Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 10 with Brad Mitchell of MojoHost

Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 10.wav

[00:00:09] This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker, and welcome to Adult Say Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus, we give you a tip on buying and selling Web sites. This week, we'll be talking to Brad Mitchell of Mojohost.

[00:00:33] Before we get started. Adult site Broker is proud to announce Adult Site Broker Cash, the first affiliate program for an adult Web site brokerage with adult site broker Cash. You'll have the chance to earn as much as 20 percent of our broker commission, referring sellers and buyers to as an adult site broker. Check out our Web site at adult site broker dot com or a S.B cash dot com for more details. First of all, let's cover some of the news going on in our industry. A UK judge has allowed a coalition of age verification companies and pro regulation non-profits to move forward with their legal battle to compel the government to introduce a mandatory age verification system for adult content. After a high court hearing over Skype, the ruling paves the way for the plaintiffs to move forward and ask the government for the paperwork that resulted in the decision last October to backtrack with plans to implement the age verification system before age verification companies that brought the case were age checked.

[00:01:47] Nardo's the Children's Society and other pro regulation non-profits referred to in the media as children's charities. Lands' Hart has announced the imminent launch of Pervert's Studios New P0 v site starring real life couples who shoot at home during the pandemic. Adult performer, director and producer Lance Hard has been stocking up at home content for a studio he'll be launching soon in the next few months. Pervert's Studios will be launching that content exclusively on Veoh D, pairing some of the most notable and rising stars who just happen to be real life couples. Some of the featured couples include Seth Gamble and Kenzie Taylor. Charlotte Sin's and her anonymous ski mask, quarantine buddy Pierce. Paris and Mikki Taylor. Penny Barber and Sam Solo and others. Hart and his wife and fellow performer Charlotte Sarr Tray have also been filming at home content for other prominent studios. Czech authorities have arrested a prominent Prague based independent producer, raiding his offices and charging him and eight associates with coercing women to have sex on camera over content on one of his company's casting couch themed Web sites. According to local reports, Monday's raid on the Prague offices of local online adult entertainment company NetLogic resulted in the arrest of owner Martin Stye Boat Wreck. A Czech newspaper describes the charges against Dyball Reck and his employees with Czech words that translate as human trafficking, rape and sexual coercion with a potential penalty of 12 years in prison.

[00:03:31] Net Loken style Reck produced content for several pay sites, including check casting. The accusations described appear to be identical to those in the U.S.. Girls do porn civil lawsuit. Now let's feature our property the week that's for sale at Adult Site Broker. We have an adult microblogging and social media site that has over seven point seven million unique visitors per month. The site is a mix of social media and microblogging with a very active user base, which is expanding rapidly every day. The platform offers every registered user a blog, which they can use to post their own content and read blog content from other users. Then it can also interact with other users through comments and an IST instant messaging system. The Web site offers truly immense potential for growth and earnings for the right person or company. By adding subscription plans for an ad free experience, a new owner would significantly raise the earnings and combined with starting to sell ads directly, could more or less double the earnings in no time at all. The site is also very unique. There's nothing else like it. Also, it has not been advertised in any way, so there are tremendous opportunities for growth using ad campaigns for the right company. This is an opportunity which has immense potential. The great site is available now for only two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Now time for this week's interview.

[00:05:04] Today on Adult Site Broker Talk I'm speaking to Brad Mitchell, the owner of Mojohost. Brad, thanks for being with us today.

[00:05:12] I believe it's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me on your show.

[00:05:16] Now, I don't have to tell people on our industry about Brad and Mojo host, so I won't about your host as a leading company in hosting adult Web sites. And Brad is certainly an icon on the adult Internet industry. You'll see Brad at virtually. Every single adult event when we had those anyway, Mojohost prides themselves on great customer service and great technical support. They're based in the great city. That's a lot of great. Of Detroit, Michigan, and have data centers in Miami and Amsterdam to take private ninety nine point nine nine nine percent. That's one more nine that I'm used to uptime. And they put in the work to make it possible motor hosts of a self-funded company that's been profitable for more than 15 years. So, Brad, how when and why did your journey began at Mojo host?

[00:06:10] Sure. So starting at the very beginning, going back. So I had a regular job straight out of high school. I was working for a family business that was a healthcare company. And I had started started that as a junior in high school and I had learned medical billing. So I was in charge of accounts receivable and all of the things related to that facet of that business.

[00:06:40] And so I did that. That sounds thrilling, Brad. I couldn't imagine a more boring desk job, but but I know I enjoyed it.

[00:06:52] Obviously, I learned on the job I was very young and waste murder back then. I started working there when I was 16, 16 or 17 years old. So, you know, in high school and I actually proceeded to work there for just over seven years. And so quite a long time. And so toward toward the end of my journey, so fast forwarding to about nineteen ninety nine, a lot of things were going on in my and my life was maybe my first. Early, early life crisis there. You know, at that time, we were God. I was just getting married to Melissa. We had just purchased our our first home. And I decided to go ahead and quit my day job. So I didn't quite know what I was going to do. I was a key employee at the company. And, of course, I wanted to help them with a smooth transition to some other leadership and management. But I just knew was the direction I had to go in. And so I gave a very long like a six month notice. This was in August of ninety nine and. I I met I met a guy through through somebody that I knew ended up taking out a business partner, and we I was looking for businesses for sale. I didn't really have a predisposition to what type of business. I just knew that I wanted to do my own thing and thought that that might be a good avenue of trying to find, you know, a business that someone else had operated and ended up finding an adult Web site for sale.

