Viable adult webcam business idea?

[kate3728]

Hello

Sorry if subjects such as this are prohibited, feel free to delete, just wanted some advice.

I have a friend who has worked for about 2 years in the adult webcam business. Her husband works and she's a "housewife", any money she makes is just extra income but she makes equivalent to a full time job salary each month. Although she says the work is tiring and will mean many hours in front of the cam, some days making nothing. She also earns money from customers purchasing her videos/pictures direct from the website.

Personally, I have no experience in this industry. I have searched and looked at the sites as well as the forums and hearing feedback from men who use these websites, there is no doubt that there is a market for the uk adult cam industry.

The majority of the girls have their rates set at around £1.99 per minute, after fees they would probably earn around £1.20. To men this can be expensive as just one ten minute cam show a week could cost them £20 and a lot visit these websites more than once a week.

This is where I formed my idea. There is no doubt that it would appeal to men if they could see more cams and spend less at the same time, which is why I thought of a monthly subscription website. For a fixed cost, a user has access to a maximum of 30 cam shows per month and unlimited access to the models content, for a fixed price.

I would plan to recruit several very good looking and experienced models. Instead of getting paid per show that they do, I would pay all models a fixed amount at the end of each month regardless how many shows they did and they would get a reduction in pay if they missed any cam sessions. The models would then be able to publish their cam schedule and subscribers would be able to book a session to fit around them.

I'm looking for some feedback from some one who is perhaps in this industry or owns a cam site or equivalent.

In addition, does anyone know how much something like this would cost to start up? I have no web building knowledge to make a website like this so I'm assuming to hire a developer to do it for you, it would cost a lot?

 

[DanielRichard01]

Hello.

This is a field I am actually in the process of starting out myself. So I have a little knowledge.

I think though your idea of paying the 'models' a set fee wouldn't really work because the moment you cap there earnings they would put as much effort into it. My partner works on such sites, some days she will earn £500 some days nothing, but yeah she can sit sit online for 10-16 hours a day. and I have had some long conversations with her and other people, about stuff such as guaranteed income but then the situation is from day one these people will want £500+ per week in there account. Some people would want £1000+ some £2000+ this is as well as the cost of and then I mean for a site that is new this is a lot of outlay. Also take into account the cost of building the site and maintaining the site etc. I think however I have come up with a an idea that could just work.

These websites so not come cheap. And if is is to be even half decent it's going to be upwards of £7000 and that's just to start with.

However as said this is something I am very much interested in. I have been talking to a couple of website builders and in talks with a deal that they will be actively involved. If you are interested I would be happy to talk to you about maybe joining in the venture. Unless your wanting to go it alone.

 

[The Byre]

This is another 'race-to-the-bottom' business like record labels, videographers, on-line publishing and blogging. As soon as a market price is established, someone undercuts it and a new market price is set and that too gets undercut. In the end, people offer some on-line product for free and just for fun.

The adult entertainment business is desperately on its uppers, mostly because there is just so much free stuff out there and stuff that used to be 'fringe' and at a premium, is now free and plentiful.

I wish you every success and there are still little niches that can be exploited.

 

[binary-digital]

I can only really talk from a tech point of view, as that's my domain, but I think the costs are going to be a lot more than simply development.

The figure of £7000 mentioned above could get you 20 days of development time with an average contractor specialising in web projects - at least at the rates I see thrown about in London - which seem to be around £350 p/day. I dare say that implementing something in that time would be a very tight squeeze, but depending upon prior work they can use - it's potentially possible.

The real problem is though, you may find yourself £7000 down and having to confront infrastructure and maintenance costs. Video delivery as an online business idea is going to potentially be one of the most expensive ones out there - as it's very bandwidth intensive.

Not to mention, hosting adult material means certain costs are going to be higher - some payment gateways wont permit you to use them (i.e GoCardless) whilst hosting providers who accept adult material are often more expensive. (With the exception of Amazon, who I believe are OK with adult content being delivered from their cloud services)

That's purely my opinion from the finance/technical point of view though! Other than that I believe The Byre is most likely correct when he says there's still little niches which can be exploited, and I think a subscription model is probably a lot more attractive than a pay-as-you-go one - after all, how many people have contract phones!

This is another 'race-to-the-bottom' business like record labels, videographers, on-line publishing and blogging. As soon as a market price is established, someone undercuts it and a new market price is set and that too gets undercut. In the end, people offer some on-line product for free and just for fun.

The adult entertainment business is desperately on its uppers, mostly because there is just so much free stuff out there and stuff that used to be 'fringe' and at a premium, is now free and plentiful.

I wish you every success and there are still little niches that can be exploited.

Quite an interesting point, are you a fan of Louis Theroux by any chance?

He did a documentary during the 90s regarding the pornography industry in America, which was thriving. When he revisited during the 2000's the industry had changed - and one of the explanations given was similar to what you described in your first paragraph.

 

[The Byre]

Some simple peer-2-peer webcam SW should do the job -http://www.graphics-tools.com/