Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 147 with Todd Spaits of Yanks Cash

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Todd Spaits of Yanks Cash. Adult Site Broker is proud to announce the launch of our new website, adult Site Broker three point oh at adultsitebroker.com.

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The code was developed in-house by their team of engineers. This is a great opportunity to enter the exciting world of live streaming video For a modest cost. Platforms like this cost a lot more to build from scratch, only $540,000. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Like Broker Talk is Todd Spades of Yanks Cash. Todd, thanks for being with us today on Adult Site Broker talk.

Speaker 2 (2m 54s): You're welcome. Looking, look, I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (2m 56s): Happy to have you. It's been a bit of time that it took to get you on, but I guess cross continent move Will will cause some delays.

Speaker 2 (3m 5s): Yeah, yeah. We just, Billy and I just relocated from, from Arizona to Valencia, Spain. The process was about four months with getting furniture, you know, shipped over and, and it was just, it was, it was an ordeal. But now we are fully moved in and it's, it's great.

Speaker 1 (3m 21s): It's awesome. Now Todd is a 20 year veteran of the industry, co-founder of Yanks Cash and it's flagship site yanks.com. Todd holds an MBA from the University of Washington, not too many MBAs in our industry. He's an award-winning, classically trained French chef, and he's the author of the Soon to be published book, American Orgasm. The True Story of an Ethical Pornographer Yanks Cash and its flagship site. yanks.com was founded in 2002 in San Diego on the idea that solo girl and girl girl porn could be different.

A yank shoot is less scripted, safer, and focused on the sexual pleasure of the creators for the ultimate pleasure of the viewer. Makes sense. This has been accomplished by pioneering 20 years ago. Many of the creator centric policies that are commonplace today, a yank shoot isn't the direction of a sexual interaction. It's always been a collaboration between their site and the model to create a sexual experience to be shared with their members. On the business side, yanks Cash has a bulletproof reputation and has always been a leader in pushing for a safer, more ethical industry.

So, Todd, let's talk some more about your move going from Arizona to Valencia, Spain. That's, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (4m 38s): Yeah. Thanks. So we, we had lived in Valencia from 2014 to 2018, and then we, we left to go, Billy and I both left to go to cooking school in Paris and we both went to Lacoon Blue. Yeah. Came back to, we actually decided to move from Spain back to the States in early 2020 and hit Hit Covid. Right, right. Smack in the middle of our move.

Speaker 1 (5m 5s): Welcome home.

Speaker 2 (5m 6s): We were, oh yeah. So we were actually, well we actually got stuck in the uk. We were supposed to take the Queen Mary two, queen Mary two, no, queen Elizabeth two, I believe QE two across from South Hampton to New York. But it got canceled because of Covid. Right. We were doing that cuz we had our, have our dog with us. Oh yeah. And so we just got stuck in the UK for, for six months when our Visa ran out there. We drove from, from Oxford to Naxos in Greece, drove and took ferries. Kind of hit out there for three months.

Then Covid still wasn't letting up during the summer. Then we drove from Naxos, Greece to Scotland. Edinburg were there another four months before we could eventually get back to the States.

Speaker 1 (5m 47s): Geez.

Speaker 2 (5m 48s): And so yeah, it was, it's, it's been the last three years have been quite a, a journey

Speaker 1 (5m 53s): For everybody I think. So tell us how you got started in the industry.

Speaker 2 (5m 57s): Billy and I, she's my partner who, who most people in the industry know of. She doesn't go to a ton of shows, but you know, she used to, we were living in San Diego in, in 2000, 2001, 2002. And we were both bartending at a place called On Broadway Event Center, which was really one of the, the, the biggest and most popular nightclubs in, in all of Southern California at the time. Hmm. And we were just looking for something to do. I mean, we were working two days a week making, you know, killer money. And I've always had this idea of, you know, the internet, you know, which was still fairly new and porn is just a, a great way to make money.

Absolutely. So one day I kind of pulled her aside and I said, Hey, I've got this idea. And the idea was essentially I used to watch Ed Power's videos and I love Ed and I, I love the way he did things by doing an interview and talking to the girls. And he sort, he sort of had a really good rapport with them. And then, you know, then the difference between Ed Power's videos is then he'd eventually get on the bed with kind of, he'd have his just black socks on and he'd have sex with a girl. And that kind of ruined it for me. But I really liked, yeah.

Speaker 1 (7m 2s): Was it him or the Black Socks? It

Speaker 2 (7m 4s): Was, I'd say both, but yeah, the, the kinda pale white skin and the black socks were a bit much. And I met Ed, he's a really nice guy, so, you know. Yeah. No offense to him, but, You know, but I loved, I loved the way he did it where, you know, he, he just built this rapport with the girls and he'd usually have them start out masturbating and they seem to be really comfortable and they seem to be actually enjoying themselves before he kind of jump on the bed. Now, I don't blame him for doing that cause he's, you know, a hot girl. They're masturbating. So he's, it's it's master genre, but I just thought that, you know, hey, if you just were able to build that kind of rapport with the girl and then let them do that and just record it without a lot of direction and just kinda let that play out, it'd be content that people would really like.

So I ran that idea by Billy and she pretty much was like, do you think it'll work and make money? And I'm like, yep, I do. And so we really just jumped in. We didn't have tech, you know, we're not from a technical background. We, you know, I'm not a programmer developer, I'm not a photographer, a videographer. I didn't have that background either.