[00:08:26] So. Yes.

[00:08:29] So I took on this business partner at that time, of course, I was very young. I was 23 years old. And this gentleman had some savings that he brought to the table that we used for downpayment on this adult entertainment site. And that's kind of when and how the journey began. He was an awful business partner. Is it? As I learned later in that next year, sure. We have multiple partners co-star Brad Idea. He had a gambling problem. And so that that doesn't make for a good fit for it for anybody as a business partner and really didn't have any any Internet skills. He was a very skilled salesperson. And so what we would what we were doing in the beginning after we bought these Web sites was we were selling Web site building and Web site designed to raise additional money to kind of just to keep the machine going while we were learning our new craft. But it was very much for me at birth by fire. I had bought a Web site that the seller defrauded me on. I bought a site that was, as I learned, pretty much immediately after the purchase. I didn't really know how to do due diligence. So and so actually, it's so comical to me that the story fits fits so well. And for you, as the adult site broker did know how to do due diligence, I bought a Web site that had all stolen Usenet content. Even the designs weren't there's. They were copied out six different times across six different sets of domains and sold to other people as a business opportunity or, you know, established business for sale.

[00:10:00] The given the credit card recurring billing database was stuffed with bad information and fraudulent information. So pretty much everything about what I purchased was a product was wrong. Of course I was. I was two feet into this this life change here. So I had to think quick on my feet. And once I really understood what was going on, I had a couple of very distinct goals. The first one was to make sure that I got absolute control over the domain name assets that I purchased. And at that time, way back when you couldn't just initiate a domain transfer between registrars, you actually had to do paperwork with, you know, notary signatures and submit all of that to a registrar to move a domain from one owner to another. And so the seller was playing some games with that. But ultimately, I got them switched, switched over to my control. And then I knew once I had the domains in my control that I could just lock the business down, stop making payments to the guy and lawyer up and tell him what he could go do with himself. So that's what we did. And I went and started sort of furiously shopping for legitimate content. Of course, I didn't want to have stolen content. I didn't really understand there, you know, the rules. I was so young and it was so long ago. It just wasn't something wasn't something I understood well.

[00:11:21] But of course, I became a student very quickly by reading all of the resource boards that were online back then and trying to understand how this business works. So what I did very quickly is I went and I found several large libraries to purchase from producers. And one of the gentlemen, I'm sure you probably crossed to mine your path over the years was Max Candy. Max had a huge library of photos. I want to say he's maybe 30 or 40 thousand photos that I purchased from him back then. You know, a couple hundred videos. And I proceeded to more or less delete all of the sites that kind of just stayed up all night, build new Web sites that built a couple. I built about two dozen niche Web sites. You know, I created, you know, sort of all the content created all my galleries that all the designs myself using Dreamweaver, you know, they uploaded all of that. The pay sites that I had purchased did have a recurring membership base of some sort. I was still sorting out what that what that meant and what that was for the business. But it just kind of reinvented the whole thing. And. Then just proceeded on that journey to figure out how to make money, how to pay the bills. So one thing led to another. I ended up trying lots of different things before I landed on Web hosting as a professional endeavor. As it turns out, you know, being a little bit more nerdy and technically oriented, I know from the very beginning, I, I when I bought that business, I was I was a customer of a Web hosting company.

[00:13:01] And in the first part in the beginning and I ultimately ended up buying my own hardware co locating it in a data center here in Detroit, finding myself a server administrator to help me administrate the server and then moving it over from that Web host to a small set up in the data center. And, you know, really, within my first year of business in 2000, after attending an 8000 conference in New Orleans, I had some other sort of adult business ideas that I was actioning on. And and along my journey, I ended up making friends and bringing some other people into my hosting, you know, like I have even my best friend here in Detroit at that time. He had a server and he wanted to co-located. So, you know, there was that. And then, you know, there's just little things that I could do to make more money to offset what my bills were so that I could, you know, survive. I suppose what it's all about. So it was really it was a few years later, it wasn't until April 2002 that we really professionally endeavored with the hosting brand. And then when it came together with Corey Baldwin to form what we were, you know, as Mojohost today. But now along that path, I had several adult businesses. I had the pay sites, which in their initial form were not an affiliate program.

[00:14:29] They were just lots of niche pay sites. And I was doing my own MCO. And then you could submit the search engines and, you know, try to try to get organic traffic. Eventually, though, I did create a Paysite affiliate program, so I ran that for a while. The first success that I really had online, though. Had an interesting relationship to how I got started. So when I bought the adult Web sites, after I had essentially deleted and reinvented all of those and republished using, you know, all of the right kinds of content and form for the Web sites, I was trying to figure out what else could I do with these domains that are getting traffic to to monetize. And I didn't really trust the whole affiliate program concept because it just seems so foreign to me back then. You know, an obscure with the technology and a link tracking. Remember, this is to net, you know, two thousand. And I didn't really know any of these guys that owned those businesses. I had been to a conference, but not. No, I wasn't in that in the cool kids club, so I didn't get all. I didn't really get all of that. And actually, I. So I thought to myself, you know, well, what else can I promote online to make money? That would be a good match for different types of niche fetish and other Web sites that I thought, you know, how about about phone sex lines? So, you know, at that Time magazine, distribution was still a very real, very important thing.

