Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 123 with Dan Hogue of Pornstar Platinum and TransErotica

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 Dan Hogue of Pornstar Platinum and Trans Erotica.

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Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker talk is Dan Ho, Director of Operations at Porn Star Platinum and Trans erotica. He's also co-founder of Razor Edge Talent. Dan, thanks for being back with us today on Adult Site Broker Talk. Happy

Speaker 2 (2m 40s): To be with you,

Speaker 1 (2m 41s): Bruce. Dan, it's always a pleasure. Now, Dan started in 1998 in the amateur market with his then wife and had the first swinging couple site on the internet. He morphed this into starting a CAM network with other amateurs, and then he rolled that into one of the top cam companies, Cam Z I remember it, Walden, which specialized in cam shows for amateurs and porn stars to broadcast shows to their member areas. Now, Dan spent 15 years in the CAM business and won Best Live cam site from Ex Biz, as well as an industry pioneer award for innovations and live cams.

Now, Dan is now director of operations at Porn Star Platinum and Trans, which I said he's also heavily involved in channels management for porn stars. After 23 years in the business, Dan is still actively involved in the industry and still loving every minute of it. Hey, let's start there, Dan. You still love every minute of it.

Speaker 3 (3m 37s): Absolutely. The good and the bad. There's a, there's a fair amount of, of both when you're dealing directly, I, not only with owners, program owners, but talent and trying to coordinate with talent and make it all come together on the production side as well as the business side. So I get a pretty good mix of, of all of it, and sure, it's a lot of fun, but it's challenging. It's challenging and it keeps me motivated.

Speaker 1 (4m 6s): So, yeah, I mean, and, and it's interesting because you, you have such a well rounded amount of experience in the adult industry, starting with an amateur swing site and then then cams, and now you're in the management end. I really don't know anybody who has as much experience in the industry really

Speaker 3 (4m 30s): Well diversified. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 (4m 33s): Yeah.

Speaker 3 (4m 33s): Right. Kind of a jack of all trades, master of none, as they say.

Speaker 1 (4m 38s): Oh, I wouldn't say that.

Speaker 3 (4m 39s): You know, I, you know, I've had, I've, I've done a lot with, you know, on the business end as well as from working with directly with performers now a lot. Sure. I see from their perspective as well. So it's, yeah, I have a pretty good, you know, working knowledge of what it takes on the back end to run a successful program, as well as how to be successful as a performer and help them be more successful and how the two intertwine to help both the companies that they, they work with and for and, and help how those companies can then help them help the other performers as well succeed.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (5m 22s): Yeah. Now talk about your journey in adult and where it's taken you.

Speaker 3 (5m 26s): Oh, wow. From the beginning, obviously we got into it for fun. We got into it Yeah. Because of our lifestyle. Sure. It was a way, you know, I think I told this story once before where we were, we had cut and tired of kind of hitting on our friends who were not necessarily in the lifestyle. So we went online and we met this girl and her and her husband, and she happened to be, and we hit it off and we went back to their hotel room at a, after meeting at a, a swing club in Kansas City.

Yeah. She came up, she, she just said, Hey, would you like to take pictures for our website? And we're like, Sure. And it was a great icebreaker, and it was the, it was a great, it was just, Yeah. And it gave us something to do and it was fun. And you know, the next thing you know, we're all, we're having a good time. We're, you know, having sex and taking pictures and having a, you know, it just, and a light bulb went off in my head, said, We gotta do this. This is fun. And so we kind of grew from there. And then, you know, the, the bad end of it is you get outed eventually and, and our children being at an age where they wouldn't understand.

So obviously we moved away from Kansas, Conservative Kansas to Florida, and we kind of changed paths from being our, our own being stars of our own, or being performers of our own, excuse me. And then into more of helping others be successful, managing their websites, hosting them for free. We started a cam network traffic and things like that. So we started getting and transferring more into the service side.

Speaker 1 (7m 8s): Yeah. Then it took you to, to Cam Z, which was quite a success.

