Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 103 with Dominic Ford of justfor.fans

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site 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 websites this week. This week we'll be speaking with Dominic Ford of JustFor.Fans.

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Now time for this week's interview, my guest today and adult site broker talk is Dominic Ford. The owner of just for fans, Dominic, thanks for being with us today on adult side broker talk.

Speaker 2 (2m 49s): Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (2m 51s): Hey, it's a pleasure to have you, man. As you know, we've been working on this for a long time. Now Dominic's been in the adult industry for years. He started the gay porn site, Dominick ford.com in 2008, in 2010, he started porn, guardian.com an industry leading anti-piracy company after winning lifetime achievement awards at all the major award shows he founded just for fans in 2018, just for fans as one of the most successful fan platforms in the world.

He was just named businessman of the year at the 2022 ex-business executive awards. Congratulations. So many fan sites are springing up, but a lot of these people are clearly not from the industry. You are Dominic. You have vast experience, not only as a performer, but an entrepreneur. How does this give just for fans and advantage?

Speaker 2 (3m 49s): So I, I think that one of the things that we're seeing in the landscape right now is a lot of, a lot of these fan platforms are coming in from outside of the industry and they don't understand the industry. And eventually they grow their, their eyes grow wider than maybe what they, what they see there's potential for the industry. And they want to, they want to go mainstream and then they, and because they have no attachment to the industry, they are just as happy to leave it behind as they were to rake in money from it.

So I think if there, if there's one major difference, like that's the big difference is that we're we're from the industry, which means a couple, it means a couple of things. And the first thing it means is we're not going anywhere. We're not mainstreaming. We're not gonna cancel sex workers the way other platforms have or threatened to, to, to be, to do. I mean, other thing is that we understand the ecosystem. So we understand that that in the industry, there are, there are models for sure, but there's also photographers and their studios and there's agents and managers and affiliates and, and, and places to film their studio, like physical studios.

And so all of these, all of these different factions that people can make money on just for fans in a way that, that there's no place for them in these other platforms that, that never even try to understand how the industry operated.

Speaker 1 (5m 20s): Sure, sure. So how did you originally get into the adult industry and also talk about your growth from more, you started to where you are today?

Speaker 2 (5m 31s): So, okay. So 14, it's hard to believe it's been 14 years. So 14 years ago, my ex boyfriend and I at the time would look at porn sites together. And he, so my background, I'm a computer scientist, I'm a software engineer and my father is a photographer. So those are, those are the skills that I'm sort of born with. And my ex, my ex is a graphic designer. And so we would look at these sites and, and he would say, boy, the graphic design looks so rudimentary.

And I would say on the photography, lighting is awful. And we play around with the site and the site was clunky and slow and not intuitive. And, and we both talk about how bad the user experience is. And we kept saying to each other boy between the two of us, we, we actually have the skillset to do this and do it better. And after I don't remember exactly, but something like five or six months of saying that we finally said, you know what, like, why not do a little side project?

And, and, and just kind of throw this to the wall, build, build what we would want to see in a porn site and hope that other people think so too. And we didn't tell any of our friends, it was a big kind of secret. And then a year later it was paying all of our bills and I quit my day job and we call up to all of our friends.

Speaker 1 (7m 0s): Wow. Wow. So

Speaker 2 (7m 2s): That's about 14 years ago.

Speaker 1 (7m 4s): Yeah. Like many, like many good things that happened by accident.

Speaker 2 (7m 9s): For sure.

Speaker 1 (7m 10s): So I find it unusual for performers to also be entrepreneurs. At least that used to be the case. That'd be for fan sites, like just for fans as one of the original performer entrepreneurs. How does that feel?

Speaker 2 (7m 27s): So I definitely started as the entrepreneur first and the model second sort of, I built, I built the site and, and we, we, and made the site was always models who we would hire. And it wasn't, I was never on the site until later in, in the game. And the reason for that is I always wanted to be. And so every year I would film something with a model and just to see if my body was ready, if I looked fat on camera, you know, like, and I did that probably for, for three or four years, like once a year I would film something and I would say to the model, and, you know, I would pay them off as before.

And I would say like, just FYI, this, this may never see the light of day. This is more of a screen test for myself. And, and it wasn't until three or four years of doing that. We're finally, I was like, you know what? This is, I I'm finally good enough to try being on camera without being super, super embarrassed. And in fact, the funny thing is like, I've stopped. I've stopped being in front of camera now because I have no time. And I'm actually in the best shape of my life. And I feel like, boy, now I want to get back into it just to, just to show people what a 46 year old can look like.

