How did you get started in the Biz?

[Casa Nova]

Just a general question to all the Vets and newbies in the business basically.

What brought you into the realm of Adult and what was your first job or business venture? Who put you under there wing and guided you along while you were still a young jedi lol?

A good way of getting to know people, is getting to know how they began, so spill the beans....

I really have no story yet, I'm relatively new, and have had Jstyles & Dwreck kinda put me under both of there wings and teach me everything they know about the business. With Jstyles giving me a job while he teaches me... Its a great opportunity, & I hope to be a great asset to him and the industry as a whole.
Your turn.

[Porn Junkie]

For me, it would have been a 6 year head start but let me explain.

I worked for this private computer tech company and there was a guy there who was swimming in money and it wasn't from working were I was. He was in business with another guy there and they kept their business to themselves. I asked but they wouldn't say.

One day, I was having a real piss poor day financially. The one guy said "sexkey" to me and left it at that.

I didn't get what he was saying and 6 years later, when a friend at my new job told me about cozy academy did I realize what sexkey meant.

As of now, only been doing this since Jan of this year but im making up for lost time. I hate to think of the money I could have made in the past 6 years .... ugh

[Licker4U]

I was a porn surfer and thought "I want to sell porn on the internet". I liked the idea of having my own pay site, shooting the content, doing all aspects of owning an internet web site. I happened upon Tom's Newbie Booster webmaster board and started asking questions. The good people there steered me into building free sites first as a way to learn HTML, traffic generation and manipulation, etc. before I jumped into a full blown pay site of my own. I'm glad they did as I probably would have failed, lost a lot of money, been discouraged and quit. I'm happy building free sites.

[ladydesigner]

I was (and still am) a mainstream web designer. I was contacted one day by a guy asking me if I'd be interested in making him bulk AVS premium designs. Ahhh... the good ol' days.... lots of money to be made in adult design. When the big avs went under, I moved on to learn free site and tgp building. My first avs client though, he went on to buy a Quizno's Sub shop off his porno money.

[KG Gary]

Originally Posted by Licker4U

I'm happy building free sites.

Me too. I love what I do.

I needed a way to work from home because of a complicated home situation at the time - about three or four years back. Got my first PC after only ever using friends' computers until then and proceeded to try and learn how to use HTML and build web pages.

Originally I intended to have a live webcam site, but after sniffing around lots I found this forum that plan quickly changed to freesite building, so I pitched my tent here and settled down to ask questions and learn. The no-bullshit advice here made everything click into place for me.

A year and a half and over 300 freesites later and the only thing stopping me from moving forwards and upwards is the fact that I have five children and a small house. School holidays are a nightmare!

I can see huge potential for growth, especially as I love what I do, so although I'm not making huge amounts of money I'm extremely pleased with my business. Without the help from GG&J members I'd probably have sunk early on and I'll be forever grateful for that.

[ladydesigner]

Originally Posted by KG Gary

A year and a half and over 300 freesites later and the only thing stopping me from moving forwards and upwards is the fact that I have five children and a small house. School holidays are a nightmare!

I hear you! I have 4 kids and summer vacation time is HELL! Gotta keep the porn undercover and work strange hours. Early to rise and late to bed.

[Jim]

I have to look sometimes
http://www.greenguysboard.com/jim.html
I don't think anyone really took me under their wing. There were no boards and everyone just kind of did what they thought would work.

[Tinkerbell]

I have a friend who's in the referral business (not just porn) who makes a lot of money, and he kind of inspired me to get into it. I haven't really asked him for advice though, because the last thing I want to look like is that I'm using him (we don't know each other very well). Anyway, I've made a bit of money, but I'm far from becoming a seasoned pro at this. It seems every time I think I'm done, I learn something new that changes everything and requires me to start from square one. Not a big deal though... I enjoy it. The problem is balancing this with school (don't have kids yet, lol)

[virgohippy]

I turned 18.

I studied you guys plenty, got some really good startup tips from one person in particular, dicked around on my own for a long while, then made the plunge with freesites, hubs, and lots and lots of experiments.

I've never had a "real" job in my life. I intend to keep it that way.

[SheepGuy]

I was a high-end stereo salesman for years, the money stopped being so good, so I sold appliances, money was good but I was bored shitless. My wife started an office cleaning business and I got involved in that while I went back to school to learn how to be a LAN/WAN guy. But while I was in school I got my first computer and surfed for porn.
I kept seeing AdultCheck sites and I emailed a guy and asked him if he made any money at it. He said yes, and in 3 or 4 paragraphs even told me how |goodidea
By the time I graduated I didn't want to work in an office so I didn't apply for a single job. That bit of advice and diversifying and learning here and there have kept me going full time since '97.
Though the money isn't what it was in the glory days of '98-'03 or so I really don't think I'll be applying for any jobs soon
I still have nightmares about selling appliances.

[Bobc01]

I never really got started for one reason or another, i had a fair few AVS sites in the late 90's that did fairly well but stupidly got married which near enough put it all to an end.

Now i'm trying to put into practice what was said to me along time ago which was to buy domains and hosting and do things properly.
Not true with the dating sites but other things on the way.

As for joining this forum, where else to learn without the fuckheads you get on affiliate forums.

[Porn Junkie]

My story is similar to SheepGuy. Was working as a network admin and a guy there was swimming in money. After I got the info from him, he told me "adultkey" and nothing more. Took me till the beginning of this year to understand what he meant from a guy I work with at my current job and were to find the information.

I still dream of the day when I can do it full time and get out of this fuckin office job.

[secretagentwilly]

I got started in the biz with the notion that all these fuckers from microsoft and other companies were making tons of money...I read something about the milionaire secretaries and all that stuff, ceo salaries and stock options and I thought to myself...why can't I make $3000 a month? If these guys can make millions and billions, why can't I supplement my income with $3K? And I've been in pursuit of that since...and when I found bang bus and thought hell, I'd pay for this, I figured I should push it and others and see what happens....and I did and i'm not quite at my goal yet...but I've done decent enough to keep me trying....

[walrus]

Back in 98 I was living with an erotic dancer. We spend some time surfing amateur sites and both came to the conclusion that if they could make cash, she certainly could....and she did despite the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when it come to promotions.

We made it about 9 months until we broke up and the site died.

Fast forward to a year and a half ago and I decided it was time to dabble in adult again, only this time to learn about how to promote a site. Started blogging and haven't really ventured out away from that.

It's probably about time to start adding a few other skills to my skill set.

[oldbrad]

I dabbled in building pages and using ppc programs on free hosts and free web space from 98 to 99. No clue what i was doing but actually making money.

Was surfing greenguy's site and followed his link for webmasters and ended up at ans. I ended up going to a chat with all the folks back then and won a free domain my first visit. I built on that and thanks to the help from everyone eventually got a little better.

[danutzupmp]

I started a studio with web cam girls working on multiple web cams sites simultaneous 7 years ago. This is way the money from adult came to me. I was trying to start my own web cam site too soon and pay some guys 5000$ to built it for me. They did not know what they doing and took my money and project was never finish. As few months ago I started building free sites using web cam sites as sponsors. I made little money of this and mostly because my girls invited guys to register from my free sites and not as a result as customers turned from surfers of my free sites.

[pigbait75]

I was taking kung fu and I made a yin and yang for my teacher in photoshop a fellow student asked what i used to make it and i told her. she said her husband needed some help and could maybe give me some work, and when i saw that he was making tgps and freesites I said I can do that. so he took me under his wing and starting teaching me in the way of the force .. I mean porn. before this I worked in constuction for 12 years.