Speaker 3 (7m 12s): It was, and it was a lot of fun, I gotta tell you that, especially the early years of, of Cams z that was, that was a blast of building it. And I, you know, I always loved the process of building and, and helping others. And it, you know, it was, in the beginning we were, you know, there was a lot of member area traffic from the amateurs themselves, but they were getting siphoned from other cam networks, and we developed one where we gave back to the performers and they would get the majority of the traffic as well.

They should, during their time as doing their shows. And we would sell those shows to other companies who didn't have the luxury of having a live performance, you know, But, and then we would actually even pay the performers additional revenue in addition to the traffic that they got. So it's a really good model for a long time until the tubes came out and started, you know, doing what they did to the, to the members areas.

Speaker 1 (8m 13s): Yeah.

Speaker 3 (8m 14s): The amateur market. We all know what they did. What, what happened there. So

Speaker 1 (8m 18s): You were in Cams for a long time. Any itch to get back into it?

Speaker 3 (8m 22s): I always have, you know, it, it's always been the passion. It's where my, it, it is where my heart actually lies in, in Live Cam. But at the same time, I really like, and, and I can give the pointers to my, to the talent that I I help today with, you know, whether it be advice on their only fans and or their channels to do Live cam, that the interaction is so important and it really does make a difference.

Speaker 1 (8m 58s): Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, everything you've always done has been very performer focused. Why is that?

Speaker 3 (9m 6s): The, they're the cog and the wheel that, you know, they're the engine, right? Yeah. Everybody says the content is king. Right. And well, without performers you don't have content. Sure. And I, it, they're the most fun, you know, like if you think back the parties of old and you've been around long enough to know, you know, it was always the amateurs having fun. It was always the, the porn stars or the amateurs that were the life of the party and what made this industry great.

I mean, yeah, it's, it's fun to hang around and network with the business guys and the guys hanging out and stuff like that. But realistically we go to shows not only to do business, but to have fun. Yeah. And ever since the performers and the amateurs were pretty much chased out of this business. It's not as fun at shows, you know, it is much more business oriented, but that's not necessarily always a bad thing when it comes to business in general, you know? But there is a lot less fun at shows.

Speaker 1 (10m 8s): Yeah. You can go to shows now, and if you didn't know better, you would swear it's an insurance convention or something like that,

Speaker 3 (10m 17s): Right? Yeah, yeah. Or a sausage fest. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (10m 22s): I was thinking that. I was absolutely, You were thinking that too. It's a hundred percent a sausage fest. Oh, 99%, let's say. So maybe you can tell us what's happened since we last spoke.

Speaker 3 (10m 36s): Oh, quite a bit. I, I did get divorced. I was married for a little over a year to a performer and Right. You know, so that didn't work out. And I followed for divorce and, you know, just, it been super, super busy with expanding as well as the, the, you know, going through some changes over at Porn Star Platinum and trans erotica. We took on Crush Girls as well, which is kind of the OC modelings version of Porn Star Platinum.

And I have taken over production now for those, for those three, primarily Transa and Porn Star Platinum, as well as expanded into the, you know, more and more into the channels management and fan site, you know, consulting

Speaker 1 (11m 31s): Right. Now. Tell me more about Porn Star Platinum and Transa. What are their strengths?

Speaker 3 (11m 37s): Well, right now, yeah, we are kind of going through a lot of changes and we're kind of going with the flow where we were relying strictly on solo girl sites. We would build the sites around there around say, a Lower Jensen know a Clear Clouds, Lea Falcon and others. We would rely on them to come for us for updates and come to us for updates and, and, and update the sites. It got, with the proliferation of the fan sites and the channels where the girls are making so much money that sure, they really didn't care about the, the ancillary revenue anymore of a website.