Speaker 1 (8m 6s): That makes, that makes two of us.

Speaker 2 (8m 8s): Yeah. So we just, we just jumped in, bought a camera, bought a video camera, still camera figured out lighting, figured out audio, figured out how to build webpages. We, you know, didn't have a lot of money. So we built our actual, you know, our editing machine from scratch. Just going to Fry's electronic store in Southern California and just putting together the computers and just did everything from the ground up.

Speaker 1 (8m 32s): Wow. It's been quite a success story. Yanks cash, I mean, to, to be around as long as you guys have, that's gotta be very gratifying.

Speaker 2 (8m 43s): Yeah, it's, it's been an interesting ride because, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, when we started we had a, a great following, but it was kind of niche, but the dedication to it was really was, was, I mean, people were very dedicated to the content and we had a lot of fans. Right. You know, at the same time we weren't really, we were never really the flavor of the month. I mean, we weren't, you know, we didn't have a Tawny stone like light speed did, you know, and Silver Cash and Top Cash and, and all these big massive programs.

Yeah. That kind of came along. We started in 2002 and a lot of those programs are just just two years ahead of us. And, you know, that two years combined with them kind of pursuing a little bit more mainstream porn with lesbian and teen and things of that nature, they got a little bit ahead of us. Sure. But what's kind of nice is, I think that just the dedication we've had from our fans for so long, we were able to just, just keep going and, and, and, and even, you know, when the industry's had its ups and downs that dedication of our fans has, has kept us going.

Speaker 1 (9m 45s): Right. Well you mentioned those other programs. I mean, I don't think any of those are still around and you are

Speaker 2 (9m 52s): Oh, no. No. And I mean, you know, they all did well and I think when

Speaker 1 (9m 55s): Their day Right

Speaker 2 (9m 57s): Hit and, and porn, you know, PornHub came along, I think a lot of those guys were able to just take their cash and run. And so Sure. You know, it's definitely impressive. Right. But yeah, I mean, there is some gratification in still being here and still being, you know, one of the few pay sites that go to shows. And that's a, that's a, that's a market that seems to be really coming back though lately, which is nice. But yeah, it's very gratifying.

Speaker 1 (10m 21s): So in your mind, do you think content is king or is Traffic king?

Speaker 2 (10m 26s): I always look at it two ways. I mean, you know, they obviously, it's, it's a chicken and egg situation cuz they kind of rely on each other of course. But, you know, the way I kind of think about it is, you know, if, if, if you're going to a location something, if you're going to out to eat to a really great restaurant, you need to drive to get there. So, you know, the road is, is the traffic and the, and the, the content is the food you eat there. You know, when it's all said and done though, you remember the meal you had, you don't remember the drive there. The drive there is necessary and traffic's necessary. But I, I do think content is king.

And I always think that the state of the industry can really kind, kind of boils down to that. I mean, when traffic is prioritized, when you go to a show and it's just, you know, a thousand companies cycling around the same traffic. The the, the industry is really not in a good state. It's just, it's, it's kind of a bullshit. It's not a bullshit tactic, but it's just, just a, it's just the industry's not in a very healthy state. But when content really becomes the focus again and, and the quality of the content and the resolution of the content and, you know, the creators and the models are being comp compensated.

Well I think that's, that's a healthy industry. So I, you know, that's where I really just lean towards making, you know, content and priority.

Speaker 1 (11m 38s): What would it take to make the industry healthier? Because you said the content should be the priority and I agree. I mean, if you're not doing something different, if you're not doing something that people want, then they're just gonna go to the tubes and get free porn.

Speaker 2 (11m 56s): I mean, the, the, the first thing I always really lean hard into is, is, is leadership in this industry and, and really the lack of leadership. I did a lot of research in a lot of interviews for my book, and one of the things I always asked people was, you know, when you've been involved in other industry, while obviously the bottom line is important in making money, I I always ask them if these other industries that they've been involved in were the same way in prioritizing the health of their industry and thinking long term.

And almost, and without exception, they've always said, yeah. You know, like I was, I was from the restaurant industry or I was from this, you know, manufacturing or something. And while the bottom line was always important, the company I worked for always contributed to the industry in a way that, that the industry was thinking long term and its own health and, and 10 years and 20 years down the line. Right. And that, that always takes leadership, you know, so while, you know, I look at this industry right now and the three, probably the, you know, the, the tubes being, you know, the mind MindGeek and Xvideos and X hamster.

Right. Which I work with all of them. And I think they're coming around, they're still not, they're still not stepping up to the plate in a big way as leaders. I mean, for one, I've never, and maybe this has happened, but I've never seen the CEO or the, the operations officer or or representative from each of those companies on one panel in Vegas or in LA or somewhere.

Speaker 1 (13m 19s): Interesting. You're

Speaker 2 (13m 19s): Right. Taking questions and just talking. Yeah. And that to me is, that's obscene. I mean, that's, that's really bizarre to me that three players can't be in the same room and just talk about the state of the industry.

Speaker 1 (13m 29s): Yeah. I get, I mean, XN and xx, I don't see them at all Yeah. Nor any of their people. You see people from MindGeek from time to time and you, you certainly see people from Gamma. But as far as, and, and you do see people from X hamster, I will say that, and the c e o from X hamster does go to shows in Europe.

