Who Helped you most?
 

I was just wondering. When you first started in adult did you have a "mentor"...someone who took you under their wing? Who helped you most ?

I used to produce a radio show back when, and I remember we sometimes had on icons like FM and RB talking about how they got started. They would say they came into adult when there was nothing..no help..no resources...no structure. They made it up as they went along and often started with grainy centerfold pics where you could still see the staple marks LOL. Its really amazing how much help there is out there today for newbies coming into the industry. This resource alone has just about everything you would want to know, plus there's radio and conventions etc etc. Can't imagine coming into this business and having to figure it all out on my own.

GG and MML and still learning alot thanks guys. |thumb

GG got me and the wife started in 99.

Mostly Greenguy cuz when i grow up i want to be like him :D

I had to just help myself as well. I never took pictures from magazines since there was Usenet :) When we started YNOT, it was only to help each other in the small group. Helping non-members was an afterthought. While running ultracash, we opened ultradokk to help webmasters. As far as I know, we were the first program to send weekly newsletters and have a message board for the program's webmasters. ultradokk went great until the guy running it got paranoid and quit a job he was being paid way too much to do :) Actually he has kind of been a flake ever since. Too much, "I Quit" and "I'm Back" for my tastes. :) Anyway, I digress. Nobody helped me in the day :)

Yeah..I remember some of that.
Who were among the first members at YNOT..do you recall? I can imagine PK being there..who else?

With out a shadow of doubt Greenguy |greenguy|

I'm from back when there wasn't a whole lot of anyplace to get much help.

Over the years I have gotten some pretty bad advice from a few people and some good advice from a few people. I also would say that Greenguy has probably been one of the few to have both helped me and given me good advice.

Who?

I can not say "one person" really, we have had alot of input from so many people, some good advice some real bad advice.

For me it was a man in Wisconsin named Joe - without him, I would not be here today.

He got out of the biz for a bit but he's coming back :)

When are you going to change your avatar to a Greenguy Dick Hat :)

I can remember most. Actually I think Alexa has the list of groups still. Yep, here they are on the bottom of the page. The groups were just randomly selected.
http://web.archive.org/web/199612192...dvictoria.com/

Wow, a lot are gone now. I remember losing a few when we decided to make it a rule to buy our own content and not grab it someplace for free :)

MrMaryLou has taught me the most about this biz. The on the bench chats on saturday have been a great learning experience.

Fred

Even before the board started, when GG or Jim spoke, I listened. I owe a bunch to them and a group of folks that I met here. The single best thing that helped me was when they started the board. Hell, I went from "Crazy Chop" to "Chop Smith". Hopfully one day my banker will call me "Mr. Smith."

Wow..that's an interesting list. I don't think I ever saw that before.
What else do you remember about " the old days"? :)

I'd have to say Tommy and GG -
However, I'll have to add that Boards are very important too.
Met lot's of great webmasters driving down that GG board route. :)
(which has been a journey by itself)

I remember most of it like yesterday. People getting thrown out, people getting turned down for membership. I wrote the code of ethics for YNOT...wish I could find it. I also ran the short lived ethics committee. It was disbanded because Rick (YNOT) wanted to be part of it but we wouldn't let him :)

But Rick went on to own and run YNOT didn't he?

Let em know if you discover the code of ethics..that would be interesting to read.

No mentor here. I initially paid an online webmaster school to teach me the basics, which they did. But I could have saved myself $140 by coming straight to this board which is by far where I've picked up the most useful knowledge.

Jim is most directly responsible for my forray into the adult world. I had dabbled in the adult side as early as '95, but, his persistent calls for 6 months finally convinced me that this was where I needed to be. :)

I don't know that I've said it much, but Thank You Jim!

He always owned it. Shortly after the ethics thing, he disbanded the members area. There are probably a lot of people that remember applying for membership and getting turned down. My wife and Asia Carrera were friends. I told her that she should apply for YNOT membership. She told me that Rick already told her she would be a member the next vote :) Before that there was Karl Bernard (sp) (Gamma). While he was a member, he tried to get everyone together to hack into Cybereroticas Servers. I can't remember what Ron did to piss him off :)

You can put me on that list |angry|

Not one person really. I somehow found my way to Greenguy's old board where he, MrMaryLou, Tommy, DangerDave, Alex and a few others were. What I learned there was INVALUABLE!!