And they didn't, they don't really need the content because now that they've been doing fan sites for so long, they've become really good at creating their own content. Yeah. Back in the day when we were doing trade content, because we are a trade content company, it was very important for them to have that content. So they, it was, it was, we became a necessary, necessary evil, so to speak, that they come to us for trade content, We build a site that gets a little bit of ancillary revenue from it, from the, what their site will generate.

At the same time they get quality professionally shot content that they can use on their channels, on their porn hub, on their only fans, what, whatever their loyal fans, whatever fan site or, or channels that they chose to go on. And so it was, it was a valuable service. We provide them not only professionally shot raw content, but they also get the edited version as well. So we have a cost saving factor, a time saving factor as well as a quality of content.

Yeah. But now they've become more and more so we've had to adjust with the times. We are now doing some pay trade, we are doing more pay trade content where we offer some revenue as well as the content the same way we did back when we were just trade. You know, they get the raw, they get the edited version of the content as well as a few bucks in their pocket to go along with it. And then sometimes if we, if they want a specific mail and we design the content around too, that we, we produce content that sells well for them.

Yes. Because in the reality is if it sells well for them, it's probably gonna sell well for us as well. That is a little, that's a change recently that both trans erotica and porn star platinum have gone through as far as production. So we do, we do offer paid trades now.

Speaker 1 (14m 10s): So with the types of sites out there, like only fans, do you find that there's, there's a shortage of models to work with?

Speaker 3 (14m 20s): No, Proliferation is, it's incredible the amount of girls now when it comes to like porn star platinum, for instance, it is named porn star platinum, not creator Platinum. Right.

Speaker 1 (14m 34s): So

Speaker 3 (14m 34s): We kind of, we're kind of limited on we, we need porn stars. Yeah. We need people who, who are proud to call themselves porn stars who've earned that. And you know, like creators, there's some wonderful creators who, sure, in my eyes, natural porn stars, they live the lifestyle. They beautiful. They're, they know how to perform just kill a scene. And however, they're just, they don't consider them porn stars. They don't consider themselves porn stars.

And maybe our fans don't either, but because they're creators, but they're pretty well known. So we just, you know, for, in that realm, I think it's a little bit of a challenge when it comes to transa. There are so many new stars, so many beautiful women that are popping up. You know, the expansion of female to male trans too is really been an expanding market now and evolving one as well. So, you know, Transa, there's a lot of fantastic new performers coming on, coming on the scene.

And we certainly are one to reach out to those who are looking to, to grow their brand and to increase their exposure and to get the content. So yeah, there's no, there's certainly no shortage of people to work with on either side and there. And not to, sorry, you know, not to be longwinded or anything, but even I was talking with Sandra from OC modeling wonderful agency and she even, you know, cuz I was mentioning that, hey, we're gonna go to this paid trade stuff.

How do we work? How does that work with you agents? Oh, we have a list. And I'm like, Oh, you have a list. Yeah, we have girls or n males that do paid trade and there's, here's a rate sheet for their paid trades, so we can now go to the agencies for these paid trades. Great. Yeah. Makes it easier.

Speaker 1 (16m 36s): Do you think that the term porn star is overused in the industry?

Speaker 3 (16m 42s): No, not really.

Speaker 1 (16m 44s): I mean, do you think, do you think some people who aren't necessarily, do you think that that too many people who aren't necessarily porn stars use it?

Speaker 3 (16m 52s): Look, if you're cre in my opinion, if you're a creator and you have fans, you're a porn star in my eyes. Okay. You know, but I don't, you know, I work for the company. I, I don't, you know, I don't own it. I, you know, I, I'm, at the end of the day, I'm an employee of porn star platinum and, you know, if, if their definition of porn star does it, it, it may or may not match what my definition of porn star is.

Speaker 1 (17m 19s): This is true. But

Speaker 3 (17m 20s): In the, in the end, what our fans want is equality quality content. So there are times when I find creators as, as defined by my, my rules that I was handed. You know, And, and I would say that no, they're, they're definitely porn stars. They have followers that would shadow many porn stars, you know? And so in my eyes that's, you know, know where the, where the metal meets the, or the rubber meets the road as they say.

