Samples of Custom Video Requests

[Gerald75]

Hello,

We are working on a custom video request solution which would help streamline the transaction between customers and performers. We're looking forward to gather samples of custom video requests so to know better what kind of input we will receive. May some of you be so kind and PM me / post here requests you've had from your customers? (whether or not the video was eventually made does not matter)

How it would work:

Basically, upon clicking on your link the customer would be displayed a page featuring:

- information about you: do's and don'ts, the gear you use for filming, lingerie/sextoys you have, etc. depending on what you provide
- a form to easily lay out what he wants to happen during the video: length, different steps of the scenario, what you should say/use etc. (not every details would have to be filled out).

You would then be notified that you have a new request, have a look at it easily so you can reply / propose a price.

Additionally, the service would handle payment processing and escrow the funds so that the customer can pay without fearing a potential scam, and you can make the video knowing that the funds are there. Once you upload it, we send it to the customer and transfer the funds to your wallet (revshare ~85%).

Indeed any feedback / question is more than welcome.

Have a great day,
Gérald

 

[DeezNA]

Oh I remember you, you were the guy who wanted to start a camsite based on a "crowdfunding concept" because you were admittedly "too cheap" to pay listed prices.

Besides providing detailed information about the model, what benefits do you provide us that merit a 15% cut? It seems you are just making a profile (actually, we would be making that, you'd just be hosting it), processing our payments and transferring videos... which we're currently doing by ourselves anyway...


What's missing here is direct interaction between the model and the customer on a private custom video; in fact, it causes infringement of that by adding a middle-man. If the customer is afraid they will "be scammed" to the degree that they will pay extra to you to ensure that they don't get ripped off... they might want to get to know the model a little better or just find another that they do trust. Another benefit missing is client and model actually discussing the video in question and negotiating rather than just request/quote - for instance, if the customer has a request that we would flat-out not be interested in doing (would be listed as a "don't" on your site), we can counter-propose something similar that they may not have thought of; this is not possible with your format. This concept of "list what you have/do/don't", while it may make things more convenient in the short run, can take away from the interactive aspect of making a video feel truly custom-made. It also may lose us some business, since we don't have the chance to actively sell our product.

Some models who have a much higher volume of custom requests may appreciate the convenience of a service like this where the client just fills out a form and we make the video by the numbers, but at very least post some credentials here.

You're talking about brokering deals - handling money and content - you're going to need to reassure clients on both sides that you are worth trusting and worth paying more than services like C4S, MV, etc. since they already exist and have steady, reliable traffic and payment methods. ...Or that you're worth paying at all since this is a part of our job that (for the most part) is the only aspect for which we actually get 100% profit.


Interesting idea and I understand where you are trying to go with it; just some aspects to think about.

 

[SaffronBurke]

Extralunchmoney.com already offers something exactly like this in addition to their other services. Models have a custom job profile in addition to our regular profile, where we can list what we do/don't do/use. Members can send us a message or post in the "requests" section, and the escrow service is often used to handle payments.

 

[BiancaBaker]

Customs4u gives models 100 percent (the guys are charged a percentage that us as models do not see) so why would I go to a place that only gives me 85 percent?? Makes no sense.


Especially since you will bring nothing more to the table- as far as traffic goes, it would be the girl bringing her customers to you which they do on other sites that offer more and or the same exact thing you are offering. Also Kinkbomb. Many Vids and IwantClips has the same type of set up to what you are giving out and they are all established sites.

 

[Gerald75]

Hello,

Thanks everyone for your answers. Yes you are correct about the cam site DeezNA, we disagreed upon the benefits of a proper crowdfunding mechanic and you gave me much perspective.

Let's clarify the current payout rates on the market as I think it's one of the most important points. Please let me know me if I am wrong or incomplete.

Clips4sale:

Generally speaking 60% goes to the performer. 75% on tributes.
I do not know how much getting your money costs you.

Manyvids:
60% revenue share

Clipvia:
70% goes to the performer for contents, 80% on tributes.

Extralunchmoney:

According to their wiki on payouts: http://extralunchmoney.com/wiki/Terms_and_Policies

• Buyers pay on average of $1 = 1 credit .
• Currently 1 credit is equal to $0.60 or sellers get 60%. However if a seller becomes Seller Plus the rate goes to 65%

So they have a 60% revshare basically, and that's assuming they do not actually sell the credits >$1 - which is not very transparent: that would effectively dilute your revshare. They also charge a few "credits" or percent depending on payout method.

Customs4u:

The benefits you are extolling Bianca, that "you get 100%", is actually a lack of transparence from their side. If you check their ToS, it says that basically they have complete control over the end-user price and that you will get paid the price you asked - generally 70% of what they billed.

It means they have an incentive to sell your clips twice your price for example, because even though they'd sell less it would generate them more margin. Less for you though.

Their revshare is 80% on tributes.


So well, nobody has reached a 80% on the market about contents, 60% is more the norm. It makes sense because processing adult payments is expensive unfortunately: high-risk payment providers can take up to 15% - not counting chargebacks -.

As we see it, 60% looks legit when the site brings the customers as they have to cover for the fees related to customer acquisition. But when you bring your own customer to the platform / link back your Twitter account to your C4S store etc. you should be treated as an affiliate as well and rack-in the usual 20% marketing fees.

So we would effectively pay out more money to the performers bringing their own customers. We want to design a great solution for this initially - baby steps - and then expand to providing customers as well. This form would be perfect to integrate to your personal website or promote on your Twitter / places where you are generally more independent in regard to how you transact.


Concerning the value proposition:

The goal is to streamline the transaction as much as possible so that it becomes hassle free for you. How do you currently proceed to process the payment and send the videos?

At first, there would be payment processing, sending the videos, profile information & analytics about the visits / conversions on your page. We would then work on providing sales, in particular by letting customers submit open offers for custom videos to which performers can reply with a proposal (think of Elance).