Speaker 1 (8m 47s): I love it now, just for fans thinks about more than just the fan model relationship. Now, you also facilitate models, helping and finding other models. How do you do that?

Speaker 2 (9m 1s): So of the unique things that just were fans has over its competitors is again, we are not simply an e-commerce engine trying to make money. We're not a money machine. We really be because we come from sex workers. We really try to think about the whole, the whole life of the model. And that is not just once a video is filmed. How do I make money from it?

So, so this lifecycle of the model includes finding models to work with sharing. They're sharing the content with each other and then posting the continent and potentially sharing the revenue. So this is a much broader sense of, of, of the world. So we, so just start with the third prong, the first prong of, of those three prongs, how do, how do we facilitate models, finding other models? We have an app on this site called finder.

If anybody who's listening knows what Grindr is. A Grindr is an app for gay men that, that geo geo locates people. So you can see who's near you. So, so, and then you can talk to them and, and hookup or whatnot. So we have our version of that called finder. It's for everybody on the site, obviously not just the guys and it's only for verified models and it's, opt-in only, so if you don't want people to know where you live, then you don't have to, and it has a ton of cool functionality. So I can, so right now, for example, I'm in, in Puerto Vallarta, I can go on to finder and see what other, just for fans verified models are in port of aorta or, or the, or the vicinity.

And I can send them a note either on Twitter or on just your fans. I can do a search if I'm going to, if I'm going to Paris next week, I can do a search from here on Paris, France and see who's in Paris. And even more than that, I can, I can tell this site that I'm going to be traveling to Paris next week so that if anybody else searches for Paris in that timeframe, my name will come up.

Speaker 1 (11m 9s): That's cool. That's really cool

Speaker 2 (11m 13s): To help models meet each other.

Speaker 1 (11m 15s): Yeah. How did, how did that all come about?

Speaker 2 (11m 18s): Well, again, I mean, I use the site, you know, especially during the, the, during the beginning, I, I have my own page with more updated at the, at the beginning of the, of the, of the, of the, you know, our life. But, but I use, I use the site and I think that if you have somebody who wrote the site using the site on a daily basis, they say, oh boy, I wish this site could do X, but I can then go build it that night. Right. You know, and I remember, I remember the day that the idea came up is I was, I was actually, most of my good ideas happened in the gym because I talked to my trainer, like he's a therapist.

And I tell him all my problems.

Speaker 1 (11m 57s): I love it.

Speaker 2 (11m 58s): And I remember, and I distinctly remember this day, where one day I was saying, boy, you know, I know there's a lot of people in Fort Lauderdale to film with, but I just don't know who they are. And it's, if you ask somebody on Grindr, if they want to film, then if they report you, you get your account banned. And I had gotten my account, my account and grinder banned four or five times for quote-unquote soliciting, even though I wasn't solicited, there's no money changing hands. And I remember saying to him, I wish that there was some kind of a grinder that we could use for models.

And then I said, and it was like Eureka. I'm like, well, I'm going to build that tonight. Like I have, I have, I'm a computer, I'm an engineer. Like I can do these things.

Speaker 1 (12m 40s): Yeah. And that's that, that's something that makes you guys so much different because, you know, as a performer and as a member of the industry, you've really built the site for you and people like you.

Speaker 2 (12m 56s): For sure. For sure. And, and the great thing about our community is that I may have a great idea. Our staff might have a great idea. Users might have our models may have great ideas, and they know that we're super, super agile and super, super adaptable. Because if you have a good idea, give me a day, you know, like, you know, hold my beer and I'm going to build it for you. And so a ton of great features on the site, I'll give you another one. So another way that we help with that, we facilitate models, connecting with each other is that you like on Facebook verified models, can friend other models.

And what that means is they see your content for free. You see their content for free, and you can, you can comment. And like each other's posts and you can't do that easily on other platforms. And how did that come about? They came back. And again, I remember this day, very clearly I was in the car talking to a model on the phone and or maybe it was texting, what was that? I was in the car. So it's probably the phone

Speaker 1 (13m 59s): I'm driving. Very good.

Speaker 2 (14m 0s): You can drive kids, don't text and drive. And I remember him saying, how do I give a free promo code to a model I just worked with? And I'm like, why do you want to do that? And he said, because I want him to be able to comment. And like, on my end, like things on my page, so we can cross vote each other as if, as if we were friends on Facebook. And he said that he said that phrase. And I said, well, why don't we build a feature that has a friend feature like on Facebook because you're using, you know, I, I, he was using the tools available to achieve his goal, which was giving this guy a promo to do X, Y, and Z.

