From XXX to $$$ Jay Servidio
founder Teleteria Gives A Seminar
By: Jay Servidio
Some 35 of us are gathered in a Toronto hotel room on a Friday
night, hoping to learn the secrets of selling smut online. Our guru
of choice: Jay Servidio, a New York-based cyberpreneur who runs
Teleteria, a Web-hosting
service with a booming e-porn business. A tanned 38-year-old with
gold flashes streaking through his thick brown hair, Jay Servidio
makes no apologies for what he does. "This is a great way to make
money," he quips. "It's fun. There's nudity involved."
Sounds good to Rob, 34, who operates trucking and construction
firms employing 25. "I'm looking for an ulcerless business'
he says. Arme, one of 10 women in the class, is also hopeful. The
48-year-old has tried multi-level marketing, run a pizza joint and
owned a 900 number. "But I want something more aggressive, something
that will make me more money fast $" Anne explains. "The Internet
and porn are a good combination."
Jay Servidio promises not to rush as he outlines the basics. There
may be as many as 50,000 porn sites running at any one time, he
says, "but you're not competing with them all." With huge demand
for online porn and endless chum as jaded subscribers flit from
site to site, there's plenty to go around. "All you need to bring
to your website is 500 hits per day," says Jay Servidio. That could
gross you $600 a month, but be says his average client makes $300
a day.
Jay Servidio suggests a good starter site comprises a dozen pages
of free content, a sign-up page, a warning page ("If you're under
18, stop here!"), and a members-only area linking to at least 50,000
pictures and videos catering to a wide range of "interests". "How
about a site focussing on one subject?" asks a longhaired man in
a leather jacket from the back row. Why limit your audience, asks
Jay Servidio: "There are sexual appetites that need to be satisfied
that you don't even know about." "I don't know about that!" counters
the student.
More explicit advice follows. Get an ISP with lots of bandwidth.
Buy your photos ($1 each) from the dozens of content providers who
gather at industry trade shows. Collecting membership fees is a
snap: just hire a billing company to do it for you.
Having made it sound easy, Jay Servidio gets philosophical. "Do
you all know who Warren Buffett is? He's a god on Wall Street. He's
a friend of Bill Gates." Jay Servidio tells us Buffett once listed
his personal pros and cons on a piece of paper, and decided to purge
all the negatives. "All of you have cons that are holding you back
from making money," he says. The class falls silent. Jay Servidio
says he was once the same way: an overweight, insolent sales rep
who had trouble keeping a job. Then a friend convinced him to try
the phone-sex biz in the late ‘80s. That pal is now worth $20 million.
The same could happen to us, says Jay Servidio, but we have to act
now: "You have a very limited time while your motivation is still
high to start your own adult website."
Your bank balance better be high, too: Jay Servidio prices a viable
porn site at US$68,000 (US$50,000 for those photos alone). But wait!
Jay Servidio will sell you a turnkey site for just US$2,700 (that's
100/0 off his regular price, and he'll throw in two months of video
free!) "It's a screw-proof deal," he insists. With Teleteria
handling customer service and the billing company collecting fees,
"you're free to make money and enjoy yourself."
Still, you'll need traffic to your site. Jay Servidio says there
are 11 ways to market adult websites. We can register with search
engines, "but you're not going to get many hits from there." Same
with posting to Internet newsgroups. Banner ads on adult sites work,
but can cost upwards of $10,000 a month. Method No. 4 is Jay Servidio's
favorite: bulk e-mail. "It's the No. 1 way to make money in this
business," he says, offering to hook us up with a good spam service.
He never reveals the other seven marketing methods — but no one
ever asks.
Doubters begin to emerge. Won't everyone in the class end up with
the same website asks the long haired guy? "With 50,000 pictures,
it doesn't matter!" shouts Jay Servidio. "A guy would have to quit
his job and look all day!" "How many hours are we expected to put
into this?" asks another student. "Whatever you want," replies Jay
Servidio. Another pupil worries about infringing copyrights. "If
you set your mind to think of the reasons you shouldn't do this,
you won't," Jay Servidio answers. If this is so easy, why don't
you just do it yourself? "I could do it and make tons of money'
he says, "but Teleteria
was designed as a design and hosting company."
Here's a better answer. The spam firm charges US$1,200 for one
million mailings. Based on Jay Servidio's projection of a 30 %response,
you'll get 30,000 visitors to your site. According to Jay Servidio,
you can count on one in 500 to sign up. That's 60. Charge the typical
monthly fee of US$20 and your take will be, um, US$1,200 —before
the billing firm's 15% cut. Sure, your membership will grow if your
can retain most of your subscribers each month, but you'll have
to refresh your content at a cost of thousands a month.
When the session ends, not everyone has done the math. Lara and
Chris, a modelesque couple in the film business, have been researching
online porn for months. "Jay's company is fantastic," says Chris.
"It promises everything you need to be promised." Sensing a sale,
Jay Servidio takes them to dinner. Rob is more skeptical: he suggests
we all band together to spread the risk. Perhaps a shared ulcer
is less painful.
About the Author
Jay Servidio started his career in the telecom industry. Having
worked for MCI, Sprint and AT&T in various sales positions starting
from telemarketing up to national accounts. His ability to manage
accounts always had him in the top 3% of his peers. Wanting more
challenge Jay Servidio started Teleteria in 1994 to resell 900 and
970 numbers and offer custom adult website packages. Teleteria quickly
became the industry leader in the adult design business and Jay
Servidio started teaching classes about the business in NYC and
Toronto monthly which led to guest speaking at trade shows and conferences
all over the world. He has been written up in many periodicals such
as a front page article in The Wall Street Journal. Teleteria also
builds gaming and commercial sites and can be found at www.teleteria.net
or call toll free 1 866 408 8694.