Speaker 2 (13m 53s): Like I said, I work with all them. And I think I, I, I really, I love X hamster. I've, I've got a really good rep now at each three, at each of the three companies, and I talk to them weekly and they are coming around, but they're also seem seemingly a little bit scared of, you know, of just being out in front and they shouldn't be, you know, they, they should be a little more vocal. Right. You know, they should get in the same room together and, and talk about some stuff. You know,

Speaker 1 (14m 19s): I think that would be great. It's something that maybe we should call for. Hopefully they're listening.

Speaker 2 (14m 25s): We should, yeah. I mean, I, I would, I would love that. I mean, I think that would be the most amazing panel at any of the shows or all the shows. If one representative from all three of 'em sat, you know, in front of, in front of the, the industry and allowed some questions and, and you know, they even, you know, came up with some guidelines. I mean, because Right. You know, obviously when you look at the tra the trajectory of the tubes, you know, they, they acquired a lot of content and they were able to give that away for free.

And in the process they destroyed their own supply chain by putting it, putting so many pay sites out of business. And then what happened is the, the content that was just buried in there was very problematic. Which I think the entire industry always knew. And now they're really all, you know, doing a hard pivot back to, you know, Hey holy cow, like you guys make good content, help us. You know, and they aren't. We are. But it's still, I think the, I think the messaging is still a bit strained and the leadership's still a bit weak.

It's true through,

Speaker 1 (15m 32s): So you're on a lot of state-of-the industry panels. Gimme a couple words on how you describe the state of the industry.

Speaker 2 (15m 38s): Well, I mean, so I already kind of touched on some of that, but, you know, I always look, I always try to boil, boil some things down. And, and one of the way, so whenever I do the state of the industry panel and I like moderating them because it allows me to, I like being on panels cuz it allows me to answer questions that obviously self-promote Yanks, but that also just self-promote my ethics and my vision of the industry. Right. Moderate a panel, it's even better because I can create the questions and then, you know, put, put my sort of vision in front of others to comment on or, or, or, you know, pivot on.

So whenever I do a state of the industry, I sort of open with the same statement. And that statement is that if you really boil down this, this transaction, it's, it's essentially, you know, a person, man, woman taking, you know, an erotic photo of another person and then selling it to a third party. You know, the, the, the model can take a selfie and do it. A series of, of photos is a video, whether it's live or streaming. Like that's, that's just the basic, you know, transaction. That's the core transaction.

And so if you look at the health of that core transaction, it, it, it's, it just says everything you need to know about the industry. I mean, if Yep. If somebody can do that successfully and pay their bills and do well and they're motivated, they're making enough profit to be be motivated by that process, then the state of the industry is good. When that cord transaction is threatened, then the state of the industry is, is is poor. And so that's what I always think is, you know, if I, if I got X hamster X videos and, and MindGeek in a room together in front of the industry, that's what that, that's what my first question would be is like, you know, what are the guidelines that you three can all agree on that you could lead to pro protect that core transaction and look at the players out there who are not protecting that core transaction.

And, and let's make sure we're, we're calling them out and we're cutting off the, the supply of, of money, you know, holding them to a set of core values that this industry can agree on.

Speaker 1 (17m 39s): Yeah. So along with that new, you're often preaching about ethics in our industry. How should we become more ethical?

Speaker 2 (17m 48s): I mean, I, I think it's, I think it's a lot of like, you know, know your customer. I go back and forth on, on just like naming names, but you know, I look at some of the bigger link lists out there, something like the porn dude. And you look at that site and what you see is hundreds of companies that have won awards from why not from ex biz, from avn. And then listed on those pages are also File Lockers and Torrance and tubes that, that are just steel content from creators and from pay sites.

And so a simple, a simple knowing your customer, you know, that guy gets paid through affiliates, you know, he gets paid by promoting cams. If you're a cam company, a stream aid and a chatter bait, you shouldn't be subsidizing a list like that if it's also linking to other sites that are, that are helping,

Speaker 1 (18m 38s): That are thiefs Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18m 39s): People to steal from your other clients. Sure. I think one of the things that, that I, I do preach and sometimes people get frustrated, but a lot of, one of my biggest pet peeves is I think that people tend to think that because I preach or because I'm ethical, that I'm naive and I understand that there's money involved and I understand the SEO aspects and I understand all that, but it's money, but it's just about who gets the money. Yeah. Nobody that gets in their computer to, to kind of rub one out and goes to a, like the porn dude, if he's not there anymore, that guy's not putting his dick away and going to the gym, you know, he's just gonna find something else.

Of course. Yeah. So I mean, if this industry rooted out the people that were making the money that shouldn't be and just directed it to the right hands. It's the same amount of money. It's just who gets it.

Speaker 1 (19m 26s): And it's not that, and it's not just review sites. Okay. There are traffic companies that buy and sell traffic from people who steal content.

Speaker 2 (19m 38s): Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (19m 41s): And that to me, that's not okay. And those people should be called out.

Speaker 2 (19m 46s): Yeah. I mean, and the traffic, and that's the thing is the traffic from those companies will, it'll just exist somewhere else. I mean, that's, that's the thing. It's the traffic. It's, it's not, it's just not gonna go away because it's, I mean, it, it's sex. I mean, you know, sex, I mean, people are gonna, you know, if if somebody wants to get a beer, they're gonna get a beer if there's, there's bars available. I mean, you just gotta make sure the right people own them, you know? Right.

Speaker 1 (20m 12s): Sure. So what do you believe the biggest challenge is facing our industry?