But that didn't, that was a solution that was an odd solution to the problem he was having. So I'm like, why don't we actually fix the problem instead of shoehorn the existing functionality into a solution.

Speaker 1 (14m 52s): Right. And knowing you, Dominic, I'm guessing that that's not a rare exception where you speak to the performers.

Speaker 2 (15m 0s): Oh, no. I, I, it daily on a daily basis. I mean, again, I mean, I, I've had a porn studio that I started 14 years ago and ran it for 12 years. I stopped at two years ago when gestures answer golf because I had a time, but my entire life, my ecosystem is models. And so I hear, and they have no qualms texting me at three in the morning telling me what's not working or what they wish the site could do differently.

Speaker 1 (15m 25s): That's awesome. That's awesome. So other sites, as you know, are throwing off models, but just for fans is known for supporting models. What kind of performers on your are on your site and what kinds are you looking for to add to the site?

Speaker 2 (15m 42s): You know, it's, it's a, it's a good question. And also sort of an existential crisis question for me, because a lot of, a lot of people know us as a, as a gay site

Speaker 1 (15m 55s): Began, I was going to ask you about that.

Speaker 2 (15m 57s): I come from the gang side of the industry and when I started, who do I notice say, Hey, look at my site. It's the gay side. Of course, for sure. We are overwhelmingly, I'll say queer. I would love, I would love more women to use the site. It's it's to be quite honest and show my cards. It's been very difficult to get straight women straight CIS women to use the site. And, and I don't, I don't know if it's, you know, because they don't want to be on a site that, that is known to be more gay or they think their audience won't go there.

I, I don't know what it is, but it's, it's not, it's not been easy there. The people who are very success and, and sometimes when they've come, there's not been the traffic for them just to be again, to be, you know, to, to show all my cards and, and not, and not pull punches here. The, the people who, who are successful, who are very successful in the site are gay men, trans men and trans women and CIS women who are, who are in various fetish niches that maybe they can't have at other sites.

So for example, the ABD El community and the fisting community and the fin Dom community, like they do very well on our site. And, and I, and I hate to say it it's mainly because they, they can't be on only fans, but they have found refuge on our site. And, and I'm hoping that the more mainstream women do also, but I never want to turn my back on, on the people who've supported us for four years, which is the, the gay, the gay male audience.

Speaker 1 (17m 39s): Yeah, no, absolutely. Actually I have some ideas on that. We'll have to talk about when we finished the interview. I it's something just sprung to mind. Yeah. Got some keys for you. So you're also known for supporting the community and you're the only platform that gives to many charities. What do you do for charities and why do you do

Speaker 2 (17m 59s): So, you know, you're sort of hitting on all the differentiators that we have over our competitors, which, which I appreciate. So, you know, we, we're, we're part of this community and, and, and that takes on a couple different manifestations. And one, one manifestation before we talk about charities is that we sponsor parties, events, award shows, but before COVID, we were sponsoring 20 or 30 events mainly in the, in the queer space a month.

Cool. And, and we, and we published, and the first of the month we publish, we publish a calendar of, you know, we're this, this underwear party in Las Vegas, and this party here, and then this award show there. And, and we're ramping that up now, again, we did some online stuff, but during COVID, but now we're ramping that up again, as things open up. Cool. So, so we spend tons of money just in sponsorships for small, small, and big events all across the country and across the world. And then we have our charitable giving arm.

No other organization that I'm aware of in the adult industry has a, has a, a systemic built in charitable giving arm, which this was a giant mission of mine. Every year when we started, I had like big goals the years, what your one goal was to get some kind of a healthcare package for a models, which we did.

Speaker 1 (19m 28s): Wow. Congratulations. Thank you

Speaker 2 (19m 30s): Again. No one else, no one else does this. And, and, and your two was to figure out how we can give back to the community. And so what we did is we set up on a search for charities who would work with us because they're at the, of, at the time, there were not, there were a lot who said no big, like big charities who didn't want our, our poor money. So we launched with four or five

Speaker 1 (19m 55s): Isn't that just ridiculous their goal supposed to be, to raise money yet, if it comes from dirty porn, we don't want your money.

Speaker 2 (20m 3s): Yeah. And it was like, I don't remember. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus because my memory is bad, but it was like, I mean, like glad and the Trevor project and, and gay gay charities did not. What's the one, what's the one for, for older gays. Oh, shoot. I can't remember. Well, anyway, but yeah, they, they didn't want our money, you know, they didn't want to be associated. So like we'll find,

Speaker 1 (20m 26s): You know, and, and the fact, and the fact that the, the LGBTQ plus people have been persecuted for so long for them to further persecute, I think is just so hypocritical. It's just amazing.

