Page 14 - AVN July 2016

WE’VE GOT ISSUES | | By Sharan Street
Going the Distance
Winners mix products, profits ... and people
JULY 2016
will recollect scores of companies that have
Veterans who cast their minds back 10 years ago
faded away. In most sectors of the economy,
failure rates are high with start-ups—around
50 percent shutter within five years—and adult is no
exception.
But then there’s the other half of the equation: the
ones that succeed.
What sets the successful business apart? Consider
this quote from American automobile executive Lee
Iacocca: “In the end, all business operations can be
reduced to three words: people, product and profits.
Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much
with the other two.”
And those three P’s are just as important to selling
DVDs and dildos as they are to selling cars.
Putting aside the first word—people—for the
moment, consider product and profits. For Jules
Jordan—interviewed by Dan Miller in this issue—the
two as inextricably linked: Profits won’t come without
a product that’s worth buying. Celebrating his tenth
year of running a DVD distribution empire, Jordan
puts quality first when choosing what he carries. And
he offers stern words to any retailer who would “line
your store with garbage.” Jordan says, “Some retailers
think that’s the only way they can compete. But
they’re actually driving people to the Internet to get
some of the more collector’s item-type shit, instead of
training people to come into the shops.”
Over at Doc Johnson, Ron Braverman has been
exploring the importance of people, product and
profits for a full forty years.
“There really wasn’t an erotic market in 1976, in
the traditional sense,” Ron Braverman told Sherri
L. Shaulis, who profiles the company on its 40th
anniversary. “Sex toys were being lumped in with
other types of novelty products. The market was
prime for a business that was devoted solely toward
sensual needs. Doc Johnson was the natural response
to that demand.”
Four decades later, Braverman points out, Doc
Johnson has “more than 500 team members, multiple
buildings on a campus of more than 250,000 square
feet, and a catalogue of more than 2,000 products.”
Which brings us to people—that key part of
Iacocca’s recipe. Both Jordan and Braverman share
credit for their success with their respective teams.
I got to meet some of Doc Johnson’s players when
AVN stopped by to photograph the Braverman family
and their marketing and sales personnel. Ron’s
daughter, Erica Braverman, served as tour guide
through the campus, where an army of workers
manufacture and ship products. When I commented
that her father must be pleased to have both his son
and daughter in the business, she said, “He loves
seeing family every day. But to him it’s not just me
and Chad. Really, so many people have been here
since the beginning, so we’ve developed a family.”
As Erica moved in and out of the many buildings,
staffers smiled as she walked by and explained the
work they were engaged in. But most intriguing was
a small room behind the work area where the molds
are cast. Passing by a phalanx of phallus shapes, Erica
peeked in to see if the occupant was home.
Inside we found Anjani Siddhartha, who has spent
the past twenty years creating many of the products
found in Doc Johnson’s inventory.
“I’ve been an artist all my life. I started in
Colombia. I went to art school,” Siddhartha said. “I
always worked with clay, I did painting. I always loved
creating.” Her first industry gig came about when
she met a Filipino artist at a show in Hollywood. “He
told me, ‘I’m going to be leaving my job where I do
sculpting.’ He didn’t tell me what it was.”
Siddhartha ended up taking the job, which led her
to Las Vegas. A few years later, she heard from Ron
Mcallister. The late McAllister, a product inventor at
Doc Johnson, had sought her out, Siddhartha recalled.
“He said, ‘Can you come to Doc Johnson? We want to
meet you. So I came to meet Ron Mcallister and Ron
Braverman. We have a little meeting and I show them
some of the stuff that I do and they say, ‘Can you
work for us?’ So I move from Las Vegas to here—it
was 1996.”
For textures and shapes, Siddhartha draws
inspiration comes from everything imaginable.
She held up a tube of holiday ornaments and the
prototype beads it inspired. A glass orb from Pier 1
can be seen reflected in the Mood Power Ball stroker.
And from a cluttered shelf she grabs the finial from a
curtain rod, decorated with grooves—and by golly, it
does look like the perfect butt plug.
Siddhartha talks about the meetings they have to
discuss new items. “With the internet it’s a lot easier.
Before, many years ago, it was hard to know what
people want. Now we look at surveys ...”
“Trends,” Erica interjects. Siddhartha continued,
“We look around—what people want, what people
like, what is selling.”
Now that the world is “more open-minded and out
there,” Siddhartha said, the job is even more fun. She
points out a pair of bright pink cuffs made of Doc’s
platinum silicone. As bondage has gone mainstream,
she says, there’s room for “cute, playful” items.
Meeting Anjani Siddhartha puts a personal face on
a company that has become an industry institution—a
reminder of how important that third P can be. Jordan
and Braverman certinly understand that. And so does
Autumn O’Bryan, the new chief operating officer at
Topco Sales. In an interview inside, she has plenty to
say about her plans for the venerable brand.
Also exploring a new chapter is LELO. The Swedish
pleasure product company last month unveiled its
Hex condom. You’ll find that story here too—another
example of the rich entrepreneurial spirit that makes
covering this industry so interesting.
14 | AVN.com | 7.16