Speaker 2 (20m 16s): I mean, it's just, it's just leadership. You know. I know, I know so many people that I, that I would say are just really good people in this, in this industry, but they don't have a lot of power individually and we can never seem to get together to get enough power collectively. So I think it's leadership and it's, it just, it shocked to me really in the 20 years that I've been in this business that I can't remember one single person that has really, really stepped up with power to, to be like, you know, let's, let's do some good things.

Not one, I mean, not one. I think, you know, when I look back when I started, why not? Bob was a, was a really good friend to me.

Speaker 1 (20m 54s): Me too. And

Speaker 2 (20m 55s): Yeah. And he, he sort of seemed to, you know, and he was an ethical guy. Right. And he seemed to be able to have that kind of presence for a while. But then I think, you know, he kind of fell out, you know, but somebody like that and, and you know, and again, he didn't have enough power and enough traffic at that time, even then. No,

Speaker 1 (21m 13s): That's true.

Speaker 2 (21m 14s): But you know, I think, I think he was an in, so somebody like that, I think with a, with a real presence is, is would be really nice to see. And so I think leadership is the, the biggest thing this industry really needs.

Speaker 1 (21m 23s): Oh, maybe it needs to be you.

Speaker 2 (21m 25s): I mean I I I would love to be that the, you know, again, the, the challenge there is is that, you know, I I think you really, you know, you need some power behind it and power is kind of money. Well, I mean, well, but

Speaker 1 (21m 38s): Right, right. You, you look at all the things the, the Free Speech Coalition does. Maybe that's something they should take on.

Speaker 2 (21m 45s): Yeah. But, you know, and, and, and those organizations are great too. But the challenge is, is that, you know, they do, they do tend to have very, you know, high level sponsors and then they're kind of limited to how they can criticize them. I criticize some of the bigger players in this industry because I'd like to see 'em do more, but I don't, I don't think we need to go after them. I just think, I just think there needs to be pressure for them to be the best they can be better, you know? So I think those bigger organizations do rely on so much funding from those big players that they do have to back off with any criticism.

That's

Speaker 1 (22m 17s): Very true. Because they, they survive on sponsorships.

Speaker 2 (22m 20s): Yeah, they do. They do.

Speaker 1 (22m 23s): So you've been at this a while, obviously. Who are three people in the industry you respect? Well, besides myself, of course,

Speaker 2 (22m 33s): You know, a a couple of, so, so there's three people that I've, I've had really great conversations with and it's Steve, Steve from Grubby, who I just think is he, he's just a really standup guy. I love him. Agreed. Sam Murkowski's a really good friend from Mr. Skin. And Yep. I just, I really respect the way he does things. You know, kind of coming back onto the scene a bit, cuz he owns cream pie.com now is Chap Sean.

Speaker 1 (22m 58s): Oh

Speaker 2 (22m 58s): Yeah. He's a really interesting and good person. I've spent a number of hours with him on the phone just talking and riffing, going back and forth. Good guy.

Speaker 1 (23m 6s): I would agree wholeheartedly on those three, those are, are three of the best people in the industry. There's no two ways about it. So now you recently wrote a book, as we mentioned, at the Top American Orgasm, the Story of an Ethical Pornographer. Why don't you tell us about the journey and what prompted you to write a book?

Speaker 2 (23m 25s): So I'm, you know, it's not published. I hope to get it published this year. The book's written and I'm just involved in rewrites this year was a little, a little tough cuz I lost my younger brother. Oh. To an addiction. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. And so it was just, I, I really got off of writing and it's, it's, I can write through a lot of different things, but I found myself really with a lot of lack of creativity when it comes to rewrites. Cuz it's just, the rewrites are kind of brutal.

It's just, just tweaking and tweaking and tweaking. So I hope to have that out this year. But kind of what prompted me to write it is, is really just looking at the role that Yanks Cash played is is that it, you know, we were never really the flavor of the month, but we, we had, we, we, we have and have, have now a nice amount of success. And so we were sort of like, you know, we were, we were in the industry. We grew, you know, very organically like so many companies and we had a, I think a really a good view of that.

So Sure. I wanted to write a book that wasn't just about the parties, cuz I've, I've read some accounts of, of the adult industry, you know, online and, and you know, they, they tend to really just talk about the shows and then it's like, while it's fun, I mean the shows are a blast when every story's sort of like, you know, oh, I met so-and-so we did a ton of cocaine, we fucked these chicks and, and then, you know, we slept and then did it again. Boring. Yeah. It's a great story. But once it's 5, 6, 7 times you're like, okay, cool. Like, that's cool for you, but it's not that interesting, You know, so what I wanted to just really write about was the experience of even our first day of interviews where we just put ads in the San Diego paper for girls to come by, you know, at this, this Embassy Suites lobby in downtown San Diego.

Right. Billy and I went and we had no experience with, with cameras, videos, still tech anything. And just seeing the girls that showed up and asked them why they were there and just figuring it all out. And so, right. I think the account of how that was nearly two thousands and, and what it's like to, you know, do your first porn shoot just grow in the industry. I thought that would be very interesting to people. You know, one of my role models is Anthony Bourdain and I thought that that Yanks had this similarity.

Speaker 1 (25m 49s): I bet. As a, I bet as a chef, he must be. My god.