You are making a very interesting point about the interaction between the client and the model. How do you currently handle custom video requests? By messages or you discuss it directly? The form is here to help but not mandatory, you could use us just for payment processing if you wish and discuss via other channels.

 

[DeezNA]

Thank you for going a little more in-depth with the details of other content-distributing sites. Now... is there any info at all about what qualifies... you? What makes you reliable? What stage of development this service is in? What the 15% paycut is actually... for? I mean, you say you're here to help, but we are taking a paycut by using this service. You can say "other sites take more", but you're still taking 15% and you made a good deal of effort to avoid addressing that.

Other sites take their percentages due for reasons we are fully aware of: traffic/publicity, hosting/processing fees, name value, security, etc. None of this has been discussed regarding your proposed service, so it's hard for me to see what you actually are providing more than a secret transaction/escrow service (which I would hope no one would use unless they knew it was secure). So... you're starting a company here... Welcome to our world: sell yourself.

What benefits are you providing to the models? What makes your service more secure, reliable, profitable and user-friendly than other existing services (including us doing it ourselves, which is 100% profit)?

 

[Gerald75]

Hello DeezNA,

What stage of development this service is in?

We are currently starting the development process, it should take somewhere around 1-2 months to build the service fully. This is why I started this thread to ask for/purchase samples of private requests (I got the public ones from ELM already) so we can find patterns in requests depending on the model/niche it addresses. I am happy to discuss the product we envision though, but it's very early stage.


Concerning the payout structure we want to implement:

We want to have a default revshare ~65% on sales for which we brought the customer.

Additionally we want models to be considered as affiliates and earn an extra ~20% in the two following cases:
- on any "direct sale" generated, i.e. the customer arrives on your page right after clicking your tracked URL and make a purchase
- on any sales generated by customer you referred to the site, except if it is a "direct sale"

So the ~15% cut (born by the buyer) would would be for the cases where we process payment, hosting and escrow service. The ~35% cut would be for the cases where the traffic is on us.

May I ask you how do you currently handle a direct custom video request, e.g. someone contacts you by email and agree to make a video for $100 ? Would you ask for a gift card as payment or ..?


Concerning the benefits we want to provide:

Aside from a payout structure which compensates fairly for referring customers, there are two other main points which we want to improve.

Essentially we will be structuring information. Structured information is good because it will allow us to match demands with the relevant performers, contrarily to ELM which is simply listing all the different public requests for you to search through. If someone wants a video featuring 3 performers, an HD camera and (...) we'll know and let the relevant performers know there's a job they could do - assuming it matches your personal criterias, for example you may have set a minimum price -. It would also let us display this information in a clear and concise way instead of lengthy text blocks.

Secondly the form, if well made, should have two main impacts:

1) Up-selling so to increase the average spending of a customer on a private video request, for example your sextoys / lingerie / special offers such as playing guitar would be showcased to tempt the customer into adding extras on top of the initial request he had in mind.

2) Making it easier to strike a deal: instead of having an ongoing conversation by email you could directly validate / comment / counter-propose on the different elements of the scenario described by the customer. Of course "normal" communication would remain possible. As soon as there's an agreement, the usual escrow service kicks in (customer receiving payment link, you being alerted when funds are there etc.)

We want this form to be entirely customizable for the model so that each one can make a form which caters to its customers (or possibly different forms for different niches, so that "Request a custom lesbian show" leads to a different form than "Request a femdom custom video").

Again, this is very early stage regarding the product so I cannot prove that we will be secure / reliable etc. I could claim we will be so, but imho you would not trust me and that's normal. So this will have to be proven by the product itself when running.

Please let me know what you think.

Regards,
Gérald

 

[BiancaBaker]

So we dont get 85 percent we only get 65 percent (because lets be honest revshare is what we bring as models to your site) I personally hate revshare- when some sites include it- I know some girls may love it if they get there guys to join and then get a cut but for a lot of new models this will not be good. A lot of us already get 100 percent so taking a cut wouldn't benefit us - Also I can vouch for Customs4u, You do get 100 percent, The guy gets a fee but the model never sees that fee. There set up is simple and the guy can pick from a list of what you do and don't do and if you work with other models you can add in a price for that as well. I dont get outside traffic other than me taking a customer to there, So I'm assuming you will be having the same issue. Also Clips4sale tributes we get 70 percent with no revshare deal- So why again would I take more of a cut than need be? I can also get 100 percent by taking GiftRocket and X out any middle man. Also Nite Flirt and Kinkbomb payouts on tributes are a lot higher than 65 percent as well (kinkbomb being 85 percent IF you put there button on your website - which most of us have our own website and niteflirt which is also 70 percent (i believe).

I cant vouch for models other than myself and I'm sure there are girls out there who take paypal *huge no no* but there are ways to get 100 percent (IE amazon giftcard, google wallet (even though they are also not adult friendly), and GiftRocket).

I have also looked into getting Epoch billing for myself- Any other model could also look into this- they only take a certain percentage based on how much you make and since this type of processing is on a low end $$ scale it is very affordable and its a very reputable company.

I think it would be awesome if there was a site that let us have 100 percent with traffic, that's obviously NEVER going to happen- I feel like customs4u will be my best choice option for taking customs - I hope you succeed in your venture I just don't see models using this service when there are better options.

 

[DeezNA]

I have to agree with Bianca on this one. In addition, I have a few general and a few specific points of interest from your last post that I would like to address, Gerald.

In general, this business model seems to be focused entirely on the consumer and profit. While you are putting on airs of it being more convenient for the model, I am yet to see a single feature that doesn't already exist for models... rather focusing your selling points on features that would make things more user-friendly for more picky or distrusting (thus, escrow) users. The point I was trying to make at stage one of this conversation was negotiation. If someone has a very specific video and we can't meet one of... let's say six criteria that this specific user feels a dire necessity for in their custom: we lose a customer. It's a "don't" on our list, so they move on to someone else who has it listed as a "do" or leave your site. We have no chance to negotiate, to relate to our customers, to find a middle ground - to do our jobs unless that request form is filled out. Now, if we're bringing in our own regulars (the only way we actually make the cut that you initially said we would make...) that we already know all the kinks of, their preferences, their desires... this renders the "form and profile" feature completely pointless. Since that feature is out of the way... the only service you are providing is distribution and financial transactions - neither of these features have been mentioned and are, by far, the most important as they involve financial security, personal information security and the security of our business property: our content.

