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I need some advice. It seems that people don’t usually discuss adult (ie porn related) startups in the same places that general starup stuff is discussed, which I guess makes sense for many reasons. Since my questions are more startup related than porn related, I’ll just post it here anyway. I’m a programmer building an adult related product. It is essential a  clips4sale clone. As you can see that site is pretty crappy looking with pretty high fees for producers (40%!). I realize a much better looking, much easier to use site with a much nicer experience for sellers and buyers with smaller fees is by no means a guarantee that I will be able to carve out any market share for myself, especially since this is porn and who cares about that stuff, but after a bit of experimenting selling content I own on clips4sale and similar sites starting about six months ago, I just had to try. I’m maybe 75% done with the site and I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming out.So my predicament is this: I’m broke. I’ve been mainly working on this the past couple months and don’t really have any money saved. I have a small bit of income from other endeavours but not quite enough to live off of, though I could probably continue scraping by for a few months without a ton of trouble. I know, you could argue that this is dumb and I should just get a job for a while, which I probably could do, but I’d really like to explore other options. The expense I’m most worried about in getting this thing off the ground is legal fees. I have no experience really dealing with lawyers, and while I’m familiar enough with the minimal requirements to sell my own adult material online, I’m positive it gets much more complicated once you start allowing others to offer content under your site. Looking at the disclaimer/legal info on clips4sale is pretty scary. Not only that but I have to establish myself as a business, probably an LLC? I do have experience with running online businesses but they have been small sole proprietorship type things and I feel that this one warrants more attention to making sure all my ducks are in a row wrt establishment as a business entity, due to the possibility that beastiality may appear on properties under my control (in practice I will be manually approving all content for as long as it is feasible, but still). And so my idea is to seek a partner. My short time in this industry has given me SOME credibility in the small corner of the depths of internet porn in which I have been operating, and there are people (other producers/site owners within my niche) more experienced than I who I would feel comfortable soliciting for a potential partnership, and who I even feel would have a non-zero percent chance of accepting some such deal. Obviously they would be heavily screened/interviewed. What I’m currently thinking of is offering 33% of the [yet to be officially established] company to a partner. For this I would like to get, at minimum, a monthly stipend of $500-$1000 to pay for living expenses (the middle of this range would be ideal but honestly I’d probably accept 500). If possible I would also like to get an investment in the business to pay for legal costs or other expenses. Lastly, this person would be expected (or contractually required?) to provide advice and bounce ideas off me based on their industry experience. If they would handle some aspects on the business side of things that would be cool, but I don’t think I would definitely require legwork from them, I don’t mind doing all the real work for now as long as I have an experienced person with a personal interest in the success of this to bounce ideas of. In return, I will work full time on the site, using most of my time programming but also handling some of the business side of things, acquiring business, etc. So I guess my main questions is: is this realistic, and how do I go about making this happen? I realize that this would depend on a lot of variables. Let’s assume first that my software is of good enough quality, and that the site would have cost $2000 (really conservative) to have programmed from scratch, and that I will be able to acquire 3 new content sellers per month, and that each content seller results in $20 net profit per month. These are estimates I’m pulling out of my rear end but are conservative based on my own sales numbers and what I've been able to gather about the sales numbers of other people. But if these numbers are correct, would $750/month + $1000 investment be a fair deal for 33% equity? If not, what would be fairer? Obviously some negotiation would happen but I’m just trying to see if this scheme which I sort of completely invented is something that might be feasible in real life? I would probably have a sort of business plan where I make better estimates and attempt to justify them to show potential partners. And once I have a basic thing to offer people, how do I make it happen? Do I first get an LLC established, then go to a lawyer and basically tell him what I just typed here, and he’ll make up a contract, which I can then offer someone once I go through a screening process of potential partners? How much would all that cost, roughly? This came out longer than I expected. Thanks in advance for any guidance. hello dog fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jul 14, 2012 |
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Jul 14, 2012 18:25
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Thanks a lot for the advice guys. The legal stuff is something I have to figure out. And the mentorship advice is good and something I hadn't really considered. It probably will be easier to go that route without a business partner, if possible. I'm just trying to polish off a demo before I really start trying to solicit help. I'll probably post a g-rated demo version here in a week or so, the feedback here seems top notch.
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Jul 23, 2012 00:34
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