Speaker 1 (17m 55s): Okay. So how do you feel about the push from government and organizations pushing for accountability and content verification now the third party op upload sites are responding.

Speaker 3 (18m 9s): Yeah, I think they, you know, it's kind of what we've done in this industry throughout my tenure in it is the mistakes of a few costs. Tremendous hassle for the many. And I think this is another example, and it's a reaction from those mistakes of a few that has now caused many of us to jump through a bunch of hoops now. Yeah. It is a logical fix and insurance policy that is, you know, the credit cards feel that it's necessary in order to protect their brands, to make us accountable and, and to police, since we didn't police ourselves in the beginning, you know, that, or with the companies that made these errors that caused this steam role effect.

You know, we have now since we didn't police ourselves, which we're normally we're really good at, but we did the same thing with credit cards. You know, when people were slamming credit cards and, you know, chasing down 25% chargeback ratios, you know, it wasn't before, it wasn't long before the credit card companies came back and said, Okay, you now have, if you get over 5% or two and a half percent chargebacks, you're gonna, you know, we're gonna cut you off. And then, Oh, that's not good enough. We're gonna go to one and half percent or 1%. Yeah.

So it's kind of like the same thing is happening now with age verification and you know, like accountability for, they're trying to make these third party upload sites more accountable and because they didn't make it account themselves accountable, they would, you know, they Right. There was a select few that made some egregious errors that they're now paying for dearly. And unfortunately the pressure, I think of some organizations to that are associated, have their brands associated with that get hurt and overreact.

It's kind of like where the airlines had that one guy who tried to light his shoe on fire, Now we all have to take our shoes off. Exactly. There was one example

Speaker 1 (20m 21s): Actors, right, that actors always mess up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They mess it up for everybody. There's no two ways about it. Do you think Visa and MasterCard are, are falling to the pressure from these organizations and what can be done about it?

Speaker 3 (20m 35s): Absolutely. I think that's what this is. The, the, they, when MasterCard especially came out with their guidelines for, especially for third party uploads, which is really what's causing so many issues where you either have to be, you know, and, and for creators think about a creator, they now have to verify, Oh hey, do you, you know, like instead of just doing a shoot with somebody, even if they do paperwork, they really cannot, it's not good enough because if you're not tagging the other person, you're not able to tag the other per person on the specific platform that you are on.

It's very difficult for you to use that content on that platform. Right? Sure. So you have to find people who are on the platform that, or platforms that you are on and, and then arrange trade shoots or content shoots with them and then, you know, still do the paperwork and due diligence and all that and, and testing and all that. But v said MasterCard are definitely falling to the pressure and, you know, they, they are the gatekeepers of our business and Yep.

They, they know it, we lose them. We are done as an industry pretty

Speaker 1 (21m 57s): Much. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21m 59s): You know, we can see that through how not successful some of the, you know, the one who, the, the one site who shall the nameless, mainly because I've been doing a lot of extra work for them, but you know, they, they, they lost theirs and their revenue is a fraction based on Bitcoin or, you know, crypto or however how whatever other forms that they're trying to get through that's not credit card related.

Sure. We, we know that, you know, that it's gonna be a fraction of the revenue and if we lose the ability to take credit cards, we're all done.

Speaker 1 (22m 38s): Yeah. Pretty much. Until somebody comes up with an alternative that the public will accept, we're stuck with credit cards. It's, that's, you know, that's pretty much mainly for the US Obviously in Europe and some other places, there are other payment forms that are used primarily, but even Europe credit card usage has gone up. There's no two ways about it. What are some obstacles as we, as an industry are facing over the next year or so?

Speaker 3 (23m 7s): Oh, that's kind of fluid. I think, you know, if you would've asked me, I would've said credit cards. Yeah. Because I think they're under a lot of pressure, both politically and from the extreme right. To, you know, attack us and they're threatening our ability to take charge. I mean, if they were to hire me to do it, I would, That's exactly how I would go about it. The, I think right now I think it's economics. I think the economy there, you know, here it's, we're about to click over to the 15th of July, right.