In the simple fact that I asked you five questions in my last message, having genuine interest in giving you candid feedback and helping you build your service, and you only answered one... you lost me as a potential business partner. I'll still gladly help with feedback, but if you can't answer the simple question of what your revenue cut is actually going towards (read: "why am I paying you?") or what your company's qualifications for these transactions are (read: "why should I trust you?"), I'm simply not giving you money or product. If I asked you for a loan or to borrow your car, you would ask some questions too.


Models are not affiliates. Models are partners: you rely on us, it would be wise to remember that. Without models, your service has absolutely nothing to offer anyone. Building your business model where we only get an above-competitor rate by bringing in our own customers gives no incentive at all. Why bring customers to your service and sacrifice 15% simply to bring you traffic rather than retaining 100% profit by enacting the transaction ourselves? Traffic is what we are taking a paycut for, that's part of your job. By cutting our pay before we bring you traffic, you are punishing us for not bringing you one of the very few aspects that we are taking a paycut for.

Your business model caters to, ideally, a large library of models in a high-traffic venue. You want to provide lots of easy options for customers to get exactly what they are looking for and as easily as possible. Unfortunately, the two things you need (large library of models and high traffic) are things you don't have... so, in the interest of giving you constructive feedback, I would recommend a little bit of an incentive deal, not just to customers but to your business partners, to actually build this service to the size it would need to be to compete on the market. No one is going to join up - taking pretty much as large of a paycut as high-traffic sites like C4S or MV - if you don't have any traffic. Might want to consider taking a dive on the profit margins on your side (maybe for the first few months) and actually give models a reason to join up with you and customers incentive to use your service rather than others so that your company can get off the ground. Then, shift back into your proposed business model, to build upon what is already established, once you are actually a competitive force in the industry.


In short, this business model thrives on options; options for customers that simply don't exist at this stage. In order to get to that stage, you will very likely need to build a lot more incentive, trust and good-will (to models and customers alike) than shooting down all your competitors. Food for thought.


One last note - You keep mentioning (and the title of this thread) that you are looking for "samples of video requests"... this is very vague... are you looking for videos? Are you looking for what people have requested in the past? Why do you need this and what are you willing to pay for this information/content? I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt the whole time but if you're looking for free videos from models here for "reference material" (I'm sure I'm not the only one who inferred that), you are looking in the wrong place. If you want data, it's going to be all over the map. Most of us are not going to just spew out private business data or content to an untrustworthy source and your lack of disclosure regarding security is not very reassuring so far.

 

[Gen]

A thought from this (and other threads about new camsites): sometimes I think y'all overestimate the easiness of "just bring your fans over".

Like, if a top, longterm Miss MFC model decided tomorrow she was quitting and moving to a new site, of course she'd have a lot of dedicated fans follow her, but a large number wouldn't because they like and are happy on MFC. Some would follow and inevitably wind up back on MFC because that's where they're comfortable, etc.

Many models move from MFC to Streamate and I'd guess most would say that most of the "omg bb I love you, you're my fave" guys didn't follow them. Members choose sites as much as we do. So while most models have a few regs (some more than others) who might follow them, you risk losing a TON of support when you start on a new site.

Even with clip sales or video download sites, most of my regs have preferences and don't really deviate from them.

And it's asking models to ask members for a LOT of trust - we're endorsing your website, even though lots of cam sites fold, or are just sketchy and we're asking them to stick their credit card info in. When Manyvids first started, I tried to push it a bit and had quite a few regulars say "I'll just stick to Clips4Sale" or MFC tokens. I think overall a site needs to offer something substantially different, easier or more useful to be worth it for both models and members.

So I think new and upcoming sites who expect to rely on models bringing their own traffic should understand that it's not that simple, and that we are asking a lot from our regulars to do that.

 

[Gerald75]

Hello everyone,

@msbiancabaker I'm a bit confused about the revshares and the way you look at it.

Also Clips4sale tributes we get 70 percent with no revshare deal

That is basically what I call a 70% revenue share since you get 70% of the money spent by the customer. What difference do you make between revshare and this?

Also I can vouch for Customs4u, You do get 100 percent, The guy gets a fee but the model never sees that fee.

I dont get outside traffic other than me taking a customer to there

I now understand you prefer giving a price for the video which is to be received fully by you for each sale generated, no matter the price at which we actually sold your video to the customer. We will implement the same mechanism as it looks overall more popular than talking about revshare.

Though when you bring a customer to C4U as you mentioned, and for example request $100 to make his video. C4S is then billing him somewhere around $140 which results in a 70% revshare.


What I tried to explain is that we want to implement a basic 65% + 20% whenever you generate a direct transaction. For example, in the case of our form integrated in your website it would be 85% everytime since you are generating the sale directly (the user just clicked on your link prior to make the transaction). Additionally you would earn those 20% on every other transactions made by customers you signed-up to our site, except if it is a direct sale.


@DeezNA I'm sorry I did not reply well enough, I meant to reply fully but also try not to be overly long. Please let me give it a second try.

In general, this business model seems to be focused entirely on the consumer and profit.

On the model side we want to have an higher revenue share than C4U when a model is sending a customer over, as msbiancabaker does sometimes.

We also want to target models with public requests which suits them directly so you can make time and get more custom deals. For example, if you do not like to performer urination videos we will filter those requests out and you will never have to go through them. On the other hand, as you look quite good with guitar we would notify you directly should it be involved in a customer's request!