[00:15:55] And I had noted, of course, that every adult magazine was filled with phone sex ads. Oh, before I went to that first conference, I actually had located a bureau that I could get some numbers from. And they ended up assigning me it was twelve or fifteen lines for, you know, different different kinks and fetishes and preferences, I suppose I would say types of teeth to cater to different fantasies. And so when I went to that first conference in May, my goal was actually to meet that company, maybe meet a couple of other bureaus, because what had happened in a short course between December of 99 and May of 2000 was I put these numbers on their Web sites and I started getting checks and making money. So I thought to myself, you know, doing and doing some more searching online, I didn't really see anyone promoting phone numbers and thinking, jeez, you know, I can make money with this. That's great. But, you know, if I could I could own the numbers and I could teach other webmasters how to do exactly what I'm doing and maybe make 25 or 50 cents a minute. I mean, them Reno resell, you know, assigned them numbers and have them selling online. That might be a pretty good business. So. Exactly. So that was what I worked on. And then really, you know, by the end of that year, I met this other great gentleman.

[00:17:28] He owned a very high quality bureau that was based on the northeast coast out of Boston. Just a great matches, a fantastic person. So we partnered up and started the the affiliate program for that. So.

[00:17:46] That just was really the first thing that they did online that made even more money and so in that business partnership, we got along really well. But, you know, one of the lessons that I wear there was I was challenged. I thought I'm getting value for my business partner in the way that. You know, he owned a phone bureau, so they had the credit card processing, they had a customer support. They employed the talent. And really what I was creating our partnership was, you know, an affiliate marketing machine. Right. So I was, you know, fighting affiliates. I was creating advertise minds, banner ads, text ads, you know, closing out new affiliates and helping them to figure out how to market this stuff properly. And about a year into it, we had we were we were doing pretty well, I thought we were grossing around a half million a year in sort of top line sales. I was only making twenty five thousand dollars, I'll add. And, you know, I just kind of had this epiphany moment where I thought, you know. You know, like I said, I love them, love them dearly. He became a great friend of mine and he's still is today, but it just wasn't matching for me on what I thought my future path had. So what we did very amicably was we ended up splitting up the entire business and the customer base three evenly to essentially become competitors, still using his bureau because they did the best job to do the processing.

[00:19:15] But, you know, even when I did that, you know, I figured it was it was a win for me because I was still making the same money. So now I had half as many affiliates and half of the gross revenue. But I had 100 percent off of my earn out on that, which ultimately ended up being, you know, the same money that I was making in at that point. I was like so poor and broken in debt. I think I was six digits in credit card debt. My first twelve months in business. Yeah. So I was super motivated to did a bunch more conferences, phone a lot more affiliates, really cranked and grinded on that business. And, you know, I ended up, you know, bottom notes grew the business six or eight fold. And up next, the next following year. And then ultimately ended up selling that business back to to that that old business partner, Tom. So and somewhere along the way, I you know, when I had my phone affiliate program was actually where I met Corey baldheaded. We used to do these cool little meet ups here in greater Michigan. So if you go north of Detroit about two hours, you end up in a small town called Saginaw, Michigan, up north by Bay City.

[00:20:28] And there were a bunch of Michigan webmasters back then. So we used to meet like once a month at this restaurant called the Texan for for brunch. And that's where I met Corian and a whole group of other really, really nice webmasters that I had originally met at a conference. But basically, I still had the space and power and hosting was hosting some friends and we thought it was a hobby hobbyist. I think server admin at that point said, you know, you're really good at selling if you think you want to sell. Some are hosting. You know, I'll manage it for you and maybe make business out of this. So we shook hands and that we're kind of off to we're kind of off to the races. So eventually what ended up happening was. Around the time that I saw, as you know, the sort of the future of that phone business and I knew that I was my just my decision to sell that business was was actually inspired by the idea that I saw that I could get a living wage out of the new hosting company that we had started. So I, I, you know, this would be great to be wonderful. I can go and pay off my credit card debt, you know, listen, I can go buy a bigger house and a new car and kind of just be on to this next journey.

[00:21:51] And so that's basically what happened. You know, and along the way between and and now and that was in 2000, probably 2003, 2002 to 2004 was was when all of that transpired and the journey from then to now. I sold all of the assault and closed all of these other different little business ideas that I had. You know, like I had a a content we sing program that looked looked back that much like an itty bitty piece of maybe what Centro has today for we seeing content to pay sites. I had come across a really wonderful content producer that had an original collection of written erotic stories that she had recorded this audio stories. So I'm not sure in your path you ever came across Oceana or Francine. Did she not think she might go home? Wonderful, wonderful, lovely lady. We parted on that for many years. And it was funny, too, because I actually met her right at the very beginning. She's the person I would call my first friend. So when I when I realized I was defrauded on my pay sites with all of the stolen content, I was, like I said, searching for your tie, your tail.