Speaker 2 (20m 42s): Yeah. It's, it's, it's so, you know, so whatever. So we found the charities who are happy working with us and, and we, so, so basically, so, so models, models can choose to give any percentage of their income to any number of our charities. They can pick any combination of our charities. And so, and you as a user, can you see that on their page? How, what percentage they're giving to what charity, but you can also search on the site and rank the models by how much they're giving to charity, just in, in the mainstream world, this is called ethical spending.

It's the idea that I, as a consumer, want to put my money into organizations who put their money into causes, I believe in, and that idea just does not exist in the portal. And I, I come from mainstream e-commerce before I was important, I was building some of the largest.com websites in the world, and that's not hyperbole that's that's reality. And, and that was beginning to be a thing back then. And so I take some of those lessons into my, my porn world and say, well, no, one's doing this.

So now that I have a platform that could actually make a difference, I'm going to. And so we, I think, is it January 1st, we released a press release that we had raised over $100,000 in, in charitable donations to these charities.

Speaker 1 (22m 11s): That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (22m 12s): And that, and black and black lives matter, which we started during the height of the L BLM move in a year and a half ago. I think that accounts for something like $40,000 by itself.

Speaker 1 (22m 25s): Oh, that's great. That's great. Who else, who else you guys give? Who else are you guys giving to?

Speaker 2 (22m 30s): Our charities include black lives matter, $46,000. So far trans lifeline, which is about 20, over $21,000 Woodhall freedom foundation. They are the lobbying firm that's fighting against assessed to foster,

Speaker 1 (22m 47s): Right? Right.

Speaker 2 (22m 49s): Pineapple support, which provides mental health to the adult industry. We

Speaker 1 (22m 54s): Sponsor there's. I think you are too.

Speaker 2 (22m 56s): Yeah. The HIV league. This is a, this is a really great organization that gives, that gives scholarships to college students living with HIV.

Speaker 1 (23m 10s): Wow. Wow. That's a lot. That's a lot of field goal feel good stuff.

Speaker 2 (23m 15s): Yeah. And just a couple more. So swap sex workers, outreach project, there are a sex worker organization, and a point of pride is a, is another trans trans nonprofit. And then also the free speech coalition. And we just added last week, gay and sober, which is a, an organization for w as, as the name would clearly imply gay, sober people looking to, to connect in and, and have programming and events and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (23m 43s): That's fantastic. So, so other fan platforms require models to bring their own traffic. Do you?

Speaker 2 (23m 52s): We certainly love when people bring their own traffic. I won't say no to it, but no. One of the big things, the big differential differentiators of our site is that we do everything we can to introduce you the model to people, to fans on the site who don't know you, and we try to make you sales. And, and in fact, we did a we number crunched a year ago. So I'm not sure where these numbers are currently, but about a year ago, we, we number crunch this and about one third, 30% of any particular models, sales came from internal traffic.

Speaker 1 (24m 33s): Great.

Speaker 2 (24m 34s): Which is a much larger number than I frankly had anticipated. So, so because we're, so we're a porn site. Let, let, let me put that out there. Just for fans is a porn site. And when you look at our competitors, they will talk to you about their tennis pros and their chefs. And they will not say we have sex workers. So, so what does that mean that we can do that they can't do. We can highlight our performers so you can search on the site.

You can search by, by genders and you can search by categories like twink and bear and MILF and, and whatnot. And so, so, and then models who are friends with other models in this sort of Facebook friendly thing. I was talking about every model on their, on their page has a list of their friends. And so if I'm a user and I like model X, I can see who their friends are. And, and even more than that, my, my background is in artificial intelligence.

It's I out of college, I was, I was working at an AI think tank present as a programmer. And so there's an AI component to our site where you have subscribed to, I think it's three or more people. There's a whole page dedicated just in showing you other models that we think you might like, based on you're already subscribed to.

Speaker 1 (25m 57s): That's really cool, not enough, not enough people in, and don't take advantage of that.

Speaker 2 (26m 1s): That paid makes a ton of money for models. And this is all internal track. We track, we track everything. So every

Speaker 1 (26m 8s): Sale

Speaker 2 (26m 9s): You can track back to how that sale was made. Be it an internal tool or your external Twitter or Instagram or, or whatnot, we track everything. Or the, the stats that we give our models are, are, are, are parallel to nobody. And so we can tell exactly what is doing well on the site. And yeah. So everything that we can do to make our models, money beyond the traffic, only that, that, that they're bringing themselves. We do.