After that initial learning experience I think I'd say I owe it to myself. LOL Why? Because I made the jump and went to the Vegas show in 2001 when I still had a regular job. I left on short notice and got fired 2 days after getting back. (True story). In Vegas I met Greenguy, MrMaryLou, SirMoby and Sean who runs NSCash.com and a few other people and those relationships have grown and were a driving forcing to keep me in the biz.

Simply put!! Friends!!!! |thumb

It wasn't supposed to be this way but it seemed near the end, you had to know Rick. I remember trying to get Serge in...didn't work. When we voted, only Rick saw the votes and let us know who got in.

the most? Wizd0m

For me I would have to say Netpiddler,

also some things from Surfn,

and of course reading This Board..

But even after learning HTML, Marketing basics and other things...

I would have to say getting listed is very important and you can't do that without the Help of GreenGuy, MML, and some other classy guys and gals...


So, Thanks to all, after all...

it is a network of the trusted.


Ben

i had an mentor, he learned me the basics and then ans did the rest that time the linksite owners where still at ans and i learned alot there...hell i still remember the linksite board there....lol that was the only place where i realy behaved and dindt had a big mouth...newbie board that time learned me alot and further it was trying and reading and building, still i dont know all i never will i think, so much info around and everytime i learn again........:D

Jim - that list of the network groups sure brings back memories - hadnt even heard dirtybird in over 5 years :) Of course I was still on the BBS side at that time but doing a little interface for my surfers - I believe that GG probably had the biggest influence once I decided to lean towards the LL side - in the other parts of my biz there have been Rusty and Edie back in the old days, Hun back when we were collecting free pics and posting them, and a few unmentionables from the old days when we were scanning magazines to post images on Usenet for traffic and passwords.

wow! for a newbie like me, this is a great thread...to read how things were back in the days.
You guys had to scan magazines back then...and now everything's free (almost).

I got help from lots of places, but the most incredible and valuable piece of advice I ever got so far was a reply to a question about a free site. The writer of that reply? the GREAT security_man. You're THE man bro :)
And, of course, the amount of information shared on this board is nothing short of amazing :)

Would like to say hello and I know this is my first post but I have to give credit where credit is due. I must the guy that started and helped me out in this business would have to be ronnie, which posts here a lot and been my mentor for years. So thanks ronnie couldn't of done it with out your help. We have seen a lot things over the years and thing change all the time.

Gary

Without question MrMaryLou and On The Bench helped me most (think outside of the box)
Then Surfin (I miss his ICQ's) (think outside of the box)
Then GreenGuyandJim members like Linkster Bill Cleo amid Ramster
Then the rest of GreenGuyandJim Members that post (so I didn't have to ask the questions)
Now I'm barely in what most of you would consider the Adult Biz, I do have a full time employee that
is skilled in the areas that I'm lacking in and it still seems like there aren't enough hours in a day.
Without this board I would of ended up going back to work for someone after pissing away every cent I could get my hands on

I could easily single out a couple without whom I would not be here today. They know who they are.

Beyond that - the community at Adult Netsurprise, back when we had Thursday night radio with Dokk, helped me keep my sanity. Okay, mostly.

There are so many good people in this business, I hesitate to name names.

You are all much appreciated.

I thought myself how to build webpages and it took me 6 months to figure out wtf was ftp. But that's how I have always been. If you want something done right do it yourself. I'm still the same with my site now. I did not know .asp and still don't but this past weekend I felt the programer was moving to slow. So I spend the day reading the code and by sunday had the site 90% the way I wanted it. It was great cause now I know more as to the functions of how it's working and don't worry as much about getting stuck behind the 8ball. As far as adult. well I stated before I used to shoot for the paper mags. and they tought me 1 thing. there are some shaddy fuckers out there who have no problems what so ever stealing your stuff. I dont know maybe it just me but I have found people in the adult world a little more shaddy then most. You really have to pick and choose who you do business with. Even more so now on the net. But Im new to this on the net and just read like crazy. Most of what I have learned is from the past 3 or 4 weeks I have been at this site. Which is more then I have learned from any other forum. And for that I say thank you all for your honestly.