[00:23:02] You're talking about the gal that started radio Dentada, right?

[00:23:05] Absolutely.

[00:23:07] So wait, wait, wait. Way back then. When I was trying to build and fill out my pay sites with license content to do it the right way, I came across parts that, you know, this is really neat. I've never seen anything like this. And, you know, the time she was selling the audio stories like piecemeal one by one. And we were just she was sharing with me over the phone her challenges on being a business owner and doing the content licensing. And she had at that time, I think one or two other companies that were doing the distribution for her that were supposed to be sending your commission checks. Yeah. She was pretty convinced that they were stealing from her, and I said, you know what I think would be a great idea for you and your business is why don't you just take your whole library? We'll figure out how to get it hosted for you and you can just rent access to it. You could go ahead rather than sell the individual works of art. You could you could put them all together in a separable collection and you could rent that to pay site owners and then they'd have to pay you monthly. Would that be great just to get a check perpetually? There you go. So we worked on that. And, you know, it never ended up being a huge business, but it was a good business we made. And that I think a couple of thousand dollars a month for many years working together.

[00:24:20] And, you know, frankly, I think, frankly, I'm not practicing on autism.

[00:24:28] She surely is. So that's the very early stuff. And then, of course, you know, Mojo host eventually happened. And, you know, that really took on a life of its own. You know, two thousand four, two thousand five and six and then just really continued growing. I never had a super organized business plan for how to effectively catapult that business. But we just kind of worked in the trenches and learned everything the hard way. And, you know, one customer, one server at a time is was always very hard working. And I'm proud to see that, you know, the business has not only survived, but it's thrived, I think pretty pretty well. And you've got a really large, happy customer base, which makes me very proud. Sure. You know, it's not an easy two percent, an easy business to be in. I mean, it's it's a complex deliverable. It's very high tech, you know, technology. Just imagine how many times the curate has moved with hosting technology over the last 15. It's moved so much.

[00:25:38] I think things change. I think things change there on a monthly basis. You know, on that. On that vein, Brad, talk about some of the products and services you guys offer there.

[00:25:47] Sure. So, as you would expect, I think for probably any hoster, we have a lot of different ways that we can sell you Web site hosting a lot of different products. So the core tenant of our business is really what we would call dedicated hosting. And that's where if somebody comes to us and rents a server and has that server all to themselves for their website. So so, of course, we have dedicated server hosting and that's that's kind of like our largest product, biggest Tida revenue. So we have currently around twelve hundred servers in Miami and then we haven't there. I don't know the exact count of three or four hundred servers in Amsterdam and I think I've got ninety five. Ninety. Ninety percent. Ninety five percent of those rented. And so that's the main product. But we also sell dedicated hosting costs. You know, without management support and backups, costs, you know, as low as maybe a hundred fifty dollars a month, maybe averages 250, 300 dollars a month. But we also have more entry level tiers of hosting. And those would be what we call a virtual private server. Right. So explaining that, that's like taking imagine a dedicated server that has redundant hard drives and of course, good memory and C.P.U resources mentioned taking that. And then at the operating system layer carving that server up, kind of like a pie. So if you took those resources of, say, 10 CPUSA and, you know, 32 gigabytes of RAM, and then you divided that using a smart operating system so that customers could buy smaller instances of, you know, X gigabytes of storage, so many two or three or four C.P.U cores and, you know, four gigs of RAM or eight gigs, Abram. So that's what they call a VPN hosting or virtual private server. So we have that as a product line. It is a smaller part of our business, but it's really important to, in my opinion, to always have a really great product for people that have ideas and that are just getting started out.

[00:27:57] So sure, because that built your future business.

[00:28:00] It does. It does. And obviously, you know, not everybody, not everybody is going to, you know, write a winning horse into the sunset. I really I really get some of my some of my greatest satisfaction working with new entrepreneurs and people that are just starting off. You know, I'm sure I find it really interesting journey. And it energizes me to work with people that have great ideas and that that are really working hard at them so that someone's able to come aboard as a customer in a price range of ostensibly ten to one hundred dollars per month and get a real professional hosting product that has super advanced, you know, technical support. Help make things easy for them. So that's that's sort of like our second product there and then. Right. We have a service called CVN or also the snack stands for Content Delivery Network. Right. So Mojo host, we actually have several. But put simply, we have what you would consider to be premium sedan and then we have what we would consider to be value CDO. So you own a website and you're publishing things on the Internet. You've got. Excuse me. You've got the challenge of delivering content all around the world to people that live in big cities and small cities and rural areas. And in all of these countries all around the globe in The Apprentice, complicated. You know, it's not just a bunch of wires that magically work.