The point I was trying to make at stage one of this conversation was negotiation. If someone has a very specific video and we can't meet one of... let's say six criteria that this specific user feels a dire necessity for in their custom: we lose a customer. It's a "don't" on our list, so they move on to someone else who has it listed as a "do" or leave your site.

As I see it you should only list as "don'ts" things that you absolutely do not want to perform, for example urination videos to keep going with the same example. This is for the cases there is no negotiation to be made: the customer wants a specific content that you specifically do not want to do.

In case of more blurred lines, for example you perform anal but not in an hardcore way, this should not be listed as don'ts to leave room for negotiation and counter proposals. To help with the negotiation, we would like to implement the ability to validate & comment on the form submitted by the customer so that parts which require changes are easily identified.

Now, if we're bringing in our own regulars (the only way we actually make the cut that you initially said we would make...) that we already know all the kinks of, their preferences, their desires... this renders the "form and profile" feature completely pointless.

The profile is for the model to announce what he performs etc. not for regulars to tell people about their kinks (altho that is a good idea).

the only service you are providing is distribution and financial transactions - neither of these features have been mentioned and are, by far, the most important as they involve financial security, personal information security and the security of our business property: our content.

I have been quite honest about those actually, I said bluntly I did not want to claim that the product will be secure / reliable etc. because claiming it has no value. I have no doubt it will be developed in a robust and secure way though as my partner has done those exact things many times before for mainstream start-ups which grew quite big.

I believe it is when you will see it work, possibly for other people if you do not want to onboard until then, that you will know it works.

Models are not affiliates. Models are partners: you rely on us, it would be wise to remember that.

I am very well aware that models are business partners, and affiliates too by the way. We're building a marketplace so we rely equally on both the models - offer - and customers - demand -. That is why I posted here prior to building anything, so I can learn from your feedbacks and write "user stories" according to them.

Why bring customers to your service and sacrifice 15% simply to bring you traffic rather than retaining 100% profit by enacting the transaction ourselves?

Unfortunately, ~15% is the cost of handling adult transactions (it could possibly get down to ~10%, or 5% without taking any chargebacks on us) so we could not propose much lower without losing money on every transaction which would not be a viable strategy in the beginning. Simply put, we do not have deep pockets enough to go with it.

What we want to achieve is, firstly, a better percentage than competition so that when you "send a customer over" it makes more sense to send it to us than to C4U for example. Secondly it is to save you time in the transaction so that you can achieve more transactions than if you were handling them manually. If it is not beneficial to you, then it totally makes sense that you do not rely on us for processing your transactions.

You want to provide lots of easy options for customers to get exactly what they are looking for and as easily as possible.

Yes, I believe that's what makes a customer happy and returning which is good for business. It would also let us match the customer with performers able to provide exactly what he wants.

Customers rarely knows exactly what they want though, so I believe there's potential for selling them extras along the way by showcasing great offers from the performer (awesome pieces of lingerie, a rare skill for playing guitar etc.).

I would recommend a little bit of an incentive deal, not just to customers but to your business partners, to actually build this service to the size it would need to be to compete on the market.

Totally agreed. But for now we are focused on building the product and do not have a clue about the promotional offers we will be running, it will be very dependent on the feedbacks and metrics we get from business partners who signed up (or refused to).

than shooting down all your competitors.

It was just a benchmark, not shooting down anyone. I think C4S for example racks in over $60 millions revenue a year, if anything well played to them!

that you are looking for "samples of video requests"... this is very vague

Are you looking for what people have requested in the past?

Yes, exactly. I have no interest in the videos, or even in whether or not a video was made out of this request.

I already scraped all the public requests on ELM (about 12000!), read a lot of them and ran some stats to infer the profile of "custom video customers" and look for patterns that our form should accommodate in order to make the form easier to fill out.

I'm thinking that private requests, sent to a model specifically, may be different though. In particular, I'd like to know if different models cater to very different types of requests because in that case we'd need different forms for different models so that it is adapted.

Yes we are willing to pay for this data, I do not know how much but proposals welcome. I can communicate you my real identity if you wish in order for you to judge better whether I am trustworthy or not.


@GenXoxo Yes you are right, I've witnessed (and be part of) this in my previous company. We assumed that the fanbase of a model kinda "belonged" to the model not the site, which was utterly wrong since when you think of it customers are generally appreciative of more than one model.

When Manyvids first started, I tried to push it a bit and had quite a few regulars say "I'll just stick to Clips4Sale" or MFC tokens.

May I ask you why they preferred to stick to C4S or MFC tokens? And the customers who actually switched to Manyvids, were they happy about it? Did they tell you why?

I think overall a site needs to offer something substantially different, easier or more useful to be worth it for both models and members.

Yes this is what we are striving to do, we would to redesign the experience of requesting a custom video - either to a particular performer or to the community of performers in general -. We do not have it all figured out yet, nor is it sure that we will succeed, but we will keep learning along the way and work hard until we achieve it

 

[BiancaBaker]

Okay So revshare- we only get 85 percent if the person clicks on a specific link sent BY the model. Most new models are not going to benefit from this. I hate revshare- most my guys like the way I do my dealings so I don't think they would just randomly sign up with your site. This is going to happen with MOST models. Like Gen said when guys have a preference they stick to it. If you look at clips4sale on Alexa there is no way you will beat there traffic. 99 percent of my sales come direct from clips4sale and then I can have my website linked and then direct them to payment which normally results in me getting 100 percent. The guys I deal with DON'T mind the extra fee associated with Customs4u. I have NEVER had a complaint. A lot of top studios on clips4sale do take customs this way. If I'm getting 100 percent and the guy is willing to pay there fee then I see no loss in $$. With your site Im taking 65 percent ?? Makes NO sense to me. Even if I did bring my customers and got the 85 percent WHY would I do that when I get 100 percent with Customs4u? Your not addressing this.. It makes literally no sense.