Speaker 1 (26m 34s): Yeah. I'd tell you if I was a model you would have already sold me. Now you have an exclusive program. Why would a model be adjust for fans?

Speaker 2 (26m 44s): Right. So again, I, I think we're the only people to do this too, but I, I, I don't keep up with our competition, so sure. So regularly, anymore, I don't really know. I think we're the only people who have an exclusive program. So we, we give 80% to our models and we keep 20%. And if you're an exclusive to us, you get a few things. The most important thing to most people is the money. You get 85% on almost everything launches versus 80%. Yeah.

So, and that's, there's lots of different ways to make money on the site. So 85% covers most of those. And, and then we have an exclusives page that just lists our exclusives. And every day, this site highlights one model that is listed on the top of every browse page, where you're browsing list of models. And every day we highlight in a long form question and answer one model. And if you're cool. Yeah, right. So it's another way that we highlight models.

And if you're an exclusive model, there's a calendaring feature where you can select what days you want to be featured. Every everybody can get featured. If, if there's a day that's not accounted for, by an exclusive, the system will randomly look at other models. Who've been active in the last two weeks and featured them, but exclusive get first dibs on whatever days they want.

Speaker 1 (28m 9s): Sure, sure. So what difference does it make in your corporate mission, who you hire on your staff?

Speaker 2 (28m 16s): 100% of our staff is sex workers or people who have been in the adult industry for well over 10 years. And it's mainly sex workers. And when I say 100%, I mean, 100%, especially because I'm, I mean, I'm the developer. And, and normally everybody would be like, oh, we hired this, this front person to be the face of our company, but the developers and the lawyer, and, you know, the back end, people are in a customer service people.

They're not sex workers. Well, ours, ours are either sex workers or people in the industry, our entire customer service team, all of them. Let me just make sure that's right. All, but one has their own page on just your fans. The one that doesn't has been helping chatter bait models for like 13 or 14 years with strategy and whatnot. So he's, so he's in the industry. He's just not on the page. The other, the other four of them all have pages on their website.

You know, my lawyer's been in the industry for, for God knows, 15 or 20 years. So all of this goes back to when, when you talk to our customer service people, very using this site as well, and maybe they know a better way to skin the cat you're trying to skin, or, or maybe they're having the same problem you're having, you know, and, and can bug me about it. There's a level of empathy to our company in that our default stance is to side with the model.

And a lot of our competitors, their default stance is to side against the model.

Speaker 1 (30m 5s): Yeah. I've heard, I've heard that looking at some of the, the forums and stuff, some of the boards you S you see a lot of complaints about a lot of companies. I can't say I've seen any about you guys.

Speaker 2 (30m 17s): Yeah, no. I mean, we, we, we do our best to do right by models.

Speaker 1 (30m 20s): That's awesome. Now you've referred to your platform as a friendly disrupter to the industry. What does that mean? And why are you proud of it?

Speaker 2 (30m 30s): So this kind of goes back to this idea of who, who can make money on the site. When, when only fan started, I was the owner of a studio and all of the studios were crazy afraid of only fans because it locked out studios. It's great that it gave models, freedom, freedom, and agency, and an economy. That's awesome. But, but what happens when that, when, when, when that happens is that it's harder for studios to be successful.

It's harder for agents to make money because agents are not making money on fan content scenes. They're making money on studio scenes. I'm sure the bloggers who always write about studio porn and make money from their links to the, the, to the studios via affiliate links, aren't making money because people are looking at only fans. So, so this, so that's, so only fans was a disruptor. We want it to be a friendly disruptors saying, we, we understand that all these other people want to be able to make money and not, and we don't want them to be afraid of us.

And so if you're an agent, you can have an agency on the site and, and, and get a percentage from your models. If you're an affiliate, you can be an affiliate on our site and make money. When you send traffic to us. If you're, if you're a photographer or you own a physical studio, or you're a camera man, or you're an editor, we can have a plate. We have a place in our site. That's sort of a marketplace where you can say, I am an, I'm an editor. And I used to edit for, for studios, but now I'm editing for anybody who wants to hire me.

So we really, we really think about the ecosystem in a, in a way that we want everyone to be involved. And I'll give you one more point. So studios who are on the platform, certainly people, people do better than the studios. And so I sort of started to think, well, how can, how can studios harness their models in a way to make money? So there's even a way in our system, if you are a studio and, and you're on platform and you upload a movie that's, that's for sale, it's an individual for sale thing in the store.