[00:29:29] And so what CTA allows the website owner to do is to more effectively serve video to people all around the world. So it works. Is your content is, of course, always stored in your primary hosting account or server. Right. But through your linking methodology, how the content gets gets accessed. It will get downloaded from your server into the sedan. They will store copy of that in a cache of theirs. And then as your file gets popular around the world, they will then take copies of that file and put it in multiple data centers. So both of our all of the CNN networks that we work with, you know, have have each more than 50 different nodes around the world. But the basic idea is that when the content is stored closer to the server, it becomes easier to deliver that file, which might be quite large as fast as possible. Right. So what the benefit that this gives the site owner is they're really able to round out to the 10 to 15 percent of surfers that might have a challenged surfing experience. Right. You know, a network that's built right. Like it, model host where, you know, I pick the right phone companies and I use the right network hardware and we use smart software to make everything go even faster.

[00:30:53] Then I'll get to nine tenths of the way to where you want to go with your business. But your challenges out is that 90 10 rule in life where you've got, you know, in this instance, maybe 10 percent of the world is a little bit more challenged to have a good surfing experience. So it's allows you to do pretty effectively. Is this make everything faster for those surfers, whether it's the images on your Web site or are the videos? And so for people that are interested in Syria and we've got a lot of great plans starting just to think as low as ten dollars a month. And so in some of the sales that we do, we even just sell it on usage and bill in arrears. And the rate the rate someone can pay per gigabyte with us is truly the range of point, like, OK. So from a penny on the high side, one penny out of transfer, two point zero zero three cents. Wow. So depending on whether or not you have a Paysite in and I always recommend to use premium sedan if you've got paying members or you have a tube site, which is a strenuous business model and you know, it's always challenged on margin, then you need a best effort. Good Reno, good citizen. But, you know, you you can't have a premium, expensive delivery when you're giving everything away for free.

[00:32:12] So we. I like that we've got multiple different products that we can match clients up with. And behind the scenes, we've got wholesale relationships with five different CDMA companies. So we have a master. Wholesale agreements with all of them were the product experts. We do first tier technical support. And, you know, we pretty much do all the tiers of support directly with us. So it's not really you know, they're assisting with that deliverable. But really, the communications always just between us and the customer, unless there's this weird problem that needs escalating. But. So that's another product. You know, we have domains. Mojohost has a great everyday low price of nine dollars. Ninety nine cents for a dot.com domain. And and we include free privacy. So, you know, there are a lot of different choices that somebody has when they are registering domains. And we like to think we're actually a great one because there's no hidden fees. There's no tricks. You if you have a question, you can still work with our tech support team, which is fabulous. And we have a good every low price and doesn't mean you would either rate the next year. And we don't charge a premium for privacy services, which everybody should want enabled on their domains to just cut down on some phone calls.

[00:33:26] So absolutely.

[00:33:27] And it's worth noting on that on that side of things came up the other day, my other interview that I was doing. But we also had the best price on the Internet for the Amex domain these top domains of dot sex, dot porn, dot adult and triple X. So when you surf the Internet, you'll see that most Web sites are selling these domains for prices really that are north of 100 dollars. So the price range find when surfing is I think the range of eighty five to one hundred and twenty five dollars. We've got it priced at what's essentially a loss leader at or below cost after my merchant processing fees of essentially seventy five dollars, which is awesome. So fill us up starting a Web site. Yes. It's true that that is a lot more expensive than buying a dot com. But the inventory of really fabulous dot com domains has been exhausted for 20 years. Right. So I think that those domains being, you know, catering to the adult entertainment industry are great, are great to look at for new business ideas, because it really gives someone an opportunity to buy a nice short branded domain that could be, you know, five or 10 characters, which is going to be near impossible to do on a dot.com. Right. Starting off so many people that are starting a business. And I always love trying to come up with new. Names. But I always recommend checking out that TLT. And then apologize. They feel like I'm long winded on my product descriptions. We've built some magical cloud products. So that's really very much a part of the business today and I think a huge part of our future. So Mojo host has cloud products that are extraordinarily competitive against Amazon. So a lot of people use the Amazon S3 storage.

[00:35:31] You know, it's that simple storage.

[00:35:35] And Amazon charges two point three cents per gigabyte to store something. And and then they charge seven cents to download that gigabyte. That's where that's where the differentiation is. So we've built a cloud that's completely compatible with all the same software standards and.

[00:35:57] We charge. A half penny.

[00:36:01] Two point zero zero to five cents for that download. So we are literally 17 times cheaper. And I love that.

[00:36:09] It doesn't it doesn't surprise me.

[00:36:12] Our stuff is very high performance. And so we've got. We've got that product, and that's a wonderful product for people that are doing tube sites like we've got a partnership with Mac Bundy that allows somebody to go and launch a Tube site. And what we've done at Mojo is we've created a really high value package for people to put people to use. So. We help offset the cost of the Mac Bundy license, which is about 440 us down to 200 bucks. And we've got fully integrated V.P. s and dedicated server packages that leverage. It's not truly infinite. But leverage almost nearly infinite cloud storage. So basically, you get a G.P.S. instance. And then it gets paired through software with Mac Bunny software that gives someone access to where all their video files get stored in the module cloud. And you just aper what your story. It's really, really simple. And then it's also turnkey integrated with our values CVN so that so many can go and start a Web site. Use that software. Pay 50 bucks a month to Mojo host and have a mature hosting account that has scalable cloud storage and global content delivering. So that's pretty. So I love those cloud products and there's more coming later this year with more cloud instances that will compete against Amazon's easy to service. And you know, it it's typically the case. We build also private clouds for clients.

