The Eroswebmaster Story:
 

Damn the tall tales, the legends, here is the real story.

Back in 2001 I was working for an online auction company and I saw the writing on the wall.

While doing some searching on the interwebs I came across an article in Salon.com about an "adult webmaster school" owned by a couple of guys from The O.C.

Now, Morgan, a.k.a. owns OCCASH.

This school taught people how to break into the adult internet business by starting off with building and submitting galleries.

I plopped down the buck forty five * if I reall that was the price* and thus a career was born.

I needed a nick name for their message boards and didn't want to use one I had used in the mainstream world because at that time I did want to remain somewhat anonymous. And now here it is 4 years later and I am stuck with eroswebmaster.

The school paid off. With their guidance on the boards within a month I was making over $700 a week submitting galleries for about 3 1/2 - 4 hours work a day.

This was back in the day when I would agonize over each detail of every gallery. NEVER did I submit the same gallery template, every day I made an original gallery template, probably one of the reasons my galleries. This effort would once again pay for itself down the road when I would start building galleries for pay.

It was an interesting time to get into the business. The veterans were telling us noobs there was no money to be made in porn, boneprone was on top of his game and ruled GFY and Bush was a lame duck president who was going to focus on ridding the net of porn.

I had made a number of friends through the school, one I am in constant contact with to this very day.

I also made some other contacts which changed my life even more.

MarcS and I began discussions in the early part of 2002 about forming a partnership and opening up our own paysite.

I was currently living in Texas, he was in Germany. After consulting with my attorney it was advised that I leave the state if I were going to be in any extensive production of adult materials.

So after a bit of research I relocated to Las Vegas and incorporated there.

After arriving in Las Vegas I found out Marc and I were approached by two others in this business to form yet another partnership in a program called Diabolical Galleries.

Quite honestly in the beginning I was against this, because I felt it was detracting us from our initial goal. In the end regrettably I was proven right.

DiabolicalGalleries.Com was one of the first of it's kind. An interesting concept created by two partners known as DirtyD and CaptainP. A couple of well known tgp owners who have since proven themselves to be scammers.

The concept was fairly simiple. We built original galleries every day, hosted them, tgps listed them and we split the traffic 70/30.

Once the site was launched, almost from the very beginning the "Diabolical duo" as they were known as disappeared. Marc and I being the unkowns that we were in the business at the time did our very best to make a go of a program we had spent a lot of time developing.

The site did well. With the small but very loyal following we had we all made a lot of money.

This was another downfall of ours. We got lazy. We continued to focus on Diabolical Galleries and our paysite projects became our redheaded step child, the money we made just sat in the bank and was never put back into circulation to build our business. We like so many others just assumed it would always keep coming in.

That was not to be the case. Many programs decided to start giving away FHG's. TGP owners seeing "free money," opted to use over used tempalted FGH's to get 100% of fewer sales, rather than use original galleries, with bought content for more sales with a smaller cut.

The glory days were over, and after a year of operation Marc and I decided to go our seperate ways with Marc taking over operation of Diabolical Galleries.

The fall of 2003 was now approaching and I decided to try something a bit different. While discussing with Thomas, one of my dearest friends and supporters in this business we both noticed a trend towards B2B business in this industry.

So I built 10 templates for a "portfolio" and posted them on GFY and offered up an introductory price that was sure to nab me a few customers, and that is exactly what it did.

I entered a new chapter of my life. A chapter known as eroswebmaster "the designer."

For those who love to bash my design skills, this is what I find funny most of all. Back in the day when I first launched my portfolio I put on the page, "gallery stylist."

It was a joke. I for one have NEVER considered myself a "designer." I have always stated I am a "gallery maker" pure and simple.

There is a difference. Designers make things pretty, a gallery maker like myself made things that sell. Only when it was called for, and depending upon the niche did I ever try to "pretty things up."

Honestly I was quite surprised at my own success. I was able to announce price increases only to gain even more business, these were the salad days.

Business was good, and I knew it could be better. I for one have never been able to just settle so I decided I would rule the gallery market and put into place a plan to do just that.

2004

I hired Thomas and over the next couple of months we put into effect this plan. However it was during this time that "outsourcing," to 3rd world countries became a growing trend.

We were confident that when it came to quality, and turnaround we could compete, but at price it would be rather difficult.

