Page 30 - AVN March 2018

FEATURE | INTERNEXT
FEATURE | By Dan Miller
Top left, the State of the Industry seminar featured speakers Sean Christian, CEO of Revolution Force; Steve Winyard, founder
of AVSecure; Greg Clayman, the CEO of VS Media; moderator Corey Silverstein; and Brad Mitchell, the CEO of MojoHost.
Top right, the Paradise Penthouse was the place to be for the Football Playoff Party, sponsored by Mr. Skin and MobiusPay.
Middle right, the panel on traffic included representatives from JuicyAds, ReviveAds/TrafficHaus, TrafficStars/xHamsterLive,
Native.xxx and Stripchat. Bottom left, conversations in the Chaturbate Female Empowerment Lounge.
Photos by JFK/FUBARWebmasters.com.
Shape of Things to Come
On the second full day of seminars at the Internext Expo, the final seminar went
deeper than the customary “State of the Industry” update, revealing another side
of some of adult’s top executives.
In addition to discussing the trends everyone should watch for in 2018, the
business leaders on the panel January 22 also talked about how they’ve dealt with
unforeseen personal challenges, not being afraid to fail and avoiding complacency.
“Staying involved as the owner of the company is super important,” said Mitch
Farber, the CEO of NETBilling, who started in 1997 as a paysite owner. “Especially
in this industry it’s all about relationships. Don’t get so full of yourself that you
don’t think you need to be around.”
Farber means both at the office and at trade conferences such as Internext.
In what became one of the highlight sessions of the three-day expo, he joined
Greg Clayman, the CEO of VS Media; Brad Mitchell, the CEO of MojoHost; Steve
Winyard, founder of AVSecure; and Sean Christian, CEO of Revolution Force on
the seminar that was moderated by veteran industry attorney Corey Silverstein.
Asking pointed questions that departed from typical fare, Silverstein tapped into
the humanity of the panelists, who alternated between sound business advice and
sharing candid anecdotes about what they’ve overcome to arrive at this point in
their lives.
“You only grow by going outside your comfort zone,” said Greg Clayman,
whose company created the pioneering live adult video chat and affiliate program,
Flirt4Free. “If there is one common theme to get across, if you stay comfortable
you’re going to stagnate and it’s going to be very hard to pick yourself up.”
Animated and passionate, Sean Christian told the audience, “We all got lucky.
Ninety-eight percent of the people in adult are accidental businessmen. They had
no idea what they were gonna do but they were in the right place at the right time.
… I have the most respect for the guys in this industry who washed out, who lost
everything and got up and did it again.”
Mitchell, who started MojoHost in 2002, said he remembers an epiphany in
2008.
“Being young, being married and being a workaholic and working all day and
into the evening at the expense of my personal relationships, it dawned on me that
working more hours, working harder, wasn’t going to solve any of the problems
that I was having,” Mitchell said. “I was in some type of a wheel that I was running
around in. I needed to figure out how to work smarter.”
Christian said an effective way to improve yourself is to read.
“Read books, and don’t read anything that has to do with this industry,”
Christian told the audience crowded into Festival Hall C inside Hard Rock’s
Paradise Tower. “Get on GoodReads and share books with your friends so that you
personally can grow as a leader, as a team leader and as an executive.”
Flirt4Free’s Clayman said, “the industry has matured” and companies offering
similar services “are working together in order to create better product.”
Also taking place the same day were a panel on virtual reality that featured Anna
Lee (HoloGirlsVR), Daniel Abramovich (VRBangers), Vid Vicious (Terpon) and
Christoph Hermes (Reality Lovers); Stewart Tongue (EngineFood) moderated the
session.
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