You can tell the models who are in that movie, who are on just for fans to put a link to it on their adjuster fans page. And if a sale comes from them, they get a percentage that the studio decides nine. So there's, there's, there's. So there's like many affiliate system built into just real fans where anybody who sells that product on behalf of the studio can share in some income. And so this is yet another way we're trying to bridge the gap between the studio, the studio business model and, and the, the fan model centric business model.

Speaker 1 (33m 23s): Yeah. And, you know, ever since the, the fan sites went up, a lot of people in our industry have taken a hit because the fan sites have sucked up a lot of the oxygen. And of course, a lot of the money. And, you know, I, I, I think that's great what you're doing, because what you're doing is you're putting money back in people's pockets that had been losing it.

Speaker 2 (33m 48s): Yeah. I mean, we have some studios that sort of went out of business and exists now only on just for fans, because we have the traffic. I mean, do studios do as well as, as individual models, you know, I'm not going to make any bones about that. They don't. However, we have so much traffic that we have, we have so much more traffic than those individuals studios ever had. I mean, there was a, there's a website that just listed all of the, on the gay side anyway, all of the gay studios and, and their traffic numbers.

And we are bigger than I think all of them combined. And so there's a lot of reasons for a studio to want to at least have some kind of a, a finger in our plan.

Speaker 1 (34m 38s): Sure. Isn't that amazing to you as a performer, that performers can make the kind of money they make on these fan sites.

Speaker 2 (34m 47s): It is incredible. It's not a hyperbole to say that on a weekly basis, I, I hear from someone whose life has been changed, and these are especially coming from the studio world. And again, I was a producer, so I know, I know how this all works and how much models get paid and models get paid once they get a flat rate and that's it. And if their movie or DVD is the worst movie released this year, or the best movie in the last 10 years, they made their thousand dollars or their $1,500 or their $400.

Speaker 1 (35m 25s): Not really fair.

Speaker 2 (35m 26s): Yeah. And, and, and so these really famous models, I mean, you know, it's funny where like, you know, fame and fame and wealth are very distinct ideas, especially in the studio world. You can be the most famous model in the world and have two, $2 to you because you didn't work in the last six months and you didn't get paid that much to begin with. But now these models have agency. They have a passive, recurring income that they never had before. We can help them get health insurance.

I mean, it's just a whole new world, and I know models who were making half a million dollars a year or more on just your fans. And, and these are models that would have been making $20,000 a year. If they were just doing studio work,

Speaker 1 (36m 11s): That's gotta feel good to be a part of that.

Speaker 2 (36m 13s): It's, you know, if somebody years ago once asked me what my favorite day of the week was, I, I, and I know it sounds super, super, super corny, and I, if you're listening to this and you're rolling your eyes, I'm sorry, but Wednesday, Wednesdays are my favorite day because that's our payroll date. And I see how many people, we are giving money to getting money. And she's not the right. How many, how many people are earning money on our site? How much money we are putting in the pockets of our models.

And I know models who bought houses, I know models who have pay their way through school, who paid for health care for their parents. Like, I mean, these are real world, real world differences, not just, oh, I got, I got nicer shoes. No.

Speaker 1 (36m 60s): Right, right. That's crazy. So what are some of the key features of just for fans that your competitors don't have?

Speaker 2 (37m 8s): Boy, we've talked about so many of them,

Speaker 1 (37m 11s): Well, any you haven't mentioned

Speaker 2 (37m 12s): Well, so, so for example, on, on only fans specifically, I don't, I don't usually like to address competitors head on, but, but just thinking of them specifically, I know a lot of people have a free only fans page and a paid only fans page, which I just see as it's a waste of time and effort. So with our site, any post that you make, you can decide is a free post or only for your subscribers. And, and then anybody can follow your page for free, which means they just see, they just see on their, on their amalgamated homepage, which, which collects all the new stuff from people they're subscribed to.

They'll also see your stuff. But if they're not subscribed to you, they'll see the, the non-subscriber version, which has maybe a blurry picture or a preview, but they can at least, but you can still stay top of mind to them. But if you have something for free, they'll see it for free. And so you don't want it to maintain a separate free page. Your page can be as free as you want it to be. And there's no exact line, a direct line to convert them, to paying subscribers versus saying, click on this other page, which is my other site. I promise you it's really me.

Speaker 1 (38m 25s): Yeah. It's kind of clunky.

Speaker 2 (38m 27s): Yeah. So, I mean, so that's one feature, God, I mean, there's so many, I mean, we just, just as far as this and this comes because I'm, I was a model uploading something to our competitor sites. I had to create a preview for it. And I had to make a tweak for it. Our site, you can choose how long you want the preview to be. It makes the preview by itself. It tweets, it tweets out the preview by itself. If you're an exclusive and you can't film for two months, for whatever reason, or you're offline for two months, you can tell our system every day, just to tweet an old video of yours, just to make people think you're still current and around and keep you top of mind.

