How did you break into this industry? I've done random work as a freelancer for a few different adults sites, but I've always felt like running my own was the real "money shot" as far as passive income goes. Can you elaborate on how you got started and how you keep an edge in such a competitive space?

I'm not really into the industry - my main income is coming from working for major brands in the ("mainstream") ad industry.

I saw the service of acquaintance of mine and what revenue he's making, so I though I can do better.

Generally, in this industry there's massive shortage of talent, ideas and innovation. This is a big opportunity for people who are delivering value in the "mainstream" startup scene and that was one of the reasons which made me try - you can get in and disrupt pretty easily if you think out of the box, which is not so hard in this context.

Most of the stuff is almost scam, the customers are threatened like idiots and technologically the year is 2002-2003.

There are people who say there's no money anymore in this industry and they're right - there's no money for people who are short on skills, ideas and execution, but there is huge potential for people who are coming from other "mainstream" industries.

My prediction is that lot of talented kids will enter this industry with great services - I see it as emerging trend at the moment.

Is technology really that behind? I mean redtube/et al are some of the largest websites out there and the blog posts seem to show a pretty high level of technology behind them although with a larger focus on cost than most startups.

True, but behind these tube sites stays [1] Fabian Thylmann and his [2] company. He is considered as the biggest disruptor who revolutionised the business. The whole story is something like Napster and the record labels, but slightly different.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Thylmann

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manwin

Do you work with Manwin at all?

No - I don't have any points of contact with Manwin.

99% of adult sites run on single servers using out of date PHP/MySQL scripts. Sites like RedTube, etc use newer technology, like at Confoo a dev for YouPorn talked about their stack and they use Symfony, Varnish and Nginx.

Can you please provide more detail regarding how innovation is lacking?

I've been curious because I was thinking of doing something that would host content; is it a legal nightmare if someone uploads illegal material? Is it common?

It depends, but overall it might be risky if you don't pay the necessary attention.

In my case - I've kind of outsourced it, but every user submission is being reviewed before it's published.

Yes, and yes.

Care to elaborate? How much risk is there to the site owner which accidentally hosts the content?

You'll want to make sure all models are of legal age, and that the person submitting it has the rights to upload the material. Yes there's DMCA clauses to live behind that help make such tasks easier but in adult DMCA is so widely abused that it's best to make sure your stuff is 100% legal and legit to stay out of trouble. Not worth the returns in my opinion.

Source: I have just spent the last 12 years in adult and recently just severed all ties with the imploding industry.

It's not obscene to work in the adult industry! Good for you for being successful at what you do. €3,500/month isn't something to sneeze at.

Which payment provider are you using? AFAIK most of them are very picky on the subject.

CCBill, SegPay and Achbill.

Most adult sites use CCBill.

Monexa.

Congrats. What hosts are you running at? I haven't been able to find one that allows adult content

Thank you.

I'm using Webair at the moment, but you can check also Amerinoc and Leaseweb.