we all make mistakes when starting out. not long after we started in 1996, we submitted one of our sites to persiankitty, who linked to us and started sending tons of traffic. i put up a persiankitty link on a link page. why? i assumed that links went on link pages - go figure. they removed our site forever, and apparently won’t be listing our sites every again.
on the other hand, they do list our galleries, and i learned a valuable lesson about being fair when it comes to recips.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
There simply isn’t enough time or writing space to list all of the mistakes I made at the beginning, and still do. whistle
I think one of my biggest mistakes was to use the boxes in boxes with borders and different colors for each one, not to mention different colors for the text.
What an ugly mess that was :bang:lol
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
Mistake number #1… being stuck in the AVS/AEN trap for too long and not starting a paysite sooner. But I’m making up for lost time quickly. 
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
My biggest mistake was in the late 1990s getting a call from Naked Sword and telling them I didn’t think I was good enough to have my content with them!
Dumb for 2 reasons: 1) Never turn down a compliment, and 2) never turn down an opportunity to earn revenue when it costs nothing to get in.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
Being stuck with CJs and TGP for too much time.
If I had spent the same energies into blogging, I would have earnt $3-4mln. Go figure 
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
I got out of AVS when they started putting the hijack page in the middle, to lure customers away to their own VOD theaters.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
Im the exact reverse. I wish I hadnt wasted time faffing about with paysites that did sweet f.a. I tried to run before I could walk. You need to learn marketing as an affiliate before you try something like that.
I see alot of paysite owners now who started a paysite and have no clue about affiliates or how we work.
Its a very silly thing to do imo.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
What was my worst mistake as a newb? I’m only allowed one?
Ok, a BIG One that comes to mind was having like a 25 gig of bandwidth hosting account and getting a gallery accepted on the Hun …
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
Worst mistake… getting involved with the wrong people when we set up… big lesson learnt and soon dropped them as clients.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
Biggest mistake I made when I got into this in 1996 was not spending hours a day registering 100’s of available names…I probably could be retired by now had I thought about the potential for selling them in the future!
Lee
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
biggest mistake, besides spending 3 years looking at porno insted of working with it, is probably dropping out for about 1 year and letting all my names expire…
wish i had never done that, but was in a very tight stop and didnt have any choise…
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
I am right alongside you Lee, my biggest mistake was not registering a boatload of awesome domain names that I found when I started…but I thought at the time that spending $40 on a domain name was such a risky thing. I could have retired on typein traffic by now
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
me, too. when i think of the domains i decided not to register, i can kiss my own private tropical island goodbye…
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
i think it can’t be overstated the allure of third party consultants and designers who have preyed upon people wanting to become part of webmastering in the adult market, especially in the past 10 to 5 years.
And the other pariahs who have posed as DVD distributors, a topic recently posted in another thread here.
The Internet started out as the most democratic world wide communications medium. But not unlike its real world counterparts, various political, geopolitical and carpetbagger types always pop up wanting to control, manipulate and manage people and content.
I think the biggest mistake I ever made was for three months I listened to a provider tell me to be exclusive to them, then watched my previous gains crumble. Fortunately, it was only three months, and after restoring order, my gains were quickly recouped.
The internet is a big place, I’ve been using it since 1994, and selling on it since 1995. Since one is always ultimately responsible for one’s own disappointments and failures, one also needs to think democratically and independently about any person posing as an ultimate source of future success.
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
gee, I don’t know where to begin… except for the fact that we took total scenes from our DVDs and put them up as episodes… with a little cutting and creative re-working, they could have doubled the amount of content! (most of our movie scenes are in the 27-32 minute range with some being 42 or more and with 5 guys!) - at least nobody has ever complained about our content, amount of length!
But, at that point, we were so busy transporting the original content from one bad encoder to another, wasting a huge amount of time and an enormous amount of money too…
oh well - its only content after all…
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
[QUOTE=AnthonyDeAngelo;18432]gee, I don’t know where to begin… except for the fact that we took total scenes from our DVDs and put them up as episodes… with a little cutting and creative re-working, they could have doubled the amount of content! (most of our movie scenes are in the 27-32 minute range with some being 42 or more and with 5 guys!) - at least nobody has ever complained about our content, amount of length!
But, at that point, we were so busy transporting the original content from one bad encoder to another, wasting a huge amount of time and an enormous amount of money too…
oh well - its only content after all…[/QUOTE]
Splitting scenes is great as long as you have multiple cumshots per scene. Creative editing isn’t going to disguise the fact that there is no money shot. As a surfer, i have never been so disappointed then when I’ve downloaded a scene and then I have to wait until ‘next week’ for the pay-off. :no:
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
yeah, well we’ve always got pop shots going and cumming… that’s never been one of our probs as you should well know… and if the content had been re-cut, we could have easily had two different scenes - we’ve always shot lots of footage, so much so, that I’m now going back in to see about all of those “re-takes” and “pick-ups” we’ve shot over the course of a day or two on set… and cutting together a lot of the “behind the scenes” stuff which all has its own set of pops as well… after all, we ARE the barebackMasters…
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
My biggest mistake was that I waited 5 years before I actually entered this biz… Oh the money I could have made:)
Instead I was at home pointlessly surfing porn, with mild depression state, thinking about HOW TO EARN money…
Oh the stupidity…
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
My biggest mistake was:
To be sweet talked by iBill/Etelegate … I got them as my processor and didn’t know you could have a 2nd biller. blimey - I got caught in all the drama - it was terrible - months went on when people would sign up and pay (them!) and see my content - but I wasn’t getting any payments …
I still had to shoot content (pay models etc) update my site because I didn’t know what was going on … I spent night after night (UK- USA time difference) talking to their reps - trying to get my money - they always promised me it would be sent the next day … oh man - I was so frustrated - sometimes I would sit in front of my computer just crying … not knowing what to do … wanting my thousands of pounds from them, but not getting them.
Luckily that chapter is over and now I know to always have a “plan B” ready - when it comes to your server - or cc processor - or hard drive (just to remind ALL of you: do a back-up tonight!!!) - it is best not to take things for granted.
Another mistake was: thinking I was about the ONLY person on the internet to do porn - not knowing there were these good forums around for us to learn and get advice …
Re: what was your worst mistake as a newb?
[QUOTE=milivanili;18549]My biggest mistake was that I waited 5 years before I actually entered this biz… Oh the money I could have made:)
Instead I was at home pointlessly surfing porn, with mild depression state, thinking about HOW TO EARN money…
Oh the stupidity…[/QUOTE]
The mistake I made was - I was in the business earning the big bucks at the time, but instead of working 10 hours a week, I should have been working 40. You worked 10 hours a week and made 4k, there wasn’t much motivation but to go out and have fun. DAMN IT!