Now THAT was a lot of fun. |cheers|

This board has proven to be priceless to me.

Bill

I remember the milestones in my Adult Industry career. With each one of the milestones, there were different people envolved. There wasnt any one Mentor so to speak.

The first person I have no clue who it was. I emailed a webmaster from a video link list and asked "How do I get started?". The reply was a one line answer with nothing more than the url to YNOT.

That lasted about 10 minutes. I found a link for newbies, read one article and did the math. The author of the article couldnt add, or subtract for that matter. If I followed his example, I would have been several thousand dollars in debt and nothing to show for it. But, YNOT taught me the phrase "webmaster resource". A quick Google search sent me to Netpond.

Thats where I meet Voltar, who taught me the basics of getting started.

From there the most influentual was Dravyk. Reviewing for allofem got me going to other boards.

From there, Tommy was the guy that did more for me expanding than anyone. That came in the form of a one line post "We know very well about cookies", or something close to that. That sent me to tommys site and reading the cookie he was setting. That opened a whole new world for me.

Then came Pasta, he taught me the value of watching what other people were doing. That snow balled into reading between the lines and listening to what wasnt being said on the boards.

The next person I met pulled it altogether for me. I dont know which nick to use for him, but Jim taught me "Once you click a link of mine, I can do what I want with you". That in itself gives a whole new meaning to "filtering traffic".

Old Tom taught me the value of learning to do my own coding and the value of learning the power a unix operating system can give you. Learning html, php and perl only scratches the surface of what you need to know.

I have no clue what the name is of the next guy, you will know who you are though, your Merchant/processor is in Panama. You taught me the meaning of deceptive and how to make money with it. And, never to do it.

Last but not least, Greenguy. He does a very subtle thing on this board everyday that gives everyone a golden key on how to make money. I changed somethings in my own little porn empire because of this and its starting to pay off. From some of the posts I read, I dont think there are very many that pick up on it.

My hat is off to all of you! Thanks for all the help :)

-

hmmm that's really a hard question.. i guess the 1st person would be my Uncle Matty who made me bartender at Plato's Retreat when i turned 21.

As far as online..

Tart |cool| who kicked me from in front of the cam to behind it..

DangerDave |bananna| & Zilla who 1st listed our galleries that are STILL listed.. ok at least on DD.

|greenguy| GG... who i learned about from one of my cam girls who suddenly found her pics splashed all over one of his site.. she freaked out (since she'd retired her cam) and called him. Not only was he a complete gentleman but removed her pictures within 5 minutes.

and most of all |mml| MML |mml| who has spent countless hours on ICQ and yahoo pushing, shoving, encouraging and motivating.. and i learn something NEW every week at OTB..

There is invaluable information stored here.. SE stuff from Linkster and DD, seasoned advice from Ramster and Raw Alex. Cleo, who i always list my sites with 1st cuz i know if they get accepted there, they'll be accepted anywhere.. she is a Tough cookie.. and All the OTB crew

Gosh i'm so sentimental or maybe just MENTAL.. lmao.. its friday the 13th. |jackinthe

The guys and gals of the old #hellonearth irc channel. back in 96/97 when we wrote
aol chat room spam software. And the sponsors that used to "overlook" spam complaints back then. before i repented and found out spam was "evil" ;) then it was willieb, buzzard and tia from the old ans days, sandra and the old maxcash gang, and in the last few years greenguy of course. (I would mention dangerdave... but he is a very angry man)

|horse|

I'd have to say no one person, but rather the crew at AdultNetSurprise (in the era when it was dominated by Frank, Rowdy, Kaiser, Barry Hilton, Raven, and some fella who called himself Greenguy who seemed to know what he was talking about). They were very patient with this clueless n00b and gave me help in everything from PhotoShop tricks to how to do mouseovers, SE optimization, metas, etc.

I followed Greenguy and some of the rest of the crew over here when this board started up, but I still try to keep up with both boards as best I can.

Greenguy.. and Jim.. and Shemp... KJ with his advice... and reading this board and I am soo missing out being not able to listen to the radio shows, old OS and stuff.. but thanks a lot. No I am not mushy :)