Page 22 - AVN Intimate Summer 2016

FEATURE
Tapping Into
Topco
New COO talks about what’s
next for venerable brand
industry, Topco Sales has seen many changes over
One of the “big five” companies in the pleasure product
its 40-plus years in business. And that’s especially
been true since 2012, when the company was sold
to WSM Investment. Though two members of the founding
family still remained on the scene—Scott Tucker, son of Marty
Tucker, and Michael Siegel, Marty’s nephew—the next four years
brought a lot of changes at the company, including a move from
Chatsworth to Simi Valley.
This spring, upheaval continued with the departure of Siegel
back in May. And within a couple of weeks another change came.
On June 3, Topco Sales announced that it would be sailing off
in a new direction in the wake of appointing industry veteran
Autumn O’Bryan as its new chief operating officer.
For those who don’t know O’Bryan, suffice to say that over
more than two decades in the pleasure product industry, she
has explored almost every aspect of the business. And that’s
fortunate because, according to a company release, O’Bryan’s
new job is “to reestablish Topco Sales as a leading manufacturer
focused on building trust, promoting quality, and bringing a
fresh approach to the next phase of the brand’s historic legacy.”
Piece of cake, right? Well, not really. But after talking to
O’Bryan, it’s clear that Topco’s new COO has knowledge of the
industry that is both deep and broad. And as a Topco alumna,
she’s a passionate cheerleader for the venerable brand.
O’Bryan’s path through the adult industry began in 1994
when she started a home party business in New England called
Midnight Madness, which she sold to UndercoverWear in 2004.
22 | INTIMATE | SUMMER 2016
After consulting with the new owners for a time, she moved to New Orleans
in 2005 to partner with Ann Sanders, who was then the president of Fantasy
Lady, a home party company. O’Bryan and Sanders were going to do wholesale
distribution to party plans—and then six weeks after she moved to the Big Easy,
Hurricane Katrina washed their plans away.
“At that point,” O’Bryan recounted, “Marty Tucker, who was a mentor of
mine and owned Topco Sales, called me and asked me to fly out to California
to interview with them, and I got the job as executive director of product
development for Topco Sales and then I stayed there through 2008.”
After that O’Bryan explored another sector of the industry when she joined
CNV.com, also known as SexToy.com, the pioneering ecommerce giant founded
by Dave “Sex Toy Dave” Levine. From 2008 until earlier this year she worked at
that company as vice president of sales, marketing and business development.
O’Bryan’s resume shows her familiarity with myriad aspects of selling
and making pleasure toys. “Obviously with Topco I did the manufacturing
side,” O’Bryan said, “and working with CNV I had been a customer, a vendor,
ecommerce, omni-channel, so I’ve pretty much covered it all. Brick-and-mortar is
the only area that I’m lacking in, but I have a pretty good understanding of it.”
When O’Bryan spoke with AVN via Skype from her home office in New
England, she’d been on the job for just three weeks, commuting from the East
Coast to Southern California.“I envision within the first six months I’ll be more
there than here,” said O’Bryan. “But with technology today, with Skype, with
chats, with instant messages, with virtual technology, I don’t necessarily feel
that you have to be in an office. So I’m hoping to establish the team that’s strong
enough that I don’t have to be there all the time because I’d like to spend a lot
more time on the road traveling to visit customers, growing the international
market again, and so forth. But my first three to six months I’ll be spending the
majority of the time in Simi Valley.”
Over the course of our talk, O’Bryan shared some details from her past and
also painted a vision for what she hopes to accomplish in the present and future.
AVN: WhAT WAs it thAT dREW you to the plEAsURE product indusTRyto begin
with?
Autumn O’Bryan:I went to school to be a warden of a prison—that was my
dream—and so I got my degree in human services and then I was going for
criminal justice. I was working in the prison system as an intake counselor and
I went to my first home party. The consultant said it was the most she had ever
sold—we had done thousands of dollars in sales. So I asked her how much she
made, and she told me, and I asked her, like everyone does, what’s involved
in that?She told me, and it seemed really simple. ... I bought a kit and my first
party did really well and I thought, “Hmm, why would I give someone else
my money?” So I created my own company, and within the first year I had a
hundred reps. And I left the mainstream job behind because the home party
industry was just growing so fast.
WhAT did you like aboUT home pARTies?
I loved meeting with people and being an authority on what would fulfill their
fantasies. Back in those days, a lot of women had never had orgasms. They’d
been in long-term marriages and they were ashamed, and this gave them an
open forum to discuss and they had a lot of fun doing it. The toys just rolled off
the shelf. And at that time there weren’t as many brands, there weren’t as many
products, there weren’t as many companies, the internet wasn’t big—so was easy
money. It was a lot of money.
How hAVE home pARTy plANs chANged since you exiTEd thAT mARkET?
Obviously with the internet and women being more comfortable walking into
stores and being able to buy the items online, there isn’t as much of a demand
for home parties. I think the home party industry right now is trying to figure
out where they can go next. ... Somehow, some way they are going to have to
involve the internet, to involve virtual parties—they’re going to have to be really
innovative and think outside the box, and I just haven’t seen that breakthrough
yet of what they can do to grow.
You’VE bEEN selling sex toys for a long time. How hAVE you sEEN the mARkET
shiFT?
Back when I was doing sex toy parties, women would not say they were going