Also If I don't want to deal with clips4sale's 70 percent I can go with Kinkbomb who gives 85 percent with No revshare deal as in your stating. Same with Customs4u- there is no revshare- I get 100 percent. I would recommend them to ANY model and would love to see girls get 100 percent rather than taking more of a cut than need be.

Also I have a list of what I do and don't do on my own website which most girls have along with a customs form they have created. Its quite easy to build a form for FREE and then attach it to your website. If we got 100 percent then I could see models using your service but Customs4u and other options make WAY more sense than your 65 percent (MAYBE 85 percent)..

 

[DeezNA]

Just to make this completely clear: you are making a request form. Currently, that's the product you are pitching since that is all you have fleshed out at this moment.

Okay, got that out of the way.

Like I said, this product would only flourish in high-traffic/high-model-count venues. You don't have that. Sell us on why we need this - we want to help you out here. There are a LOT of people out there that simply want to leech off the hard work we put in and risks we take as performers that they themselves (yourself included) would not be willing to take. They take a cut and simply sit on the sidelines and watch the money flow in. As a supporter of capitalistic ideals, I see the benefits of and encourage this, but in order to get away with that you really need to be providing a service of quality value to your clients/business partners. You are asking these questions (what kind of requests do you get?, how often?, etc.) because you have never been a model and been asked them yourself: why you need this data is still yet to be explained fully. Right now, even in the development stage, you are representing your service - which you have yet to name or even mention your personal credentials a.k.a. what experience you have in money handling. Selling us a little more on my earlier reiterated points of "who are you?" and "why should I trust you?" would build a lot of good-will towards people you claim to want to help; the more resistance, avoidance and secrecy there is... the less we trust you. Since you're working with personal information, bank accounts and valuable business property, trust is your business. I really can't stress this enough.

I believe it is when you will see it work, possibly for other people if you do not want to onboard until then, that you will know it works.

If you want people to wait until other suckers use your site to see if it is safe and secure... that's kinda like building a bridge and asking people to cross it without testing it's stability/integrity/weight rating/whether it has landmines on it/etc. I'm not doubting that your form will work. I'm not doubting your transaction abilities. Fuck, I could make a form and facilitate transactions for models with 0% revshare or cut right now. I am questioning your reliability and integrity. You could have a criminal history, you are not mentioning a specific transaction/escrow service and I guarantee that you did not code it and are not working directly with banks yourself - we know nothing about you and, specifically, why we should trust you with our personal info, money and content. This is probably the easiest question for any company to answer: "Why should I give you my money?" Your answer is: "Well... wait and see if others give me their money, then you might want to do it too."

In case of more blurred lines, for example you perform anal but not in an hardcore way, this should not be listed as don'ts to leave room for negotiation and counter proposals.

Back to the form... if this is the only way to get people to even view my profile (leaving points of negotiation as "not listed as don'ts"), my entire form would be "do's". The last thing I would ever do is put something on an aggregator/search engine like this that would exempt my name from consideration; to intentionally turn down business opportunities. Our job is to sell ourselves to the customer, restricting our ability to do that before we even have a chance to talk to the customer simply pushes them to someone else. It turns it into a meat-market rather than a venue to procure a custom-made, just-for-you video from your favorite model. Rather, it's a pre-scripted feeling video from a model that happens to do what you like... which people can usually search and find for free. If people are searching exclusively by kink/content, they typically don't care as much about who the performer is - when they care about the specific model, they tend to be a more understanding and lenient about restrictions.

When I mentioned bringing in our regulars rendering the form useless, it was directly addressing this point. Nothing is about my kinks - fuck, 80% of my regulars don't even know my kinks - we know what our regulars want. This means the form is pointless if we want to make an "above average" payout (and average would not be 65%, that would be on the low-end, but that's the kinda salesmanship I want to see!). It also puts us at risk of losing our regulars by introducing them to a service that encourages browsing and search features. Why would I bring a client who I know will buy my product for 100% asking price to a venue where they could potentially just search away to another model who does the same thing for less... or will do more/different things than I would. It's career suicide for us but benefits you greatly. You need to make these risks seem worth it for the model.

I am very well aware that models are business partners, and affiliates too by the way. We're building a marketplace so we rely equally on both the models - offer - and customers - demand -

Models rely on customer demand. You rely on models. You are a middle-man: you are not providing the service customers are seeking, you are facilitating its transaction. Your service is a convenience in a luxury commodity market: we need to show members why they should tip us, you need to show us and customers why we need your service. I'm just not seeing it yet.

I have been quite honest about those actually, I said bluntly I did not want to claim that the product will be secure / reliable etc. because claiming it has no value.

Not having confidence in your own service makes it impossible for us to have confidence in it. How can we trust you if you don't even trust you? Building up trust, security, good-will, etc. gets us in the door, proving it keeps us there. It's called advertising.

If you put novelty and convenience over security and safety, you're starting at the wrong end. That's why I told you your business plan caters to the customers at expense of the models. The customers will be paying the bills in the end, yes, but without models... you're basically a cinema with no films. Ideally, in a functional business plan, you would like to create an environment where models not only want to join up, but feel comfortable and at-home enough to stay. That's why I put a lot of importance on this and why it's really off-putting to me that it's missing here.


Like I said, we're here to give you feedback. We ask our questions and make our statements from experience that you do not have, helping you to build a service that we would actually want to use. Stick to your vision, please, but don't get defensive - we will, of course, be your worst critics since we want the most optimized, ideal service possible. If you can understand why we are critiquing so intensely, you will undoubtedly create a service every model wants to use. If not... good luck out there, you're gonna need it.

 

[Gen]

May I ask you why they preferred to stick to C4S or MFC tokens? And the customers who actually switched to Manyvids, were they happy about it? Did they tell you why?

They wanted to stick to what they know, which is totally fair. They can get the exact same product from a site they're already a member of, already know how to use, and already trust with their financial information. So for them, there's very little incentive to change.
I sometimes use ManyVids to send out links (as in, the guy pays from MFC and then I send a ManyVids link), and the one guy who gets those often seems to like it, but I'm not sure if he buys videos on ManyVids or just gets my links. Again, it's kind of more of the same - a place to buy my videos. I'm sure there are guys who prefer MV to other sites but if they're already happy with one site, the only incentive to switch is if I specifically ask, which I probably wouldn't do unless I really believed in, and loved, the new site.

