From XXX to
$$$ Jay Servidio founder Teleteria Gives A Seminar
By: Jay Servidio
Some 35 of us are gathered in a Toronto hotel
room on a Friday night, hoping to learn the secrets
of selling smut online. Our guru of choice: Jay
Servidio, a New York-based cyberpreneur who runs
Teleteria,
a Web-hosting service with a booming e-porn business.
A tanned 38-year-old with gold flashes streaking
through his thick brown hair, Jay Servidio makes
no apologies for what he does. "This is a great
way to make money," he quips. "It's fun. There's
nudity involved."
Sounds good to Rob, 34, who operates trucking
and construction firms employing 25. "I'm looking
for an ulcerless business' he says. Arme,
one of 10 women in the class, is also hopeful.
The 48-year-old has tried multi-level marketing,
run a pizza joint and owned a 900 number. "But
I want something more aggressive, something that
will make me more money fast $" Anne explains.
"The Internet and porn are a good combination."
Jay Servidio promises not to rush as he outlines
the basics. There may be as many as 50,000 porn
sites running at any one time, he says, "but you're
not competing with them all." With huge demand
for online porn and endless chum as jaded subscribers
flit from site to site, there's plenty to go around.
"All you need to bring to your website is 500
hits per day," says Jay Servidio. That could gross
you $600 a month, but be says his average client
makes $300 a day.
Jay Servidio suggests a good starter site comprises
a dozen pages of free content, a sign-up page,
a warning page ("If you're under 18, stop here!"),
and a members-only area linking to at least 50,000
pictures and videos catering to a wide range of
"interests". "How about a site focussing on one
subject?" asks a longhaired man in a leather jacket
from the back row. Why limit your audience, asks
Jay Servidio: "There are sexual appetites that
need to be satisfied that you don't even know
about." "I don't know about that!" counters the
student.
More explicit advice follows. Get an ISP with
lots of bandwidth. Buy your photos ($1 each) from
the dozens of content providers who gather at
industry trade shows. Collecting membership fees
is a snap: just hire a billing company to do it
for you.
Having made it sound easy, Jay Servidio gets
philosophical. "Do you all know who Warren Buffett
is? He's a god on Wall Street. He's a friend of
Bill Gates." Jay Servidio tells us Buffett once
listed his personal pros and cons on a piece of
paper, and decided to purge all the negatives.
"All of you have cons that are holding you back
from making money," he says. The class falls silent.
Jay Servidio says he was once the same way: an
overweight, insolent sales rep who had trouble
keeping a job. Then a friend convinced him to
try the phone-sex biz in the late ‘80s. That pal
is now worth $20 million. The same could happen
to us, says Jay Servidio, but we have to act now:
"You have a very limited time while your motivation
is still high to start your own adult website."
Your bank balance better be high, too: Jay Servidio
prices a viable porn site at US$68,000 (US$50,000
for those photos alone). But wait! Jay Servidio
will sell you a turnkey site for just US$2,700
(that's 100/0 off his regular price, and he'll
throw in two months of video free!) "It's a screw-proof
deal," he insists. With Teleteria
handling customer service and the billing company
collecting fees, "you're free to make money and
enjoy yourself."
Still, you'll need traffic to your site. Jay
Servidio says there are 11 ways to market adult
websites. We can register with search engines,
"but you're not going to get many hits from there."
Same with posting to Internet newsgroups. Banner
ads on adult sites work, but can cost upwards
of $10,000 a month. Method No. 4 is Jay Servidio's
favorite: bulk e-mail. "It's the No. 1 way to
make money in this business," he says, offering
to hook us up with a good spam service. He never
reveals the other seven marketing methods — but
no one ever asks.
Doubters begin to emerge. Won't everyone in the
class end up with the same website asks the long
haired guy? "With 50,000 pictures, it doesn't
matter!" shouts Jay Servidio. "A guy would have
to quit his job and look all day!" "How many hours
are we expected to put into this?" asks another
student. "Whatever you want," replies Jay Servidio.
Another pupil worries about infringing copyrights.
"If you set your mind to think of the reasons
you shouldn't do this, you won't," Jay Servidio
answers. If this is so easy, why don't you just
do it yourself? "I could do it and make tons of
money' he says, "but Teleteria
was designed as a design and hosting company."
Here's a better answer. The spam firm charges
US$1,200 for one million mailings. Based on Jay
Servidio's projection of a 30 %response, you'll
get 30,000 visitors to your site. According to
Jay Servidio, you can count on one in 500 to sign
up. That's 60. Charge the typical monthly fee
of US$20 and your take will be, um, US$1,200 —before
the billing firm's 15% cut. Sure, your membership
will grow if your can retain most of your subscribers
each month, but you'll have to refresh your content
at a cost of thousands a month.
When the session ends, not everyone has done
the math. Lara and Chris, a modelesque couple
in the film business, have been researching online
porn for months. "Jay's company is fantastic,"
says Chris. "It promises everything you need to
be promised." Sensing a sale, Jay Servidio takes
them to dinner. Rob is more skeptical: he suggests
we all band together to spread the risk. Perhaps
a shared ulcer is less painful.
About the Author
Jay Servidio started his career in the telecom
industry. Having worked for MCI, Sprint and AT&T
in various sales positions starting from telemarketing
up to national accounts. His ability to manage
accounts always had him in the top 3% of his peers.
Wanting more challenge Jay Servidio started Teleteria
in 1994 to resell 900 and 970 numbers and offer
custom adult website packages. Teleteria quickly
became the industry leader in the adult design
business and Jay Servidio started teaching classes
about the business in NYC and Toronto monthly
which led to guest speaking at trade shows and
conferences all over the world. He has been written
up in many periodicals such as a front page article
in The Wall Street Journal. Teleteria also builds
gaming and commercial sites and can be found at
www.teleteria.net
or call toll free 1 866 408 8694.