And we're, we're about to get a lot of numbers that are released for about our economy. And some of this stuff had leaked out early regarding inflationary numbers that we haven't seen since Jimmy Carter and, and the early days of Ronald Reagan when, when he first started his, his tenure. And, you know, we haven't seen economic, you know, inflation in the not over 9% since, you know, since those 90 what, 91 timeframes.

And, and so it's, it's a little scary times here in the US and, and people don't know it. Like the, there was a quote from JP Morgan Chase ceo. He said, There's this, there's a, a hurricane, an economic hurricane off the coast. We just don't know what scale it is yet. So buckle up. Yeah. I mean, that was his quote. Wow. So it's, that's kind of scary when you think about the economy and the inflationary numbers that I'm seeing and that we've all seen that the gas pump, whether it's the gas pump, whether it's the grocery stores, whether it's your rent or you're, you're, you know, now the interest rates are going up, which is, you know, they, they were at zero.

So it, it put the fed in a really difficult position because, and but it's a natural thing when you pump in 12, what did we pump in 20 billion, 20 trillion into the economy over covid. Yeah. You know, I think it was somewhere around 20 trillion that we printed and eventually that's gonna catch up. Course. That's, that's what's happening. And so that's the biggest scare for me is the economy and you know, like cuz most of our revenue comes from the US and Great Britain and, you know, some of the great economies of the world now we're gonna get hit a little harder I think, than anybody else, in my opinion, cuz we're less prepared for it.

Speaker 1 (25m 33s): Yeah. And we usually get hit first and we recover first is, is how it, how it tends to work when these things happen because the entire world responds to the US economy. So it's, the rest of the world reacts to what happens in, in the US And I should give the standard disclaimer, we're recording this in July, as you say, July 15th. So, and it will run sometime in September. So I noticed the move from NVC talent to now razor edge talent.

What happened there?

Speaker 3 (26m 9s): Biggest thing was probably divorce, excuse mec, new verticals consulting was a company that my, my then wife and I had started and when we went our separate ways through roundabout different things that happened between us, I ended up starting Razor edge talent with my now partner, Bambi Bliss. And it, it turned out to be a very good move. We have really made, you know, it, and not, not to too our own horns or anything, but we've hit our stride and just, it's so much.

And you, you know, if you were to ask me what keeps me going, you know, like changing people's lives, really, it's a reality for me now. I've always wanted to be in philanthropy and this is about as close as I'm gonna get because I no longer have a cam site that I'm gonna be able to sell for, you know, the 20 million or whatever it is to start a foundation and, and Right. And get into philanthropy. So this is about as close as I can get and just make a difference in people's lives and you know, and we are, and that's that right to me is most rewarding.

And so that the primary thing is basically just change of ownership.

Speaker 1 (27m 25s): Yeah. So along with that, how are you enjoying talent management and how's the new company doing?

Speaker 3 (27m 33s): Phenomenal. Like four x star revenue over the last quarter. Wow. Yeah. And it's, it's been, it's been a really mixture of good and very, very sad and dramatic times with some performers, you know, losing loved ones. And I actually unfortunately had been called by one of my clients to her house to check on her fiance. And it was a, I, you know, unlocked her car remotely from where she was at.

And unfortunately I had found him passed in his bed, he passed peacefully and it just, it just, it was, it was such a horrible day and you know, like, and just, yeah, I bet there's, you know, with some and other ones, you know, going through very much trauma of their own and reliving again some trauma that they've gone through, you know, and just dealing with you cuz they're, you know, they're not only my clients, you know, I don't, I never look at people who work with me as clients, but the more my friends and family Yes.