Our plan had to be adjusted. I had met through a mutual friend a Filipino man resided in Vegas but had offices in the Philippines, and Los Angeles.

We decided we would meet this competition head on and if things worked out right we could own the market.

Thus began the 6 hardest months of my adult internet career. I could bore you with all the details but will do my best to condense them.

We hired on an additional team member, Brian a.k.a. demented. Brian, Thomas and I spent those six months working around the clock, training, correcting, anything and everything we could. The task proved almost to be impossible. Never in my life have I ever met a more difficult team of people to work with.

This new partner of ours did his best to keep his team in line. But being that they were 1,000's of miles away the old adage "when the cat's away the mouse will play" never proved to be more true.

Fast forward to December of 2005. I was quickly running into the red. The work output was nowhere where I needed it to be to offset the costs, along with other issues I will discuss later. I issued an ultimatum.

During that month, I saw more growth in terms of learning than I had seen in the previous 5 months. We were actually getting there.

Not only were we doing galleries now, we were also doing paysites and the quality was outstanding.

I walked onto the floor of internext, happy, proud ready to sell our services. It was one of the most sucessful shows for me yet. Well it should have been.

I landed a number of new jobs. We were going to be busy for months.

But alas, I guess things were just not meant to be.

Towards the end of the month I noticed the work output seemed a bit low again. So I messaged my "partner."

He sent the entire crew home. At first he said it was to teach them a lesson on who was boss.

That day grew into a few days, and into the weekend. My partner became increasingly more difficult to get hold of.

When I finally was able to get hold of him, it was not what I was wanting to hear. He was shutting down the design shop for good.

I understood his frustration. It was the same frustration I had felt for so long, especially after being told his designers were up for a task that they clearly weren't. But I had stuck with it, and we were almost there to the promised land.

But like Moses, we would not see that promised land.

What we would see is a number of orders that would have taken a crew of 20 a few months to finish off, but for now a crew of 3 would take half a year.

This was probably one of the most interesting times in this business for me.

It's when I learned about the predatory instincts of some of the most vile people in this world. Not all of my clients, but quite a few.

They smelled blood, and they all came circling. The issues ranged from late payments, to no payments. One client at this time decided to make us rework an order 2 times only opting after renegotiating his deal 3x's to not pay us a dime.

Some of my most loyal clients, now became some of my biggest problems.

You would be amazed at some of the things I have learned about the ethics of some of the biggest in this biz.

You would laugh at the email correspondence when attempting to get paid.

My favorite is the client who took months to pay me, and would respond to invoices sent to him with messages like. "Send me an invoice and I will get this paid."

This man has more money than God.

So, I messaged my clients and informed them that Eroswebmaster.Com would be shutting down.

Soon after I went to work for EvilGeniusCash and that's where I am now.

I guess you could say, they won. They did it. They suceeded in putting one of this industries "good guys" *as I have been called so often in the past * out of biz.

The amazing thing is they still want me to do their work for them.

But at this point in my life, I'm no longer interested in rebuilding this part of my life.

I am working on other projects. Projects outside of adult. This was just a chapter in my life, and now begins a new one.

Hopefully, the outcome is a bit better. ;)

Sorry for the long read. But I thought I would put to rest some of the rumors, or at least give you guys some insight as to what happened to me and my company.

ok im to lazy to read this whole thing
anybody can sum it up for me?

LOL no...hopefully it's worth the read.

lol eros, that is the same article that got me into the biz also.

Nice. :1orglaugh

Spunky too. I don't know who else on this board read that article.

it is well worth the read, thanks for sharing

interesting story

Nice read mang.

Interesting. That's about the same time I started making galleries, but I made substantially more than $700 a week. I'll attribute that to being around for longer and personally knowing many of the medium-large MGP owners, guaranteeing good listings.

Notably, I always pay my designers up front and to date have not been ripped off by a designer, although I have experienced delays from time to time. I did use Eros on one or two occasions and was happy with the work and delivery.

interesting, good luck in the future!

Yeah I'm sure that helped knowing a few people.

I was happy to go from zero to $700 + a week within a month of being in this business. I know people who after 6 months were still not making that much.

Honestly I don't know if it's still possible to just jump right in and make a living wage with all those tgps we used to submit to freely back in the day now charging.

Things are much, much more difficult now. That's for sure.

Here's an interesting note: Since the inception of paid partner accounts, my income has gone up about 30%. Being able to to get listed frequently at sites like World Sex and Al4A has made a huge difference. :thumbsup

where does the 'whining about petty things' come into play ?

