Starting an Internet Porn Company 101?

jakovitch · I'm probably spamming Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 1

Greetings!

As the title implies, I was looking for advice as to how to start and run a successful porn website.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that I have convinced a very beautiful young woman that she and I could make some money if she were to pose nude for her own website. It would most likely be soft core along the lines of something like Kate's Playground or any of the Lightspeed sites. Maybe more revealing or hard core down the road if she's into it. I have the startup costs and web development taken care of as well as a photographer. I have a degree in computer science but not a ton of experience with website creation. I've maintained some message boards and set up a couple of e-commerce sites so I think I could take care of the maintenance if an experienced web developer designed the original site. Am I wrong?

I now turn to you, experts and connoisseurs of all that is internet porn for advice.

Some things I was hoping to find out are:

Do you think I will need an attorney? I'm not sure what papers need to be filed with the government. I live in the States and I know there were laws passed recently that require some sort of registration. I can set up the actual business (LLC) so that's not a problem. I was more wondering about laws specific to pornograpy in the States. I also assume that I will have to get her to sign something saying that it is ok for me to post nude pictures of her on the internet for money right?

Where should I begin with marketing? Is it worth advertising with the promo content sites that charge per-click (or per sign-up as the case may be)? How much free content should be distributed to various places as promo? What other advertising options are there?

What are the differences between running an adult site versus a normal ecommerce site? I know that many webhosting services specifically forbid adult content. What about payment options. I've set up normal credit card processors before but does the average payment processor allow adult content transactions? I'd really like to avoid using something like CCBill or anything in that vein. Are there huge rate differences between adult hosting/payment processors as opposed to traditional ones?

Any thoughts on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated, that goes double for anyone that has actually run a site or has any other practical experience in this field. Also, I'll be sure to give ya updates as they come about.

Cheers!

mike=)).