 

[Gerald75]

Hello,

Took me quite some days to write this answer... I was initially going for a quite long answer defending the form, why it would be better than what currently exist and so on.. but some arguments you made struck me as I was writing.

Firstly, it would appear that this form concept appears as a "possibly nice to have" thing if it was part of a site with good traffic, but definitely not a killer feature which would get people models to sign up because "Wow I want this form". That's not really cool when launching a new product and trying to make a name for yourself without credentials.

Secondly, as DeezNA made it appear clearly, we're talking about two separate things at once: the form feature & the payment feature. The form is useless if the payment does not work perfectly well, and that we can be trusted for it is known. Hence payment is a priority over the form, and high payouts is really what has kept this conversation going.

So well, from the various feedbacks we've been thinking we should focus on providing a great way for you to process payments from your customers. No form, no content hosting, no marketplace, just a simple, reliable and effective way of processing payments from your customers while avoiding big cuts.

I have illustrated the product we have in mind for you to see and react, when that works we will be adding things on top of it like cool forms and whatever.

Here is how it works:

Once you have a verified account (we'd need your ID, proof of domiciliation, IBAN) you can generate payment pages by entering 1) the amount you want to receive 2) the description of the transaction 3) clicking "Generate payment page". We give you the URL of the page and you just have to send it over to your customer, when he pays we let you know immediately. The wireframes are basic but they should offer a good overview of the main usage.

The payment page could either be for a one-time purchase (for example a custom video) or a recurring payment (for example a monthly fee of $20 for your Snapchat). Payouts would be sent every two weeks, directly on the bank account you provided (other solutions to come later).

We would not cover chargebacks, because we will not be delivering your content (so we have no idea if the customer was "right" about chargebacking) nor will we know from who you are requesting a payment. On the other hand we'll be taking a very low processing fee (max 15% added on top, no cost to you) and propose to activate 3Dsecure if you want to reduce chargeback risks to the minimum.

The cool things about it opposed to Gift cards / wallets:
- adult friendly & real money indeed
- works directly for any customer with a credit card, no need to have an account etc.
- your customer can pay in his own currency
- you can set up recurring payments so that you get paid automatically every week / month
- as soon as possible we will add content delivery, so for example your customer get the link to download your video right after paying

Concerning security, all the PCI compliance (rules to follow when processing credit cards) will be enforced by a trusted and renowned third party: we do not store any credit card information etc. The same company will be sending the payouts to your account.

Please let me know what you think!

As for I am, my name is Gérald Billoir, I am a 25 y.o. french guy who made a business school with a specialization in entrepreneurship. I worked a couple of years in the industry, as Business Intelligence analyst and Project Manager for a cam company mainly. I disagree with you concerning leeching others hard work while not taking risks, I am taking calculated risks as everyone by focusing on what I am talented for - definitely not becoming a model given my artistic sense. Starting a business is definitely not as easy as you make it appear 'take a cut and simply sit on the sidelines and watch the money flow in', and I am pretty certain you know it given the good arguments you are consistently making.

As for trusting me, I stick to my word: I do not think you have any particular reason to do so until the product is launched and you can for yourself it is built with attention to detail and transparency. I do not have a track record yet which I can show as a proof of goodwill, but my partner has worked with payment service providers in the past and knows how to ensure security of sensible data. We are really not looking forward to run business in an AshleyMadison way, I'm convinced transparency is always the good bet on long-term and well.. you can get in jail for this kind of shit!

Regards,
Gérald

 

[Tristyn]

There are already plenty of sites that offer more than 65% before revshare on payments/tributes/etc. CMD is 75%, or 71% if you want to do daily pay, just as an example. They also cover chargebacks unless you have an excessive amount of them.

I have a 15,000 following on social media and still only get a handful of sign-ups to various sites, so revshare isn't going to be helpful for most models unless they have a massive following, as already mentioned. Technically models can earn up to 75% on their SM shows through revshare, but how often does that happen for most? I only get a small handful of revshare shows a month, personally, and it's my main site so I market it the most out of anything.

Long ramble short, if this site has little traffic and is only going to offer me a contact form (which I could easily make myself, if I wanted to) + payment solution, I'd probably pass.

 

[BiancaBaker]

Not covering chargebacks.. Huge problem

Why AGAIN am I taking this huge cut when I can get 75 percent like Tristyn Just stated or 100 percent through amazon gift card/Customs4u or another means. Your service is pointless- your not generating traffic- it would be us bringing you clients and you taking this massive cut from us- If you are just a payment processor then its pointless > girls can already sign up with epoch and take the cut (which is way less than what you are offering) - I made a simple contact form using a site and it was free, any girl can host a contact form and then process payments herself through easier, more efficient ways.

 

[Gerald75]

Hello,

@Tristyn: thanks for sharing your experience and insightful stats from your follower base. So even with a quite consequent follower base, referrals represent too little of your earnings to really be important.

Thanks to @msbiancabaker , @DeezNA , @GenXoxo and now you I have come to understand that the form + payment is really not a killer feature that can be worth standing alone. It would only be worthwhile in a traffic venue.

This is why we thought to focus our initial solution on payments only, solution which I detailed just above your post. May I have your feedback about this? In a nutshell it would let you generate an URL to a custom payment page in a minute so that you can process credit cards from your customers. You keep 100% of what you ask, we add 15% processing fees for the customer, and you can set recurring payments (for example $30 / month).

@msbiancabaker have you tried Epoch to process payments for yourself? Epoch starts at 15% on low volumes (<$5000 / month) of transactions, paid by You: when you bill $100 to a customer you receive only $85. In our case, when you want $100 your customer would pay $115 and you receive the $100.

