In Business.... Money is the ultimate proof.......
Whether ethically obtained or not........ And yes, the money that was there back in 96 through 99 or so is not there any more... But money is still out there.....
Banner farms worked back then..... Good business to do what worked....
And yes, Cohen was cutthroat, suing everyone in sight.... It was his ultimate downfall because he pissed too many in the industry off...
but he was successful for a good long time....
Kremen has now had control of sex.com for 3 or 4 years.. What has he done with it...
He has turned it into a pay per click search engine (with popunders and popups I might add)....
Confucy... Consoles and stuff MAKE MONEY whether the surfer likes them or not... While I agree that paying attention to your customers and treating them "Properly" is a nice idea, IT DOES NOT MAKE MONEY...
to quote ma bell: "Never give the suckers an even break"........and "Whatever the market will bear" are the ways to be succesful in business....... whether it be adult or mainstream.......
Gary could be a genius for all I know.... Smart does not equate to money.. In fact in some cases it might take away from your ability to make money...
Smart folk come up with all sorts of ideas... Lots of smart folks (myself included) can dream up the fanciest ass stuff in a second.... To be sucessful, you must IMPLEMENT and carry through on the ideas... That is the hard part...
Donald Trump is not the smartest guy on the block by any means... But he is one of the richest.....
Bill Gates could probably not program his way out of a paperbag anymore, but he is a marketeer and a half.....
Find the formula that brings in cash, repeat repeat repeat...... That is the way to success....
Smart people are usually trying to tweak the formula, trying to find a "better" way to do it...never satisfied with just using someone elses idea and repeating it.......
The dumber folk can play follower, take the formula and just keep working it.....
The innovators do not always make the money by any means..... Some do, but many great innovators have had to learn the hard way that a great idea by itself doesn't make money... They have had to surround themselves with marketing and sales people to make the money....
Look at Bushnell ... He came out in the mid 70's with Atari... from his garage... Atari was revolutionary, it was the new thing.... What happened ? He had to selll out to Warner (at about one tenth of what Atarii was really worth) because he was going broke.. He did not know how to market his product.. He did not know how to do the business side of the stuff.... He later learned that side...
So smarts do not equal crap in the business world or else everyone that posts regularly on this board would be worth millions and millions.... While some here are worth a lot ... I would venture that the majority of us, while we might make a good living, are not rolling in the big bucks... Otherwise we wouldn't still be working and we would have our secretaries doing our posting for us.......
as far as Gary reading the boards, so what.. I am nothing in the adult business..lol... I have a few galleries up, etc... But that was a learning experience... Since 99, I have been behind the scenes in this business, programming etc... I still work a nine to five job in mainstream and atribute very litlle of my income to the adult net... IN fact, most of the time my expenses far outweigh my income, as it does with any startup.....
I do not do business with sex.com and probably will not.... If Gary reads this and gets something from it, great. If he takes it as an insult... tough...
I am just another voice speaking my opinion.........
edited to clarify (and fix some typos): I started in the adult netin 99 working for a hosting company... a big one that is now out of business... I did not do stuff on my own until early 2002, so I have not been working it for 4 years and still not breaking even...lol... I have been playing with it for about a year and a half on my own and have spent more on content then I have brought in... dont want folks to think I'm a total loser......
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Last edited by sarettah at Sep 12 2003, 11:14 AM