[00:37:45] And.

[00:37:48] Sorry, Bruce. Just making a stock trade here.

[00:37:51] What's that?

[00:37:53] I said sorry. I was just making a stock trade. I got stuck in the stock for two weeks and just finally got to sit on it.

[00:37:59] Oh, it's OK. Well, wait while you make your stock trade.

[00:38:02] No, it's it's not. It's already done. But, you know, I had good.

[00:38:05] I was getting I was I was trying to keep my brain busy during this whole pandemic. And I picked up this new hobby of trading stocks. So it's been up there.

[00:38:14] Go. Well, now we know what you've been doing during the pandemic. OK. So how does Mojohost differ from your competition? As you know, there's lots of choices. OK. If I'm out there and I'm shopping for hosting, why would I pick motorhomes?

[00:38:33] So I think that we really. Offer the best well-rounded value to someone that owns the Web site. So we have what I consider to be a really great everyday low price on all of our products.

[00:38:49] We don't do contracts. We don't charge setup. But what really makes Mojo host? I think the best choice is the quality of our technical support here. So we've got a really healthy, very happy corporate culture here at Mojo. And yes. And I've just got a brilliant team of system administrators. So when someone's a motor host customer, especially, you know, when they because most ninety ninety five or more percent of our business is adult entertainment. So we are we are industry experts and specialists and we are products and software specialists. So no matter what it is anyone could ever been endeavor to do on the Internet. The adult Internet of things. We've very much. Been there, done that. Have the experience and can parlay our knowledge to customers to save people tons of time and money and headache.

[00:39:44] So my whole team is of support. Staff is super, super experienced. All right. And it's really just a part of our service culture that they're they're not in the habit of saying no.

[00:39:54] They're also not in the habit of giving lazy answers. So, you know, oftentimes in technical support. So we have a very concierge's, very concierge.

[00:40:04] Service where somebody can ask for help.

[00:40:11] And we do all the work, you know, can you please install the script? Can you please set up this domain? Can you please configure my email to my site? Seems slow. Can you take a look at the the code on the page? You know, all different kinds of troubleshooting. We're a real go getter. So the solution to a lot of technical problems that other hosting companies is often upselling, you know, where. Oh, well, you know, you need more when you need more storage, any more storage. But, you know, the solution to every technical challenge isn't that you need more RAM or more C.P.U or a bigger hosting plan, oftentimes by tweaking the software environment on the server. It's really how you leverage know, higher performance and getting more getting more output of what?

[00:40:58] What you're doing. So that's our tech support team, because they're awesome. They're fast. You know, if you've got an emergency and you send us, you know, whether you call or create emergency support ticket to be looked at immediately within the first 60 seconds. Other than that, you know, support response times are very, very quick. Typically.

[00:41:18] You know, five, 10, 15 minutes. You know, we we endeavour to try to answer to. We'll be working on the problems within, you know, fifteen minutes of of a ticket being created. That is not the case. So if you're at a mainstream post, you could be looking at upwards to 24 hours to a day. You know why we're staffed all of the time. So having such a large team, we. You know, we're we're we're doing business 24/7, 365. So on every shift, we've got lots of a very skilled system administrators that are very patient and very effortful. You know, we take pride in our staff, not just directly answering questions, but also trying to ask the bigger questions sometimes that the clients don't know to be asking. You know, when we go into a situation or a server or Web site, we're trying to look at the big picture of things and see what else can we help with or tweak to help guide this client. You know, we're always asking, is there anything else more that we can do for you rather than just rather than just having a system administrator that's got, you know, sort of blinders on? That's just that's only what's asked of them. Right. Right. So we really try to go that extra mile. And I think that that really translates to being powerful for our customers and the results that they're able to drive with their website hosting.

[00:42:46] Now, Brad, I. I would call you the trade show King. I have never been to a show that you weren't at. OK. And that's to your credit, by the way. I don't know how you do it, quite frankly, because I couldn't go to that many shows and survive.

[00:43:02] What advice would you give to trade show attendees, especially new ones, so they can get the most out of these events?

[00:43:13] So we all have to start somewhere. And the truth of it is when I started. Way back when. I did.

[00:43:26] I was nobody from nowhere and I didn't know a whole lot. And I we had an awfully crushing social anxiety, fear of meeting people. And most people don't know that about me. But but it wasn't easy. And know I think, you know, the first thing that I did when I when I was started to trade shows was I went to I just went to Summers all day to worry as much as possible. And maybe even for me, that probably meant sitting in the back of the room. But, you know, the most important thing is just to really talk to people, you know, to open up, to introduce herself. You know, we have such a friendly industry. It's really one of the most endearing. See, the endearing reason that I love what we do is the people. It's a family. It does kind of operate like a big like a big family. And people are friendly and they share information freely and. And so my advice is, is just get out there and network, you know, if all you if all you do is. You know, go to parties or stand near groups of people, but not engage. Then you're really missing out on that big value of of this relationship building because the best teachers going to meet are are the individuals that have that are that are already in the business and doing the things that they want to do.

[00:44:49] So.