I am pretty sure signing up to Epoch requires to have a corporation, which is not the case of most adult performers?

Have a nice day,
Gérald

 

[BiancaBaker]

I have not tried epoch myself but i do know girls who use it and you do not need to be a corporation- as long as you are self employed (which we all are) you can have it on your website and run it yourself. I am not 100 percent sure but I believe they cover chargebacks as well (which u are not covering) a site that covers chargebacks is more impressive to me- if a guy does a chargeback on clips4sale they get banned for life - this is why I love C4S. I hate getting chargebacks and its sometimes a large number (not always) but it does happen.

So are you saying there will be no revshare and we will get 100 percent? Because if revshare is still involved in this it's still a better option to use customs4u which requires no revshare. Also what do you mean we can set recurring payments? a customer may not want to get billed every month $30 for nothing? If this is just a hosting site I dont know how you would generate any traffic without offering something? I can make a website for little cost, host it myself and take 100 percent payments without using you so I just am trying to get you to understand that a lot of girls will not use this. Especially girls who already take payments other ways. Also like stated above if my customers are used to paying a certain way then they will keep paying that way- I don't know if many people like change.

 

[Gerald75]

@msbiancabaker you are right about Epoch, although they do not really advertise it, they do accept sole proprietors. I did not know about it but I just signed up myself and completed all the steps after you mentioned it.

About chargebacks they only say "the fee for processing a chargeback on your behalf is $12,50". So apparently you get a fine, but keep your 85% of what the customer paid before chargebacking.

There are two main differences in what I propose compared to Epoch:

- You would not have to pay $500 or $1000 of Visa and Mastercard registration fees in order to start processing credit cards. I believe this is an important cost, and it is mandatory in order to start processing payments with Epoch.

- You would not need to have a website to process payments with us whereas Epoch pretty much only works with websites selling memberships. You enter the URL of the free version of your site, the URL of the paid version, and the payment options you want to propose to your customers (for example $20 / month, $55 / 3 month, $120 / 12 month). If you just want to sell 1 video for $10, another video at $12 etc. you cannot do it.

With our solution you would not need a website (altho you could have one) and could sell "one content at a time": for example if a customer wants a 20 min Skype show, and you want $80 for it. Then you would just enter this amount + the description "20 min Skype show" in our site and send the URL to the customer. He would have a total amount of $92 to pay, and you receive $80. If the same customer wants to be part of your fan club, you could send him a payment page for $30 / month which you'd get automatically each month. Integration into websites will come later, so let's leave it aside for now.

Concerning chargebacks, I am not decided yet. I am convinced we should cover chargebacks for legit models, i.e. models who have a work history with us and do deliver the contents & services they are selling. It's definitely not the model's fault if a customer pays, gets what he paid for, and chargeback anyway. In that case we should pay for it. Problem is with the solution we propose: we would not know if you did deliver the service/content the customer paid for, because this service would not be delivered by our site (for example the 20 min Skype show). Finding a just solution for both parties would require some more thinking.

So are you saying there will be no revshare and we will get 100 percent? Because if revshare is still involved in this it's still a better option to use customs4u which requires no revshare. Also what do you mean we can set recurring payments? a customer may not want to get billed every month $30 for nothing?

Yes, no revshare. You set the amount you want to receive, for example $100 and customer has an extra fee to pay of 15%. So he would pay $115, and you would receive $100.

Also what do you mean we can set recurring payments? a customer may not want to get billed every month $30 for nothing?

Let's say you have a Snapchat where you send 1 sexy picture per day and some other contents for which you want $5 / month from a customer in order for him to be part of it.

Using our service, you could set a payment page for this and send it to your customers who want to be part of your Snapchat. Once they entered their creditcard information, we would bill them the $5,75 ($5 + 15% of $5) every month and let you know how it went: what payments you received, which one you did not (for example expired credit cards) so you can contact customers experiencing an issue. If everything goes smoothly and you have 30 customers for your Snapchat, everymonth you would receive your $150.

Customers are not paying for nothing, what they are paying for is between you and them. We simply help you process their credit cards at no cost for you, and without requiring a website. In case of financial domination/tributes, I guess some people would be willing to pay for "nothing".

If this is just a hosting site I dont know how you would generate any traffic without offering something?

This is a payment solution, we offer the ability to easily process credit cards without any cost on your side (no $1000 fees to get started like on Epoch + you keep 100% of what you asked).

Indeed we will want to add other services after that could be helpful for you, such as hosting & delivering your contents once they are paid, having a store online where we'd bring traffic, etc. I would be happy to know what second thing would be the most important for you?

I can make a website for little cost, host it myself and take 100 percent payments without using you so I just am trying to get you to understand that a lot of girls will not use this. Especially girls who already take payments other ways. Also like stated above if my customers are used to paying a certain way then they will keep paying that way- I don't know if many people like change.

Now that I have answered to your post, do you still think in the same way?

 

[BiancaBaker]

I think if you could cover chargebacks (like most sites do cover or ban the guy forever) then I think a lot more girls would be willing to use your service. Chargebacks happen to lots of us for no reason and it's not my fault when it happens. Sometimes also guys can be SUPER picky like say I get a direct script and for some reason I don't get the correct angle or something silly and the guy gets pissed and charges back- that affects me and my time I took to create this custom.

" I am convinced we should cover chargebacks for legit models, i.e. models who have a work history with us and do deliver the contents & services " -> this is an issue because most models are legit- sure there are girls who scam but say for some WEIRD reason I get a custom on your site- I am a legit model and most my income comes from Customs- I get anywhere from 4-15 customs a month- some months have been more. I rely on this $$. So the issue is if a random guy finds me on your site and I have never sold a custom through you and does a chargeback, I then am not covered because in your system "Im not legit" I can see this being an issue for a lot of girls by questioning us as models when 90 percent of customs that get charge backed are due to stolen CC or a guy being un reasonable. This may be an issue for new models- say there brand new and never got a custom before and the guy pays- wants to much or keeps changing the script or whatever. The guy then does a chargeback and the model gets screwed. This stuff happens all the time. I think you should refund chargebacks UNLESS the model did not do the custom > Like say I agreed to a custom and then didn't do it (I would NEVER do this) but I am sure there are girls out there that do. This is in my opinion the only reason to not reverse a chargeback- any other reason we should get the $$ since we worked hard to create this custom and then got screwed for some reason.