And I, I take that responsibility and so does my partner. We take that responsibility very, very seriously. And people ask me, he says, Dan, you really need to take some time for yourself. And I said, well, I would if I worked for myself, but I, you know, and, and if, if I was responsible only for me and my business or my income, it'd be great. I can do that. I can go on a vacation, I can take that time off if I need to. Sure. When you're responsible for the livelihoods of families, you know, 20, 30 families, then you don't have that luxury anymore.

It's kind of like when you have, when you have kids, I like when my children had my grandbabies, I said, Your life is no longer your own. It belongs to that little, little one in your arms now. And to me that's kind of like how my clients and my friends are for me. It's like I take their, the responsibility that they lay at my feet very seriously. Yeah. And I'm gonna work hard every day and, and my team works very hard and my partner works very hard every day, seven days a week to do the best job we can for them and, and earn them as much as we can.

And we are, we're, you know, it's fun and rewarding to see the life-changing revenues that, that we're seeing

Speaker 1 (30m 9s): Now. You used to be a, an entrepreneur and didn't work for anybody, now you do work for a company. What do you find the difference to be for you? Besides No, besides no vacations. Right.

Speaker 3 (30m 24s): I never got one of those either with them by the way. It's just saying and I still don't, but you know what they, you know, I work for JC Baumgartner primarily my, is my immediate guy. Right? Yeah. There's, there's a, there's not a lot of Indians. There's a lot of chiefs in our companies and he's a great guy and I'm internally grateful for him. He pulled me, you know, when I lost everything. And I mean, when I, when I say I lost everything, I lost everything. My family, I

Speaker 1 (30m 53s): Remember,

Speaker 3 (30m 53s): I remember my family, my business, my cars, my watches, anything, anything that was valued. But you know, obviously the only thing I like, you know, at that time I cared about where my kids and Sure. I focused on them and, and, and you know, he, it was a very dark place, I'll just say that. And John Baumgartner jc he, he pulled me out of that by giving me a, an opportunity to come to work and, and move to Vegas after my children had empty nested me.

And I'm eternally grateful for that. And he has my undying loyalty and gratitude and, you know, the porn star platinum and Transa. I will, I hope to always be a part of it. And, and as long as they'll have me, I will do it and I will do it to my, the best of my ability and for no other reason for that. Yeah. And you know, I really like it and I like the, the direction that they're heading. They're moving away from the solo girl sites and moving more to a network site where we're doing paid trade as opposed to just trade.

We're, we're not relying on the girls for updating a website. We're, we're going also to full paid. We're doing some cam stuff again, which is exciting for me. We, I bet. Yeah. We're doing a black label. I, I guess, you know, without giving away too much, it's very similar to a very large company that's out there. But we're gonna do it on a smaller scale of course. But it's, it's modeled after something else. But, you know, I guess, but it is going to be exciting and fun for me once it gets up and running.

Speaker 1 (32m 36s): When will that be?

Speaker 3 (32m 38s): We probably by the, maybe by the time this airs. I, you know, I really hope, you know, it's a, it's a process right now. I'm still trying to make the adjustments on taking over production because that has been thrown on my lap and that's not something that I normally had done. So they, for they, fortunately they gave me an assistant to work with and to dump some things off of that I would normally do and to enable me some additional time to do content. But it's kind of tough because I'm so personable and our, our household and, and Bambi and I, the way we run both business, our business and our relationship with porn star platinum and trans erotica is that, you know, we have, we have talent staying at our house all the time.

You know, whether because we, when we invite people to shoot with us, we invite them to stay with us a lot of times too. Yeah. Because it's a nice safe place. They don't, they don't have to spend money on hotels when they travel and things like that. Right. So, you know, it's, it's a, it's one of those things where it's great and on the other side you never really have any time for yourself, but Sure. So that, that adjustment's been great for me and keeps me going. But, and that's probably the biggest change for Porn Star Platinum and Transa that's coming down the pike is our focus more on the quality of content, the, and returning our, the quality of our name back to it.