[00:44:51] My suggestion is just get plugged in. You know, do those things like speak out working. You can always you can always meet people at wherever the bar a restaurant is in the hotel that the show is always gonna be. People standing around just chatting. And everybody everybody always wants to meet more people, but not everybody is super good at doing that. But.

[00:45:14] Yeah. And then.

[00:45:16] I think, you know, ask questions. And, you know, ask people, you know, have people tell you their story. You know, what do you do? You do. What do you love about this? Oh, jeez. What's that?

[00:45:28] You know, how did you get started? Yeah, that's what. What's your biggest what's your biggest failure?

[00:45:37] Exactly. My my best and my best advice about pay shows is that free booze isn't free.

[00:45:45] Well, it is. It is. I mean, that's part of like what I call the whole good mojo thing. So I actually get a story about that.

[00:45:54] Well, I was going to I was about to ask you about that, so I wanted to tell me about what's up with that whole that whole good mojo slogan.

[00:46:01] So that was that was an advance of of J from life Candy, who also owns the advertising company just yet. So I just really and it just kind of fit and clicked right away. And I was like, wow, why didn't I think of that? And so now we've run with that. And he's helped me to sort of reemerge on the branding and our marketing materials, but we've had a lot of fun with that. So I like it. It speaks to me. It's that it's the test by which I judge a lot of different situations like that. Could some good mojo. Like, what does it mean for me? It's, you know, doing the right thing. I think the core tenant is just sort of like do the right thing all the time, regardless of cost or. Yeah, or difficulty. So, you know, I try to hold myself to that higher standard. But it also means giving without an expectation of receiving something in return. And that's what it means to me. You know, someone we joke about the bar and you say this, free drinks aren't free. You know, when I started, I didn't have I didn't I didn't have a playbook for how to network and how to meet people. And so, yeah, I did start buying a lot of drinks at the bar and buying them for other people. But that was and I wasn't doing it because I, I wanted it like some immediate gratification to try to do business and closed deals. I was just trying to be in conversation. And, you know, even when I started doing all that, I wasn't it wasn't an easy street with money I was using, you know, what I would consider to be a.

[00:47:41] Borrowed money.

[00:47:43] Well, you know what? When I when I say that I'm talking about. People will go to these parties and get so drunk they forget where they are. You, on the other hand. I'll never forget. We were in San Francisco and there was a dead time during the show at the. That I think was the last. Why not show there? And Brad said, OK, we're opening up the bar. Everybody's like, what? And you were buying drinks for people for two hours. And it made it made quite a name. It made quite an impression on me. Just the generosity, you know. And how you support this industry, which I do very much appreciate.

[00:48:21] And even at that time, that was still that was still, you know, young.

[00:48:26] Yeah.

[00:48:28] Yes. So, you know, perception is always different than reality. Yes. That was that was exactly what happened there. And the other part of that story was I had just gotten to a place where I really wanted to go out on the dance floor and the band was finishing.

[00:48:41] So I'm like, though, like, you know, I don't know. You see, I had a couple and they IPB this was the middle of the afternoon. You might have done it again and again.

[00:48:50] Ok, I'm thinking I'm thinking of a quote. I'm thinking of a closing party if I. Oh yeah. But yeah I know. Yeah. So I've been known to open the bar and you know, over the last 15 years, I probably spent. At least a half million dollars on alcohol, I would say.

[00:49:07] But, you know, it's not important. The drinking part of it, the alcohol part isn't important to me. I actually grew up, you know, in an alcoholic family. And I always respect people's choices. So I'm not the type of person that that is, you know, insistent in pushing drinks that I always respect people that are making a different choice and try to be some of that. But, you know, we do have some fun times at these conferences. And I found myself that one of the most effective ways to grow my brand is just really. Trying to be like a. A source of networking and hospitality.

[00:49:47] And you are you most you most certainly are. OK, so last question. And you know, I love giving you a bad time because you win so many of these 50 plus industry awards. And I. I kid you on Facebook. It's like it's like, God, I want another one. Brad, where are you going to put this one? You're gonna need a whole building for your trophies.

[00:50:11] Tell me tell me about that and what it means to you.

[00:50:14] So I remember the first award that I ever won. And boy, did I want it that year. It's actually I think it's sort of it's sort of a sort of a cute story. So is it was 2009. Anyway, three expos. And I remember, you know, and it did in 2009. So I had been doing motorhomes study for seven years and really full time, committed for four, five years like, you know, full of those other early businesses. So, you know, starting in 2004 was was really when we were super, super focused on only mojo. But by 2000 and. Beginning in 2009. I just, you know, man, I really do company, but growing like a rocket ship, you know, 50 percent or greater, you know, year over year growth for a bunch years straight. And I was I was so much the underdog when I started with no customers as a Web host and the adult and just a you know, it was really like climbing the Matterhorn and getting there and, you know, and in that particular moment in my life. I don't think I had ever given too much thought before then to award shows, because there really wasn't a lot of that going on way back when. I don't know which your experts had started doing those. I think, you know, I know I was paying attention and a couple of years prior, but that year when I really felt like I worked so hard and, you know, is. It's uninteresting as it is, like, I just I just wanted to be, like, acknowledged, sure. I felt like I felt like I was really crushing my competition was doing like we were doing a better job at it. We were using better hardware. Our support was good.