Speaker 2 (25m 52s): Oh yeah. I mean I, I I really connect with him in, in terms of the travel. I love to travel and I, I travel a lot and the chef, you know, being a chef and, and, and that's why, you know, I love to write, I love his style, you know, and I think what, what I kind of shared the, the book that I'm writing, I want it to be kind of regarded in that way. And I, thinky Bourdain was interesting because while he was a good chef and was successful, he also wasn't like a celebrity chef. So Right. He was very much like in that yanks where he could look, look he was in the middle, you know, he was sort of witnessing the restaurant industry and wrote the real story of it.

Whereas I've, I kind of feel like that's a weep been witnessing the adult industry without being on top of it necessarily. But certainly not being at the bottom of it either. You know, a really good whole experience.

Speaker 1 (26m 41s): Yeah. I really miss the, I really miss the, the guy, it was really tragic that he took his own life. It was shocked everybody, I think. And God, I used to love his show. His show was amazing, just amazing. I, and he had, and he had so much more to give, you know?

Speaker 2 (26m 58s): I know. And you know, it's the sad, it's the saddest thing how it's just, with something like that, it's a moment of sadness where he just wasn't in the right spot and, and there wasn't somebody by him and, you know. Yeah. Because man, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27m 11s): So growing up, so living in San Diego all those years, you and you and Bob were neighbors.

Speaker 2 (27m 17s): Oh yeah. Like, I mean it was, it was really bizarre because he, he literally lived like, I think two and a half miles from me. Wow. You know, and when we started in the industry, I didn't know, you know, that's another thing too, like I, you know, wrote about this period where we started the industry and we didn't know anybody. Like we didn't know anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And eventually this one guy, you know, this, this one person we had that we were, it was kind of helping us out with some things. Like, well, you gotta meet, why not Bob? Like, you know, he is the industry. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 (27m 46s): He sure was. He sure was. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27m 48s): Yeah. And so, so I finally actually met him at a, at the Why Not show in Mexico. And yeah. We became good friends and he, he'd do his Did

Speaker 1 (27m 58s): We, did you and I go to one of those at the same time? I think we did. Cause I went to two or three of them.

Speaker 2 (28m 2s): I, yeah, I it must so

Speaker 1 (28m 4s): Cause I think so yeah. Those first,

Speaker 2 (28m 7s): Those

Speaker 1 (28m 7s): Were, those are just crazy. I remember, oh yeah, I remember the first one I went to. We were drinking tequila on the bus on the way down from the airport. And I remember laying back on the bed of a, on the bed of a pickup truck and falling asleep and them having to wake me up because they were gonna leave. And on that, on that one I roomed with, with Alex Raelian.

Speaker 2 (28m 31s): Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (28m 32s): Oh my God. There wasn't a sober moment. Not a sober moment. In fact, I need to get that dude on the podcast. He's been around. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28m 40s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28m 41s): But Bob, no, Bob was a mentor. Yeah. Bob was a mentor for me too. And he was the first person I actually met in the industry cuz I had bought his audio program. Maybe it was a video program, I don't remember about starting sites. And of course I had already fucked everything up by the time I got it. But that's, that's another story. I was a terrible, terrible site owner. But I, I remember Bob, my first show was Vegas and Bob was with, with Doug Wicks and when he was with Cece Bill.

And it was like, Bob says, well meet us in the bar over at Circus Circus. So actually Doug was the first one I met cuz Bob wasn't there yet. But then Bob showed up and I'm, I'm probably one of the few people in the industry that's still in touch with Bob, so,

Speaker 2 (29m 32s): Oh, are you? Yeah, I, I, I lost touch with him.

Speaker 1 (29m 35s): Oh, I can give you, I can give you his information. No problem. You know, he is in the insurance business now, right?

Speaker 2 (29m 40s): Yeah, I thought so. He's living, living in Florida, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he was, I mean, it was funny cuz we used to, when he was drinking, I, you know, I think he quit now. But yeah, we, you know, after the Hump Day radio show, we'd, I'd meet him at his local bar and I mean, we would just get hammered and then play Call of Duty on the why not servers, which was really fun.

Speaker 1 (30m 3s): So now you're probably the only award-winning classically trained fresh French. I'm gonna get that right. Chef in the industry. So tell us a little bit about that accomplishment.

Speaker 2 (30m 15s): I, I think so. I mean, maybe, you know, I, maybe I I told you that so I hope I'm not wrong. But yeah, so, you know, in, in, in 2018 we kind of took a little bit of a break from the sites and I wanted to write the book. And then also it was my dream to go to, to cooking school. And so I wanted to go to Lako Bleu, you know, in Paris. And to me that was, that was just the dream to do. Sure. And Billy who's, who's, she doesn't really like to cook that much, but she's like, you know, I think I'd like to do something completely challenging like this.

So she enrolled in the patisserie diploma program and I did the, did the cuisine. So on the savory side, and it's a nine month program Right. You know, pretty intense. 30, 35 hours a week with really some of the best chefs in the world. Yeah. And I mean, it was just, you know, so we were in Paris for a full year. I did a three month internship at a Michelin Star Steakhouse in Paris. Wow. And it was just, it was just an absolutely, you know, incredible experience.