Sure. We went through a rough patch where we, we, you know, we had some issues with content being delivered on in a timely manner. We no longer have those issues. Okay. And we've, we've, we've increased and improved the quality of the content, the shoot houses that are available to us and just the overall way we treat people and we're changing the culture of the company, you know, one performer at a time, as I say.

Speaker 1 (34m 35s): Awesome. Now how are you feeling about the overall future of networks like Porn Star, Platinum and Transa?

Speaker 3 (34m 44s): Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting couple of years. I think as the economy, I think that's where it's gonna hurt the worst. Right. In my opinion, it's going, we're gonna see much like we did in the 2008 to 2012 range. I think we're gonna see a drastic reduction in the amount of programs that are smaller programs that survive. I do think porn star platinum and Transa is ripe for survival.

They'll, they're not going anywhere are, are our cost of production versus the, you know, revenues I think are really good. And our ratios, our, our conversion ratios are phenomenal. It's just a matter of getting enough the traffic obviously, but as the economy is going to test everything. So Yeah. And as our, as the credit cards start to get maxed out and we, our rebuilds start to decline and, you know, those types of things or people don't, are reluctant to break out their credit cards or have less expends.

But there's, you know, what we, what we did learn from 2008 to 2012 is that women will never give up their hair and getting their hairs and nail done. Right. And men will never give up their porn. This is true. So those are the two things that are pretty much economy proof and thank God we're in the business. We are and I'm not in the hair business, so, but I do have a friend who is, and I almost wish I was, cause that guy's a billionaire now and, but Oh wow.

And we met in this, in this industry, but in 2000, I think it was like 2010, he got into the hair, hair, organic hair systems and stuff, so Wow. Yeah. Mole to him cuz

Speaker 1 (36m 42s): Hey baby, whatever works. Right. But

Speaker 3 (36m 44s): I think, yeah, I think that's the biggest challenge for us. And I think the future, you know, is gonna be a challenge for the next few years as we fight through the economy, economic issues.

Speaker 1 (36m 54s): Sure. I agree. Now what's next for Dan Ho?

Speaker 3 (36m 59s): Continue to continue to be diversified. I, I really looking forward to this project with the cam once we get it going as a personal level, but the, just the continue to strive, go through the growing pains that we're, we're already going through. We've planned ahead for, you know, I've been in this, I've been in the business a while and been self-employed my entire life and I learned a lot of valuable lessons when I was younger regarding forecasting and planning for growth so that when you do reach that growing point, you don't tip over.

Yeah. And so we planned ahead for this and we're in a great shape to, and we're, we're fairly expandable very quickly. So that's really where I'm at is right now we're in growth mode on everything. Whether it's porn, star, platinum, trans erotica, razor edge talent. We're, we're just blowing up and, and doing everything we can to expand there

Speaker 1 (38m 1s): With so many more of them out there now with all the creators. What advice would you give to performers today?

Speaker 3 (38m 9s): Stay true to yourself. You know, you have a lot of power, but it's not as easy as you think. You know, with great power comes great responsibility. Right? Before the responsibility was always on the companies. They had to hire you, they had to pay you, they had to fly you out, they had to do all this. Well now you're doing a lot of that yourself. You're the one that's being, being the creator. You're the one who's being the producer. You're the one who sometimes is being the editor or Yeah.

The marketer. You have to do all of those things or, or, or hire for it. So, you know, and at the same time you want to try to have a life and in quality of life. So Sure. My advice to them is find a balance. You know, that there are, there are people out there that can help them consult with them, that can, that can do some of the things and take some things off their hands. There's obviously a lot of things that they have to do personally, but it's a lot of work. It's not easy, it wasn't easy for companies to, to blow up and make a lot of money.

And it's not necessarily easy for a performer to do it, even with help sometimes it, it's still work. And if they're expecting to not work, they're not going to be successful. So I would would go into that with the mindset of, hey, keep your work ethic in check and really, really buckle down and learn. If not learn, then find the people around you that are successful in what they do that where you need them and apply that.