[00:51:57] And I just I wanted something that I could rest the rest of my world. But I wanted some kind of, like, public affirmation saying, like, you guys you guys are great. You know, I know I was working hard. My team was working hard. And, you know, as I was doing, we were really trying to do the best job. It wasn't just like get more business, make more money. It was the challenge of how how can we be really good at what we do and keep growing.

[00:52:26] So on that year, I was super focused. I was nominated. I was so excited to be nominated. You know, the years prior to that, I had I had felt like a bridesmaid, you know, for the three or four years prior. We were we were nominated for Best Web Host of the Year award that particular year. I just felt like it was my time and I wanted it. So I was sitting outside the venue. So I think it was at some rocker play, some smaller venue, probably, you know, that West Hollywood area. And I was outside. I was having a drink and a cigarette with one of my hosting competitors.

[00:53:04] And he looked at me and he said, and I think I think out of my own anxiety, I probably had had a couple too many drinks that night. I was definitely buzzed big. And I know this because I was I was like really emotional. So I was out there with him and he just kind of he wasn't necessarily that bad. He is a nice guy, but he wasn't it wasn't an easy person and he wasn't the flat, the flattering type, and basically was just kind of berating me and saying, you know.

[00:53:32] Dude, you're never gonna win one. You don't pay them because I had never run in the advertise men's or anything like that. And he was he was he was really going kind of hard on me verbally.

[00:53:43] And I was I just I basically started crying.

[00:53:47] And so we're sitting out there. And then I had this vibrating in my pocket. And I ignored the first one again. And I saw it. And it was one of my clients inside of inside the venue and said, Dude, dude, where you had to get the fuck in here.

[00:54:06] You just one second.

[00:54:10] So I saw that Mike and I even know what I said. The guy like, oh, my God, I just wonder, you know, I gotta go. I said, fuck it. I say, fuck you.

[00:54:22] I ran inside the venue and like, I remember, like, whole see people getting through that. And then the stage I remember the stage was just about as tall as I was. There must have been stairs somewhere like, you know, the logical path to go up on the stage and accept a word by like, I just kind of like went through the crowd from the middle. I remember pulling myself up on stage in a very tall stage, so. Yeah. And so that was when I got my first word. So what does that mean? What does that mean today? Eleven years later. And fifty four. How many words it is.

[00:55:00] I would say this, you know, it's. It's still very humbling.

[00:55:05] Like most of these awards, yes, they are pure boarded. And that might make it in some sense for some of these perhaps a popularity contest. But really, you know, you get out of things, how you participate, you know. So if you don't want results, I do encourage people, you know, you should go and vote for your business friends and partners and affiliates when they're nominated because really and truly at all of these different events, they are earnestly trying to do that right job and they are counting the votes. If you don't particularly, you know, even in even on the nominations part of it, you know. You know, you make effort for yourself, for your own business and for your friends and their companies. So when you think you are doing a stand up job, that's when you know, you speak out and you said you make a suggestion to one of those venues. I think this person should be in this category this year. You know, I know I've done that before and suggesting different especially some of the different personal words, you know, try to people recognize that haven't been recognized before.

[00:56:04] So, you know, it's always been very well for me.

[00:56:14] And maybe your days come and birth, maybe your days.

[00:56:17] Oh, yeah. Well, I'm I'm I'm biting my time. Brad, I'm biding my time anyway.

[00:56:24] Well, look, you deserve all the accolades you've received.

[00:56:30] You here.

[00:56:32] You're a great partner in our industry, sir. And a great guy. And I would like to thank you so much for being on adult. I brokered talks today, and I hope we'll get you back on a future show.

[00:56:45] Thank you so much, Bruce, for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity and all that you do. It's always great to see you. And I hopefully, hopefully will be a person again sometime soon.

[00:56:55] My broker tip today is part three of how to buy a Web site. Last week we talked about finding the right site to buy. Once you find it, what do you do once you've either reached the broker of the site or the seller, review the information about the site. They should provide you with the following a profit and loss statement of at least three years.

[00:57:17] That's up to date. If it's June and they give you financials only through the end of the previous year, you need to see what the site is doing now.

[00:57:25] Not last year. If it's a pay site, get a user name and password for the site. See, you can review the content. Ask how often the site is updated. Get some history on the site. How long has it been in business? What's the story behind the site and why does the seller want to sell it? Get an inventory of the content and how much of it as current technologies like for K find out if all the content in this exclusive to that site. Ask the seller if the content has ever been on VEO, D or DVD. See if there are any clip stores the content is on. Find out how much the content cost to produce and what the current cost of production is. Very importantly, see if this operation can run without the current owner. Do they do the shooting themselves or do they hire someone to do it? And if there is an outside producer, will that person continue to provide content for the site? Find out how many new joins and rebuilds. There are a day. Ask them what is the retention rate on the site and find out if they do advertising on the site and where they get their traffic. Ask for Google Analytics access so you can see where the traffic comes from. This information will give you the opportunity to truly evaluate what it is you're buying. We'll talk about the subject more next week and next week. We'll be talking to Massi from Feet4Cash.

[00:58:55] And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Brad Mitchell. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.