And yeah, I had the opportunity there, there was a mystery box style three day cooking contest that was Versai and I had entered and I won over three days, which kinda surprised me, but it was sort of a French Caribbean cooking contest Interesting. And getting

Speaker 1 (31m 41s): Hungry

Speaker 2 (31m 42s): Trophy about that. Yeah. So, yeah, that was just, it was just an amazing experience. And it's actually something that probably I'm, I, I'm, I'm thinking about, and now that I'm settled here, that at the next, one of the next up and coming Tess, not the Lisbon one, cause I couldn't get it in in time, but I think I wanted to start doing kind of a chef's table at the shows.

Speaker 1 (32m 3s): Oh, that's cool. You're gonna be, you're gonna be in Lisbon, right?

Speaker 2 (32m 6s): Yeah, I'll be in Lisbon. I'll

Speaker 1 (32m 8s): Be in Lisbon. Good. Yeah. Good. You'll you don't, you don't, oh yeah. You don't have too far to come. Just for the, for the sake of a disclaimer, this might not run before that, but, but will have had a really good time. You know what really bums me out, another thing about the pandemic that bums me out. I wanted to come taste your cooking, but with the pandemic and everything, by the time I got there, I missed you. Which really bumed me out. So. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32m 33s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32m 35s): So back to the business, do you see pay sites trending up or trending down?

Speaker 2 (32m 40s): I, I mean, I definitely see them, them trending up. I mean, you know, I think, I think the power dynamics has shifted to creators. You've got all the girls that are, you know, and only fans. But I also believe that, you know, it's necessary to have brands involved, brands like Yanks and, and other pay sites Yep. In that mix in some way. And that, that may, that I think that there's gonna be an evolution into what a pay site is, and there's going to be other products coming along. Interesting. But I believe that brands like Yanks are going to play a big role in it.

So I, I believe that the pay site being just where you would find our presence, the, you know, the most concentrated will still exist. And you know, and I believe that has to do with the fact that the tubes now realize that they can't kill their supply chain and True. And, you know, they're all, you know, very quickly shifting towards, you know, premium models and, and pay-per-view and many memberships and their sites, you know, as opposed to free content that they can't control. So, you know, that's, that's, that's the other thing too is I think that, I think that the tube sites are recognizing the value of the fact that when you have, you know, they can't be the gatekeepers of a hundred million videos, you know?

Right. Because, because the bad MasterCard,

Speaker 1 (33m 56s): Master MasterCard and Visa told 'em that.

Speaker 2 (33m 58s): Well yeah. And they should have known that. I mean, that's, that's the thing

Speaker 1 (34m 2s): Industry Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (34m 2s): Absolutely. This industry should have known that, you know, no matter, I mean, those companies aren't big enough to be the gatekeepers of a hundred million videos. And so that stuff's gonna slip in. And so the best way to do that is to, you know, establish pay site owners and content producers and creators is as the gateway that that gives them the content that they can trust.

Speaker 1 (34m 22s): Right.

Speaker 2 (34m 23s): You know, and this, and this is, you know, that's, that's a leadership issue is that, you know, I see a lot of people that bitch about, you know, the New York Times writer exposing PornHub. And, and while I certainly don't, you know, like, like I said, I work with PornHub. I, I wouldn't want them to hear this and be like, oh, you know, let's not work with Todd anymore and gangs. But, you know, I mean, I don't know that what what thing in your time is exposed was something this whole industry knew for a decade. You know, it's just not shocking. And, and so we had ample opportunity to fix that and we didn't. And they didn't.

Right. And so that's what happens. So now do we fix the next things that we know about?

Speaker 1 (34m 58s): Right. Like age, like age verification. Yeah. And I, I felt for a long time that the adult industry should come up as a whole with an age verification method that everybody accepts. If they do that, then governments aren't going to tell them what to do.

Speaker 2 (35m 16s): Yeah. I mean, the more self-regulation we can do, or at least, you know, and that's it, it's like, you know, again, it's like, oh, you know, the, the New York Times are, they're, you know, hunting and they're, they're after us and, and, and the Christian right. Is after us. Well,

Speaker 1 (35m 29s): They kind of, they kind of are, but

Speaker 2 (35m 30s): They, they are for sure. But we, we give them, we make ourselves open to it, you know, and so, no, you're right. You know exactly what he, he said like, do something where, whether it's age verification or just really self-police so that you can stand up and be like, Hey, we're, you know, we're doing more than, than other industries are. And, and Right. And we're not.

Speaker 1 (35m 48s): Well we certainly, you know, through a S A C P we do a lot, you know Yeah. For the, for protection of children. But you're right, we, we could certainly do more. So how do you view that con that di that power dynamic in terms of content creators? Do you, I mean, content creators certainly have the power at this point, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 2 (36m 11s): I think so. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's something that I, it's really interesting because a number of years ago I tried to launch a program where, you know, models could submit their videos to Yanks and we'd, you know, we had a s like a, a very short checklist of what they needed to do to submit their videos. We'd set up a profile page on Yanks, we would pay them a little less because they didn't have to travel or anything, and they'd do it at home. So the quality wasn't quite there and it really just never took off. But it, it didn't really work because at the time there were some people that, you know, didn't have a good camera.

Their smartphone was older and it just didn't capture, you know, good camera or a good quality content. Right. But now that, that's possible. And so I think the creators, you know, they've realized that they can make money on their own mostly. I think a lot of those girls too, also I see a lot of girls with, with pay sites as well. We have, we have creators writing us all the time now that they just want to give us content to put on Yanks so that I can send traffic from our members area back out to their only fans and back out to their page and, and their model Sure.

