in my case I rather not repeat it. I hated being a manager.

Find your strength in business, mine is ideas, yours might be management. Pattern your project on your strength and keep trying until you find the groove that works for you.

Richard Parsons, CEO of Time Warner was being interviewed on a business show and the question asked was "What is the most important thing you attribute to you're being one of the most successful CEO's?"

His answer - "Focus"

tons.....................

Since there seems to be some disagreements on partnering, the best thing to do is to be sure you execute an extremely comprehensive and protective partnership agreement, or operating agreement if an LLC, etc.

Make sure you have lots of legal outs and escape clauses if things go bad.

Pretty much you have to look at your partner deals like hedging your stock investments, have stop-loss positions in place ahead of time. The minute things start to go south with your partners initiate the backup plans to get out and limit your losses.

Too many partners make the situation worse by each trying to take control when things go bad. All that will get you is legal bills up your ass. Let go of the mess and get the fuck out, try and get some cash for your shares, even if its a little, let the bad partner think he's won, and get on to your next venture.

The worse thing you can do in business is get tied up in years of litigation. Not only is it obscenely expensive, its physically and mentally draining and will cause you nothing but misery and aggravation.

Bite the bullit, take your loss, and move on. The faster you get done with a bad deal, the better off you'll be.

excellent words:thumbsup

i too am an idea man. now i have to find a project that suits me

KRL i love you bro, your experience speaks volumes to me. and i am seriously taking your advice to heart as well as a few other great suggestions posted in here

Well,

So far I never failed - if you consider a failure only bankrupcy. However I had projects that ended badly with losses (sometimes in the magnitude of tens of thousands of USD).
But generally I manage to get back online in a timely manner. Now I try to get into this porn business and I am sure that I will be succesfull...

Egomancer

The most inspiring success stories are the ones which have someone coming up with an original idea that takes off. But successes (and failures) of that sort are the minority and in any industry most people will be trying to make their money by copying existing ideas.

Which is fine as such, except that it apparently doesn't occur to very many that the more competition they face, the better they have to be in order to succeed. As far as our industry is concerned, the goldrush has been over for a while and in future, even skilled bandwagon spotters are going to find the opportunities few and far between.

That is not to say there isn't still plenty of money in online adult entertainment. In fact, the professional operators who are slowly replacing the early cowboys, are going to be forced to put more emphasis on market growth, since it is becoming increasingly unproductive to fight over existing business. But that growth is unlikely to be very fast or happen very quickly, not least since first we face two or three years of consolidation as operators with deep pockets go shopping for other businesses.

We are already seeing that trend taking shape and even the beginnings of the next: that of sponsors attempting to control their whole supply line, by buying up traffic sources, bringing well-known designers and/or photographers in-house, etc. That again seems to be a - usually painful - phase all industries pass through on their way to maturity (it seems like a logical step, but very rarely works).

With all this, it could be five years or more before the "big boys" finally start to focus on their core businesses and the industry can begin to move forward. But will there be good news, even then, for affiliates?

Unless someone believes that our industry is not bound by the same rules which ultimately govern every other, the affiliate role - as we have known it so far - can have no long-term future. You only have to consider the ridiculous lengths some sponsors go to here to get affiliate signups, to realize how expensive affiliates are becoming. And once sponsors do settle down and look more closely at their businesses, they will also realize how much they are damaged by the lack of control that is intrinsic to current affiliate programs.

The good news for smaller operators is that the bigger the industry leaders get, the harder it will be for them to deal with specialized market sectors (not only in terms of taste, but also presentation), or react quickly to new trends. So those who can reach and satisfy customers outside the mainstream should continue to do well as should people sharp enough to spot potential bandwagons early.

That said, if the painfully slow and half-hearted takeup of blogs and now RSS feeds are any guide, there will not be too many in that latter group...

great advice :thumbsup

If you don't do mistakes.. if you don't fall.. if you don't do WRONG things.. you won't know success or the opposite of bad things!!

This is natural.. after every HILL there's a CLIFF.. this is life! :winkwink:

Right dude. :thumbsup

Thanks Izzzy! Had my ups and downs, and fortunately more ups.

Look very closely in Microsoft's first office pic to the right behind Bill Gates.

http://autonomoussource.com/mt-stati.../nerdstud1.jpg

He's got a Mac sitting on his desk. (This is before Windows was created and when Steve Jobs had a nice GUI concept already.)

very interesting indeed. i lost 15K in that deal, which was a HUGE amount of money to me at the time.

interesting, and kind of cool.

Cheers. i can expand a bit. i decided around 01 to go completely exclusive video content. this is when my site completely exploded and the money became insane. with no affiliate program, it was all in house (still is, but on a much smaller scale), and the profit margins were (and still are) HUGE. for example, to shoot a bj scene for a g, that's basically nothing when you have a money machine running for you. economies of scale baby.

i'm a little bit drunk btw.

:glugglug

How many times is not important. At lease you have your goal and direction. It's very simple. Just keep going.
The most worst of all is if you have no ideas or lose your faith.

i've yet to fall and i dont plan to. i started investing small and have increased my investments as profits increased. im a rarity in the business world, never really took any risks and have still been successful. that's the benefit of an "online business", start up costs are so small.

I failed at my first TGP...
I failed at my first review site...
I did OK on my first link list...
I failed horrably as a gallery submitter... HORROR_AAHH_BLEEE!
I did OK on my next 3 TGP's... But not 100K...
I failed some more...
I found another working thing...
I found 5 more working things and hit 100K...
I found 1 more thing and hit a lot more K...

Failure is part of our life, what's important is we stand up and continue with our lives after every failure.

100......... :arcadefre

I'm not counting how much times I failed :)

There is no such thing as failure.

bump this thing for more.

Thanks to the big boys for contributing to this really awesome and inspring thread... :glug

AWSOME STORY HEHEHE