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Ask HN: How can I grow my porn startup?
So I used to run an SaaS startup from 2012-2014 that was ramen profitable and required like 2-3 hours/week of work at most. It completely freed up my time, and I spent that time in part realizing that coding and running a software startup aren't really my passion.
I decided my real passion is sex, as well as passive income, so I started a porn startup, with me directing and acting in my own films. I made three films so far, and revenues from each film are growing film-to-film. The high costs of a shoot, however, still mean that I'm in the red, and I actually subsidize my costs with my bartending day job. The sole revenue model is selling the films on clip sites as downloadables.
I don't naturally look the "type," so mainstream work has been hard to find, but I have the technical capability to do the job. A startup is the way forward for me. Eventually, my goal is to build enough content to sell monthly memberships, much like SaaS startups.
I'm getting a little burnt out doing so much at once (i.e. writing, directing, producing, acting, editing, marketing, etc.), and I still haven't figured out distribution apart from my 13k Twitter followers and 1,000-strong organic mailing list. It has also been hard being so frugal just to save up for monthly shoots. I feel like I have to pump out fresh content with regularity to please my customers, who, though are numerically few at the moment, are pretty loyal in purchasing film after film.
I suppose what I'm asking is, how can I maximize the revenue potential of my startup? Failing which, how do I at least keep this going and sustainable so that I can have enough time, energy, and motivation to figure out the next step?
- throweway 11y agoId say go back to the SaaS that freed up your time. What makes you money and what you are passionate about can be orthogonal. No shame in that.
- airbreather 11y ago"I feel like I have to pump out fresh content with regularity to please my customers" - you answer your own question.
- walkbmc84 11y ago2/3 hours a week! Thats the dream right there brother!