And all that. And so it's, it, it, it's really nice that they now, it's not just about the money, it's about them kind of taking control and ownership of the traffic as well. Sure. Where I think brands come into it though, as well is that, you know, to be a creator, the barriers to entry are very low. Yeah. And models do float in and out of the industry. I mean, a girl come in, she'll make a little money, then she'll leave. So there's not a lot of stability to that. And it's, it's, it's a, a lot of churn. And so I think that's where brands really can, can help in paint, in, in providing the stability between the distribution channels, like the tubes and the churn of, of the creators themselves.

Speaker 1 (37m 59s): Sure. Now, what do you believe the future holds for VR and ar?

Speaker 2 (38m 3s): Yeah, so it's, it's interesting because we're, we are now, and I don't know what programs will be launched by the time this airs or not, but we're working on a creator platform for Yanks, not a platform, but a creator platform within Yanks. Not the same as an only fans, just more of a, more of a, a method for the girls to get, you know, traffic from our members area and to be profiled on Yanks. So it's, it's more of a, more of a, I guess, an advertising and a brand awareness for them through Yanks.

Sure. Sure. That's gonna be, be launched. And then I think where we're actually gonna create our own content in-house is gonna be just purely VR and vrs Interesting. Because I think that a lot of the industry doesn't, you know, they're like, okay, vrs dead. And they say that vrs dead just because it didn't, it didn't blow up the way everything does. And I think in this industry, if something doesn't go from zero to a thousand in two days, it shit. Right. You know? Sure. But you know, when I look at my VR content, if I, you know, when I look at the, the places where I'm selling like Pay-per-View and different v o D platforms, a VR video makes on average five to six times what a Yanks flat video does or a Yanks tv.

Wow. I mean, so, and once you, once you make the initial investment of the camera, which is not that big of a deal and you know, have an editor, the cost of producing the VR versus the, the 2D isn't really that big of a deal. Sure. So, you know, and I love, you know, especially because Yanks, cuz it's it's girl Girl and it's solo girl, it's pretty easy to capture it well in vr. Right. So, I mean that's where, that's where our focus is. And I think that it's gonna just slowly build, obviously VR and AR will go somewhere at some point, whether it's, sure.

I don't think it's necessarily Zuckerberg's idea of the metaverse Hmm. But, you know, a hundred years from now, there's certainly gonna be contact lenses you have in that are, that are ar I mean that's just no matter.

Speaker 1 (40m 5s): Yeah. I think, I think when Apple comes out with their AR devices when it's gonna blow up personally

Speaker 2 (40m 11s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40m 11s): AR glasses and we know they're working on 'em.

Speaker 2 (40m 14s): Yeah. And so that'll, I mean, that'll be cool. And, and you know, and I, I just got the meta quests too cuz I had taken some time off of VR and I was blown away by the difference between the first version of Oculus, which I always have, which I have as well. And the, and the meta quests. Hmm. And, you know, I don't spend, I, you know, I think that there's things too where it's like I could sit and read my phone for hours and hours and I'll be on my computer for hours and hours and I, I'm not in my VR headset for hours and hours. Yeah.

But when I do, I really enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (40m 46s): Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I haven't consumed much VR content to be honest. I bought a pretty nice VR headset, but yeah, it's kind of gathering dust unfortunately. But I gotta have it because in my position I have to be able to view all content. So Yeah. And I've never been a person who views porn when I'm not working pretty much. But every once in a while I come upon something and go, Hmm, that's nice. Yeah. So what do you see as a missed opportunity in the adult industry?

Speaker 2 (41m 17s): It's just still going back to leadership and, and you know, and, and, and the focus on content. But then I also understand that, you know, I guess just more on that is that the, the, this industry is very young and so obviously it's gonna go through cycles where we learn and we adjust and we evolve. And so I think that while those opportunities were missed over the past, you know, 25 years, I think that maybe, you know, we have, we have plenty of time to write the ship and capitalize on just coming together as an industry and, and coming together as an industry with the purpose of making the most money for all of us.

You know, like that's what I Sure, that's what I always think too, is people, right. You know, when they, when they go, you know, you're kind of naive about, it's all about the bottom line. Well great, let's make it about the bottom line, but

Speaker 1 (42m 6s): Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (42m 6s): Let's just get all the good people making a ton of money and sell the content, you know? Yeah. And so think, I

Speaker 1 (42m 14s): Think, you know, when Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but you, when it comes, when it comes right down to it in any industry, best practices make the most money and the adult industry is no different. Right?

Speaker 2 (42m 26s): True. True. Absolutely. You see it because, you know, there's, there's, I mean the things that, that we started, I think, you know, I, I had wrote, written down that so many of the production ethics and the production, like the code of conduct for producing that I see. Having now, I mean that's stuff that, that we did in 2002. I see a lot of sites coming out and, and, and, and it kind of, sometimes it could be frustrating when somebody gets a lot of press and they're like, you know, we, we treat our models with respect and that's what sets us apart and we're different.

And I'm, we've been doing that. Yeah. Yeah. We, I mean we've been doing that since, since 2000 and, and, and doing sort of unscripted and, you know, just, just doing things different because I, I did see a lot of producers in San Diego and somewhere, you know, were really great. I mean, Lori to Merchant I think is amazing what she was doing for Naughty America. But then I saw some, some producers there where they were doing some extraordinarily shady stuff with models.