That's where we made our mistake.

We had discussed buying spots with some of that cash ad nauseum but never did. Oh well, live and learn.

Print it out and read it on the shitter. ;)

Lol abou the opposite for me. I stopped paying for most partner accounts and my income went up and expenses down of course. They didn't seem to make that much of difference for me. Just my niches didn't work out I suppose.

Fuck where are the cliff notes, I made it 1/4 of the way...

even Ray NAgin is the very PROUD ownder of an eroswebmaster.com original :)


http://www.gratisporno.biz


:)

and yeah I paid for that ON TIME btw

Interesting stuff.

damn that was a long time ago...how is that one working out for you?

it has done good in the past , and right now is still making me some money , b ut I should make more of an effort to drive traffic to it ;)


overall I am very happy with the design ;)

sleazy just said to himself

"fuck"

gotta knock him off the list.

I posted my story once and noone cared :(

Good read Eros .
You're still one of the good guys , design shop or not .
This biz kills designers .

Get mad like me.

Clip back at em don't take shit and when you are givin shit dish it back 10X.
Taking it like a bitch is not the way to do it.

Shouldn't this be an Ambush Interview?

Sup Eros.

:pimp

nice story

Eros "Ambushed" himself! :thumbsup

eroswebmaster fucked Elton John out of $100 million, and is now on the run in Bolivia, in an attempt to keep his anal virginity.

cliff notes?

Hey man...how's it hanging?

Give me a break.

Very good read...thanks for sharing.

If anything, that quick travel through time really shows how hard it can be to keep up with the industry as it changes.

My nick sucks major diack too ... I wish I could change it ...

Note to self: read later

Very interesting read Eros :thumbsup

now thats one long story..

I seriously still can't get over the signature ... DH's face in it kills me.

Chris and I are started to golf again and I give the ol' "He spends more time in the sand than David Hasselholf."

Anyways, that's a side story ... we're glad to have you Eros and it just sucks all you went through. But I can say that you have worked your ass off and never given up.

Hey..another webmaster who "gradiated" from AWS.

can any one tell me why is this story is intresting? I actually read all of that and was hoping for some good read :(

Thank you, I needed one.


it's unfortunatly not an uncommon story. Lots of jackasses , frauds and theives in our business, And then there are those that didn't respond to this thread.

youre welcome

Great Story Eros. I was glad to meet you in Vegas that time with SykkBoy. :) I hope it is working out for you in Evil Genius. MadHatter and I feel You are one of the nicest people we have met in this industry.

I know what it feels like to have to change your direction due to the actions of others, and MadHatter and I are currently working on building up our Link Lists and working on some paysites. Take care my friend!

I know too what you mean by getting "stuck" with a name. I picked Vegas Babe because it was a domain I owned at the time (Vegas-Babes.net I think) I always wished I'd of picked something else, and now that I've moved to Pahrump, it is so not applicable, lol.

That was a very good read and exactly what I have saw over the years. :thumbsup

Great post, Cary. Thanks for letting the GFY community know you a little better. I remember reading that Salon.Com story as well. I believe it is: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/07/03/webmaster/

The Dot Com BUST of 2000-2001 definitely displaced a lot of 'dotcommers' into either adult or gaming. I was one of the people displaced. I was making money on the side with adult programs while working for a venture capital / incubator firm. When the bust happened, I just switched to webmaster work. I've been my own boss ever since. Come to think of it... the dot com bust... as stressful as it was, was one of the best things that happened to me. Sometimes... great problems/crashes also carry great opportunities. I like to keep that in mind.

Thanks for the inspiring story. I definitely learned from it.

whoa, kleenex for that?

a great touching story.

Thx Gene.

My thing was the company I was working for was ran by a scammer
and a fraud....LOL

One of the owners was a former congressman who was disgraced because he falsified his military service during the campaigns.

They were always copying ebay, and I mean right down to stealing shit off their front page. Finally eBay sucessfully sued them, they even had to give up their name because it was quite apparent that they tried to capitalize off of the ebay name..their name was BidBay.

ok, first the earth cooled and then came the dinosaurs but they all died because they were so big and greedy. then price charles started wearing all of princess di's dresses.........

Very interesting story to say the least, sucks the shit you been tru tho, I guess that explains your "hate" for this industry...