But be true to yourself and trust your instincts, you

Speaker 1 (39m 48s): Know? Okay. Now what do you think about AVN and X Biz and really all the shows finally returning to live formats?

Speaker 3 (39m 56s): Hey, not only that, did you see the dates for AVN

Speaker 1 (40m 0s): Dates? I haven't noticed, No.

Speaker 3 (40m 2s): They, they went back to co corresponding with ces.

Speaker 1 (40m 6s): Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (40m 7s): I literally just noticed that today cuz they sent out an

Speaker 1 (40m 9s): Email. Oh, it's later.

Speaker 3 (40m 10s): It's no, it's at the same time.

Speaker 1 (40m 12s): No, but I mean, it's later than it was last year that the, was last year.

Speaker 3 (40m 18s): Yeah. Ex I'm talking about AVN and I love the fact that Xbi is doing the X three. You know, I love, I love that organization. Absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (40m 30s): Doing some nice work on, on their shows for,

Speaker 3 (40m 32s): They always have, you know, they, the a the a plus people, phenomenal. And I'm glad to see them be the, they were the first last year and ran their successful show. Unfortunately, I didn't make it because of family issues, but I, I absolutely love the fact that we're going back to live shows. And I love the fact that, that, you know, when I first started in avn it was AVN and ces, you know, even as, as amateurs and, you know, they would have all these business guys come over and it really kind of made a difference.

And I'm hoping that going back to that will, because they kind of avoided each other for a while and it really changed the whole dynamic of avn and I'm kind of hoping that it, it restores some of that glory Yeah. Of that particular show. And I like the venue, you know, Vegas World or what is it? No, Resorts World is a phenomenal building. I'm very excited about it. And, and at edX biz as well. And this year going to Europe, I, you know, I plan on, you know, going to the European shows.

Speaker 1 (41m 43s): Oh, are you gonna be at, are you gonna be at Tes?

Speaker 3 (41m 45s): I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do more over the next year in Europe and great,

Speaker 1 (41m 50s): I'll see you

Speaker 3 (41m 51s): There. I I've still look back to getting back to there and I, I still wanna hit up porno Dan in Budapest and stuff and catch up with him. Sure. Yeah. Oh, he's awesome. I missed that. What a great

Speaker 1 (42m 2s): Guy. Oh, he's a, he's a wild man, but he's a, he's an amazing guy. I love following him on, on Facebook and seeing him with all his girls. Right. He's, he is one of a kind, There's no two ways about it by the way. One, one correction. Yeah. X three is a great show. I think the first Creator show was actually why Not Community? Which is an amazing show as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they were the first on that, on that format and X business followed now and I, I heard great things about both events.

Well Dan, hey, I'd like to thank you for being back again on Adult Site Broker talk and I hope we'll have a chance to do this again soon.

Speaker 3 (42m 42s): You bet. Look forward to it. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (42m 44s): Thanks for being here. My broker tip today is part nine of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Last week we talked about what information to provide a potential buyer. Here's more. Tell them what's special or different about your site, How is it unique? Make sure and include a list of all the websites you're selling in addition to any domains that come along with the sale, is there anything that adds value to the sale? Provide them with any additional information upon request before giving a buyer any information.

Have them sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you use a broker, the NDA will be provided for you. Good brokers like, oh I don't know, adult site Broker have a large resource of potential buyers that are looking for properties just like yours and they know how to deal with buyers. They will also negotiate the terms of the sale such as price and any payment terms before closing the sale. Find a good escrow service to make sure that both the buyer and the seller are protected.

We have those resources of course. Let's talk about some of the factors that influence the sales price of a website. Number one is always profit. It will be a multiple of the profit and that multiple is based on whether the profit is trending up or down and how fast it's trending up or down. I've seen valuations of as much as five times, although that's very rare. Normally it's in the two and a half to four times area. I've also seen valuations of one time if the profit is taking a nose dive.

We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll be speaking with SafferMaster and Lady Petra of Slubb USA. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest Dan Hogue. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.