Page 70 - AVN November 2017

FEATURE
Along with the launch of iWantEmpire, you’ve brought on several big names to serve as
contract stars/brand ambassadors. What’s your vision for how this relationship will be mutually
beneficial?
Working with the established adult artists, we recently had an opportunity to meet with them to
discuss our brands, our values, and we’ve met some really amazing, highly energetic people who
really share the same values as us and have a commitment for wanting to make an opportunity
for more artists out there. So we’re really excited to be working with Tasha Reign, Jenna Sativa,
Riley Reyes. We’re also expanding our gay offerings, so we’re working with Wesley Woods, Marc
MacNamara and Diego Sans as contract stars who will also be helping us as consultants to make
sure we’re very authentic as we move into that area of the marketplace, and that our offerings are
properly presented and culturally sensitive to the community. At the end of the day we’re really
excited to be working with them as our contract stars and brand ambassadors to really show
other artists the benefits of owning their own content, owning their future, by being a part of
iWantEmpire.
WHEN A FAN COMES TO ONE OF OUR
WEBSITES … THEY KNOW THAT WHAT THEY
ARE BUYING IS WHAT THAT ARTIST WANTED
TO MAKE, IT’S 100 PERCENT GENUINE AND
IT’S AUTHENTIC, AND I THINK THAT
CONNECTION IS WORTH A LOT.
Speaking of gay content, do you did you find you needed a dedicated portal to serve the needs
of artists and consumers?
It is part of our rebrand, in fact, that we’re going to breaking iWantClips down into a few sub
clip sites. If you were to ask, essentially, what is the nature of the content or what is iWantClips,
most people would tell you we’re a fetish-oriented website, which originally we were. That
statement would hold true, I think, through our first year, into 2015. But by 2015, 2016 and
onwards we’ve had so much diversification—we have trans performers, we have gay performers.
We have established adult performers already starting to upload their own content. We also
have a lot of cam performers on there. So what we’re about to do is we’re about to break the site
down, so to speak, and do a launch of some additional clip sites. So very shortly you’ll be seeing
iWantGayClips, iWantTransClips, iWantCamGirlClips, iWantXXXClips and iWantFetishClips. All
of those we’ll be able to then market in more specific areas to help those artists better attract fans
relevant to them. And at the same time, as they load their content onto those individual specialty
sites the content will always appear on iWantClips as a master site, so regardless of the genre, the
category, the type of content it is, it will still be appearing all together in one main grouping on the
iWantClips site. But if you’re interested in gay clips, for example, you can head to iWantGayClips
and find all the related content there. And we’re also working with an artist from the trans
community to help us with iWantTransClips by the name of Mandy Mitchell. Our overall goal is to
be authentic and all inclusive.
Do you also offer a platform for studios to show their content?
We do, in fact, and I’m really glad you brought that up. I think originally there may have been
misconceptions that we are not a benefit or a complement for studios when in fact—and this year
is proving it, though I don’t have any studios to announce at the moment—we are working with
several. The clientele on iWantClips are fairly affluent consumers who are used to buying content
from us in a short format, of approximately 5 to 15 minutes. … We are now a distribution and
advertising partner for the studios, so it’s a great way for them to be able to tap into a very loyal
and very affluent customer base that has been buying short-form content, but that doesn’t mean
those same consumers don’t buy long-form content as well. We see it as an excellent distribution
method and financial revenue source for them.
You’ve been around for several years. How has your perception of the adult industry changed?
Before being in the industry I had the perception that everybody in the industry was doing very
well; there was an abundance of success and wealth and opportunity for people. Now, I see it as
being a very conflicted industry, much in the same way that we live in the wealthiest country in
the world, the United States, yet on a daily basis I am faced with so many people who are just
trying to survive and get through. The adult industry is one of the most profitable industries
in existence, yet so many people are just surviving and not thriving. iWantEmpire is all about
thriving. We want our artists to be thriving, and our success depends upon it. Our business model
isn’t to make money off our artists; it’s to make money with our artists. If our artists aren’t making
money, then neither are we. We don’t own their content so it’s important that we help them sell
their content. I think our business model is a pleasantly different concept for a lot of artists.
Are there people in the industry who inspire you?
I’d like to firstly thank my amazing and talented wife. She’s been my muse and she is bar none
the greatest reason and influence in making our site performer-centric. Outside of her, and inside
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of the industry, I have a huge level of respect and admiration
for Shirley Lara [of Chaturbate.com], Viv Thomas, Suze Randall
and Holly Randall—I think they’re all amazing visionaries with
absolutely beautiful minds. The things they’ve done with their
brands and their business—the feedback I get on how they treat the
people in their organization sounds second to none. It would be an
honor to meet any of them and to talk shop with them.
What do you like about your job?
I truly feel I have the greatest job in the world, and I definitely
want to thank all of the artists and my team for helping that
happen, helping me realize that. I love working with such beautiful
and creative minds, to tell you the truth. That goes all the way from
the amazing artists who make up iWantEmpire to our dedicated
operations, marketing and development teams. I get to work with
some of the most creative and gifted people that I’ve ever come
across.
What do you like to do for fun?
If you ask anybody who works with me or knows me, I think
they’ll tell you that I’m a diehard workaholic. When I do carve
out a little time for myself, I really love hanging out with my wife
and my three dogs. My wife is my best friend, she’s my business
partner, she’s everything to me. My dogs are a close second. I just
love spending time with them. I also enjoy getting to the beach.
I find it really calms me, helps me center myself, helps me focus
and meditate. I’m also a huge car guy. Any chance I can get out of
the city and enjoy a nice scenic road is always fun for me. I also
enjoy philanthropy, art, great food, and enjoying conversations with
interesting people.
Do you use an affiliate program?
We chose not to utilize the affiliate model for a number of
reasons. For one, we were concerned with the age verification. …
We saw from our initial investigation that a lot of affiliate programs
aren’t doing age verification but are still providing affiliates with
explicit materials to market sites. So we had concerns about that.
Also from my background in marketing, I had concerns about
creating a brand that we wanted to really push the envelope of
what is art, what is sexuality, what is fashion, what is life, and it’s
a very delicate process to bring that to market. By not controlling
where we were advertised and how we were advertised, the affiliate
business model wasn’t attractive to us. … That’s not to say there
isn’t room for affiliates, or that affiliates aren’t valuable in certain
applications but I have a very hard time compensating an affiliate
for the same amount I would see an artist being compensated. So
we do it all in-house. We spend a lot of money on our hosting,
our marketing, on bringing our brand to the market, and we are
able to do that by not having the affiliate in there, by taking that
budget and applying it ourselves. We’re also able to provide our
artists with a higher revenue share than almost any other site in
the industry. …
I myself and of my partners have never pulled a dividend dollar
out of this company. I make a salary, but we have not pulled one
dollar of profit out of this company to live an exorbitant lifestyle.
We keep putting it in, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger. We
joke around in the office and say, “How big is this opportunity for
us and all of the artists? And we say, ‘How big is space?’ … On
our site, an artist can process up to $10,000 in one transaction. …
August was our record for a top model payout. In one day our top
artist that day made $121,000 dollars. In that month, that artist
made $152,000, I believe. It’s amazing, it’s beautiful, it’s mind-
boggling.
How do you see the industry, and your company, changing in the
next five years?
I see iWantEmpire blurring the lines between sexuality, fashion
and art. We just recently completed our first photo shoot for our
winter and spring ad campaign with an international high-fashion
photographer, Josh Ryan, and we just did that at the same location
that Angelina Jolie did for her 2010 Vogue cover, and Lady Gaga
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