Speaker 1 (39m 10s): That's cool.

Speaker 2 (39m 11s): For example, and we're chock full of stuff like this,

Speaker 1 (39m 15s): Any, any exciting features coming up?

Speaker 2 (39m 19s): We just, well, not just anymore. I guess three, two months ago, three months ago, we had a retreat of the staff. We went to Disney world and which was a lot of fun. And part of that retreat was to sit and brainstorm ideas for the future. And that included what are our users are asking for and what we all, because they're all because my whole staff is on the site itself, but they would be helpful, et cetera. And we came up with this ginormous list of features.

One, one feature for example, is playlist. So now I, as a model, can group any number of my scenes in a specific order into a playlist

Speaker 1 (40m 3s): Of cool like

Speaker 2 (40m 3s): Music, let's say. Yeah. So let's say, for example, if I have a good example, let's say for example, that I'm, I routinely work with model X. I work with tons of models, but I, I worked with model X a lot, and I know that the two of us have a chemistry that people keep wanting to see. I can now make a playlist that is just our movies together. Or people are into fetish X that I do well, here's a collection of the fetish X scenes that I do.

And, and I can post those on my timeline. And, and, and so this was a feature that was requested and we took it one step further. So now users can across the whole site, make their own timelines for their pages. So if there's, if there's 15 models, I like, and, and there I have favorite scenes through each of them. I can collect those favorite scenes into my own playlist that I can either share publicly on my page or just private to myself. Cool. So for instance, that's a huge feature that we launched that came out of that meeting and yes, there are, there are tons more so stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (41m 12s): Okay. So how has COVID changed things for, just for France?

Speaker 2 (41m 17s): Well, it's no, it's no secret that COVID was very good for the adult industry. People were home. People still had money to spend and people watch porn. And it was also good for models who maybe were toying with the idea of getting into the industry or who, who then began to think about other ways to make money. And so we saw this a gigantic influx of, of both models and customers, and, and even now as, as COVID is, I dare say in his latter days, cause who the hell knows what's coming next?

Speaker 1 (41m 55s): Yeah. It was like, sounded like Freddy Krueger. You never know that he's actually gone away.

Speaker 2 (41m 59s): Yeah. So don't quote me on that one, but, but I, with the, but now that we've learned to live our lives, co-existing with COVID numbers have not gone down. I think some, I think some models who joined the site just to see if they can make money because they're other jobs were laid them off or what have you maybe went back to those lives and are not doing anymore, but frankly that's fine. It's, it's kind of the people who weren't that serious about it are, are leaving.

And that leaves more opportunity to leave for the people who actually view this as a, as a job

Speaker 1 (42m 35s): In, and if they made money, I'm sure they're still doing it

Speaker 2 (42m 37s): For, for sure.

Speaker 1 (42m 39s): So besides features, what's next for, just for fans,

Speaker 2 (42m 43s): Let's see. We, we always have an annual party and we did not last year, obviously because of COVID and this year, again, we, we were planning it and then Omicron happened and I think we're going to not do it again this year, but, but when we have our events, we it's, we it's three of them. There's a models, only party where models can feel comfortable and safe in a safe environment just to meet each other. And certainly tons of models, film at the party and, and, and at the hotels where we're at, et cetera, we have a second party, that's a public party where models can meet fans and vice versa.

And then we have a, and then we have a day of seminars and seminars and workshops. Last, last time we did it. I think there were four or five expert panels, all made up of models on the, on the site that been into various categories or have certain expertise, teaching, teaching people, their secrets, how to be successful, how they're successful, what tricks and tools they've learned along the road. And it's, I cannot tell you how many models, even the experienced ones who are maybe successful at studio porn, but maybe don't know how to market themselves as well, because they never had to listen to these workshops and immediately had 20 or 30 things to try the next day to make themselves more profitable.

And so we're going to, so this year the parties are probably not going to happen, but we will do this learning event virtually for our models because it was it's too important to not do it. Yeah. So, I mean, so that's on the horizon and, and we're sponsoring a ton of award shows. The, the trans erotic awards are coming up, that we're a major sponsor of gravity's Europe, Grabbys America and the experts award and the, the expert is a show we just did. So, you know, and we're, and we're ramping up on our events again.

So we're, we're kind of also placed.

Speaker 1 (44m 42s): That's great. So last question, what's your goal for just for fans?