Speaker 1 (43m 25s): Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Some of them are in prison now for a good reason. Like those girls do porn guys. Yep. And, and their sentence couldn't be long enough. No, not, not to mention Mr. Jeremy, which we won't get into, but in one of my, one of my future episodes, I'll be talking to somebody about that that has some interesting insights. So after once in a while we do break news, Todd Yanks donates a portion of it's proceeds to call the safety. Why don't you tell me what Call to Safety is and perhaps explain that relationship.

Speaker 2 (43m 60s): Yeah. So Call To Safety was, is is a charitable organization that was founded in the early seventies. And it was just initially a call line for people to call in about domestic violence. And now they've, they've adjusted their mission a little bit and they fight domestic violence and sexual violence. Good. And we had, we had decided to look for a charity about five or six years ago that we wanted to just give a dollar of every sale that we make for Yanks and Yanks VR to a charity.

But what we, we wanted to do was do it publicly. I didn't want to give an anonymous donation. If I'm gonna give you money, I want to be able to say that, that we're giving you money. If I wanted to be a real charity, I didn't wanna, you know, I think that we could, you could start a charity, you could start an organization and you could donate it to yourself and then you could donate to somewhere else. I mean, you know, definitely donate it. But I wanted it to go to a real organization that is nationally known. Right. And they are. And so it took me a year of actually talking to different organizations.

Like one that was was incredibly interesting was V-Day, which was like the, the Vagina Monologues and they're just like pro-woman and all this stuff. And they, they were sure just flat out rude to me, which was amazing. Cause I'm like, wow. Like here we are doing this. We are very, we're a hundred percent female produced For real. I

Speaker 1 (45m 21s): Was gonna ask you something. I, I mean I would imagine that some of the charities turned you

Speaker 2 (45m 25s): Down. Yeah, I'm, I mean there was some that were, there were some that made sense. One of the things we started looking at was female circumcision. Cause I'm like, well what a direct, you know, tie in that we are primarily a, you know, sort of, you know, solo girl and girl girl. But it's, you know, real orgasms is, is one of our main focuses. So that's an interesting segue to here's this, you know, this problem where women's and girls tourists are being cut off. They refused us, but they kind of, they had a really good play where they're like, we work in so many countries, so many sort of third world countries and sure we get a majority of our money from Christian organizations.

And so that if they knew that money, they'd stop. And I can't, unless you can duplicate all that money, we can't do it. Sure. So I understood that some of them were just like, you're pouring, you're dirty, you're horrible people without even looking at what we do,

Speaker 1 (46m 22s): Aren't we though?

Speaker 2 (46m 23s): Yeah, of course. You know, so when we, when I, when I did finally talk to Call of Safety, I had to do an interview with the C E O and, and talk to the board. And you know, they were impressed with, you know, we're pro sex worker Yanks. Yep. We advertise as a hundred percent female produced than we are. I mean it's a hundred percent female models, female producers, videographers, our editors, our content manager. I'm usually, you know, I, I talk to Billy, my partner about what we're doing and so she, her input is always there.

So it's, it's really a female driven company. Right. And the content is female driven. Sure. So they really like that. And so we've been doing, we've been working with them for five years and you know, like I said, one of the, one of the things I said is I want to be able to put a link to call to Safety on the site. I want to be able to do a PR if I want to and say Yanks is supporting Call of Safety with a blue link. If they were okay with that. Great. So that was really good. And I don't know many, I don't know many or if any other companies donate to a charity that isn't, you know, just an industry charity.

Not that that's bad

Speaker 1 (47m 30s): Adult specific. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47m 31s): Or adult specific, or one that they organize themselves

Speaker 1 (47m 34s): Maybe more should definitely. Do you have any, any kind of a sense of how much you've given 'em so far?

Speaker 2 (47m 42s): I, I think it's probably been probably like 50 grand. More than that. That's a nice amount.

Speaker 1 (47m 48s): That's awesome. Well Todd, I would like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker talk, and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon.

Speaker 2 (47m 57s): Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks Bruce.

Speaker 1 (47m 60s): Thank you. My broker tip today is part six of How to Buy an Adult website. Last week we talked about the sales agreement. So now both you and the seller have signed the agreement. What comes next? There needs to be an escrow set up where you send the money, whether it be a one time payment or a deposit, if you're gonna be making payments, the seller for their part puts any tangible assets into escrow, namely the domains being sold and anything else that can be put into escrow.

Your attorney can give you more information on that. We recommend escrow domains for escrows. They're a firm out of Washington DC and no, they're not paying me to say this. I just use them, trust them. And I'm delighted by the work they've done for us. Either an escrow agreement will be drawn up by them in the case of a custom escrow or if it's a simple one, it can be set up on their website. Then you, the buyer, the seller and the broker will be contacted by escrow domains with further instructions such as wiring information.

The escrow is opened and either the deal closes within a matter of a few days or an inspection period is allowed. It all depends on what the agreement calls for. Whether you need an inspection period really depends on whether there's still some information you need to find out prior to the deal closing. Your broker and your attorney can advise you more on this. And it's on a case-by-case basis. Then the money is transferred as are the domains and the deal is closed. Now in many cases, in fact, most of the time the seller either stays on board for a period of time to help with the transition or is at least available on an on-call basis to answer questions.

This is something most buyers should ask for, but at this point you pretty much own the website. What do you do now? We'll talk about this subject more next week and next week we'll be speaking with award-winning trans performer and producer Jamie Kelly. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Todd Spaits. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.