Speaker 2 (44m 47s): So I kind of alluded to this earlier, but the people, the models who are on just for fans have found a safe space where they don't have to have anxiety over weather today. When I wake up is today, the day that my account gets shut down or, or videos on my account get removed because I have somehow violated some new terms of service that sprung up overnight, that no one told us about Our, our models don't have those issues.

And, and I would love the rest of the industry. Who's not on just for fans. And, and that includes the, the gay guys who are not on us, but also includes the, the large groups of, of other types of people like straight women, straight CIS women, for example, who just haven't really considered us for whatever their reasons to, to realize that, that we're, we're probably the safest home that that is around right now.

Speaker 1 (45m 50s): Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised more didn't flock to you after the whole only fans fiasco.

Speaker 2 (45m 56s): Well, you know, it's, it's funny and this is maybe a tangent and, but a lot of these people at that moment said, why, why isn't there a site built by someone in the industry that we can trust? And I'm like, well, there is,

Speaker 1 (46m 11s): Hello.

Speaker 2 (46m 12s): Hi, been here for, for, at that time three and a half years, but, but the straight side really kind of either turn their nose up at us or wasn't aware of us or, or something. I don't want to put words in their, in their mouth. And then a news, a news site came along who I'm not going to name. And they grabbed a bunch of the women from only fans and promised them 90% for three or six months or something. And here's a new site, not from the industry and nobody knows who owns it.

And all of the women went there and it really,

Speaker 1 (46m 46s): They went because somebody flashed the cash in front of them.

Speaker 2 (46m 49s): Yeah. Someone flashed the cash and all of this moral high ground of why isn't there a site built for us from us. They didn't care because they saw 90%. And so that makes me throw my hands up and be like, you know, what, if, if you're never going to come to us, then I will, I will spend my time elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (47m 10s): Never's a long time. Dominic, never's a long time.

Speaker 2 (47m 13s): So, I mean, I mean, maybe we do the same thing. Maybe we, we flashed the cash, but, but if, but if people are so fickle, I mean, I learned this from my dot-com days, my, my main street.com days, if, if people are only interested in your brand, because of the discounts that you give and, or in this case, the incentives that you give, then they will leave you the minute someone else does one better. Right. And those are the people that I want.

Speaker 1 (47m 37s): Yeah, no, I understand now as it should be. Well, Hey, Dominic, I'd like to thank you for being our guests to Dan adult side broker talk. And I hope we'll get a chance to do this again really soon.

Speaker 2 (47m 48s): I appreciate it. And thank you for the time and the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (47m 52s): Hey man, it was a blast. My broker tip today is part three of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later, find new ways to monetize your site, such as sell advertising. If you've got a free site, like a tube, that's the best way to monetize your site. If you have a tube, another way to make more money is to sell premium memberships, offer free users, one level of content. And for premium users, you can do things like give them higher quality or longer videos or both.

You can also make the site ad free for premium members. Start an affiliate program. If you have a pay site, this is a great way to increase your quality of traffic and get more joints with all sites. You can figure out other upgrades and products you can sell to your users. Pay sites can also sell, pay per view, where people have the option of paying by the scene for content they can't get on the site. This is also another way to charge users as opposed to a monthly fee, sell them other products like toys and novelties market, your business, do things to improve your search engine results.

There are some great SEO consultants out there who can help you get higher search rankings in Google. If you want some recommendations, contact us on our site list, all of the benefits of your site and your marketing and how they affect the user. And of course, hire a great marketing consulting firms, such as adult B2B marketing, which we also happen to own eliminate unneeded expenses constantly make sure you're not spending money. You don't need to make sure there isn't duplication in your staffing from time to time check services you pay for like hosting and see if there are better and less expensive options.

Take it from me. I've done this and saved a bunch. Plus got higher quality hosting in the process. Again, ask us for recommendations. Always look for ways to do things more cost-effectively along with this, make your profit and loss statement, show more profit, increasing sales and reducing expenses obviously does just that make sure your P and L statement accurately reflects your company's actual costs. Not a bunch of personal expenses you put in. This will cost you money when you sell it may help you with the tax man to put that stuff on your tax return, but it hurts you.

If you show that stuff on your profit and loss statement, remember every dollar in profit increases the value of your website. As much as three to four times, this is why you need a good experience broker to help lead you through the process. We've gotten people thousands of dollars, more on their sale just by adjusting the P and L statement to accurately reflect actual business expenses as to oppose to a bunch of tax BS. We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week, we'll be speaking with Mike of the free speech coalition.

And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest Dominic Ford. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.