*Now clips4sale doesnt have a place for us to take payment for customs- I think personally this would be the way to go is to contact them and see if you could create the issue a lot of us models have. Since most my traffic comes from clips4sale that's where most guys request custom content > Instead of me taking a cut (even if its a small amount) I would love for clips4sale to have an option for us to take payments for customs and make it easier for us to do business.

 

[Gerald75]

@msbianbaker I think in the same direction as you concerning the chargebacks, the problem is that we do not deliver your content so we cannot know if you actually delivered it.

I also totally agree that new models would have an awful experience of our site if their first transaction is a chargeback for which they do not get paid, and that is not what I am looking forward. I've given additional thoughts to it and I am thinking the following: chargeback are fully covered by us, but only paid when you have 3 times as much not chargebacked transactions.

Let's say you sell a custom - your first one - via our site for $50, and then the customer chargebacks. Then the $50 are "on-hold" until you make $150 of sales which are not chargebacked, as soon as it the case we pay you the $50 (and the $150 indeed!).

If you have been processing payments with us for some time, let say you made $1000 already, and all of a sudden you experience a chargeback of $200. No question asked, you are covered and we pay you the $200. What do you think of this, does it sound fair?

*Now clips4sale doesnt have a place for us to take payment for customs

How does it work for you currently when a guy from C4S wants a custom video? How does he contact you and how does he pay you?

 

[BiancaBaker]

I think what you need to do is be able to see if the customer got there custom and then that would cover the issue because this is going to be a huge issue with all the models- as soon as a site says they will not cover chargebacks a model is less likely to go with you. That would include myself and most models I know- I dont want to get a chargeback and then get more customs and have it then taken out or whatever you are offering.

For Clips4sale: We are allowed to list our email and websites on clips4sale so most customs get emailed directly to me - we are also allowed to watermark our videos so clients can contact us directly. They however do not have a payment processor for customs- which is my ONLY issue with clips4sale. Most girls use Giftrocket and I know there are girls who use Paypal (I would never use this option) Also Amazon Giftcards- These are all 100 percent to me- The problem with Giftrocket is non-us people cannot use it- so that is why I use Customs4u for outside US clients- I get 100 percent- they cover chargebacks and I see no fee taken out (yes the guy does) Just like what you are offering BUT they cover chargebacks. I don't see many models switching when there is a service that covers CB's and has traffic & I get 100 percent. Customs4u also has a phone line, you can sell skype shows and host videos (so they can see if u sent your custom to the guy) - this is what I was talking about above.

Here are there FAQ's and information so you can see for yourself: Also there support is quite awesome.

http://www.customs4u.com/how-it-works-selling

 

[Gerald75]

Ok your arguments totally make sense about chargebacks, we'll cover them. Models care too much about it, I can understand how unpleasant it can be as an individual to see hundreds of bucks disappearing all of a sudden. For us, as a business, chargebacks is just a statistic to take into account and can charge customers a couple percents more on each transaction to offset the cost - kinda like an insurance -.

Why do not you use Amazon gift cards for outside US clients?

I get 100 percent- they cover chargebacks and I see no fee taken out (yes the guy does)

Customs4U adds exactly 43% fees on top of the amount you are requesting, so when you ask for getting $100, your customer has to pay $143 via C4U.

Given that we would:
- cover chargeback fully & all the time
- let you sell any content or service via our site
- get you 100% of what you ask
- our payment processing works in a secure and reliable way, as C4U

Would the fact that we charge only 25% extra fee on top of the amount you request make you use our product instead?

When you ask for $100, your customer would only have to pay $125. So you could ask for $110 and he would pay only $138 for example, resulting in a win-win.

Thanks a lot for the time you devote to giving me feedbacks bianca, altho you did not like my initial proposal much. This is great from you

Have a nice day,
Gérald

 

[DeezNA]

Sorry for missing this big chunk of the thread, glad to see you took some time to reflect on our feedback, @Gerald75 .

Unfortunately, I feel like you went the wrong direction with this by focusing more on the side you had less thought-out. To avoid another extremely long post, here's my reasoning behind and thoughts on this:
- You are not doing any of the work, you are merely hosting and designing. How much of a cut is actually going to you, rather than to the "third-party" (they would actually be a fourth party, you would be the third party) and what services are you actually providing with your new business model? It seems you have cut out the form and content-hosting/distribution... so it's just payment management now?
- You are claiming transparency, yet you still haven't mentioned the name of your "trusted and reliable third party" that is actually processing our payments and interacting with our bank accounts. This secrecy is discouraging; I understand if you don't want anyone "stealing your idea", but in reality, you are providing a service that already exists - we can do research on the reliability and safety of companies that are named... but with this, we are taking your word for it. This is a big reason why transparency is important: usually if you're hiding something, you're doing it for a reason. If you are committing to one service and limiting our payment options with this service, it would be nice to know how reliable this service is and what they will take responsibility for.
- You're not really hosting anything that doesn't already currently exist for models other than convenience. Since this is the case, go for the convenience angle - you already made the mobile graphic, go balls deep with it. Make it flashy, give us and the customers features that separate your service from the rest of the pack. It's a good angle, it just needs some more work to make it worth the extra charges (either to us or the customer), in my opinion.
- We still have to give you our personal information for verification with your service. This is understandable for verification, but...
- Why are we verifying with you if you have full control of whether or not you will be responsible for your one responsibility - managing payments. If we are verified with your service, we should not be penalized since we haven't "proven ourselves" yet; verification should be enough. If your service does not offer arbitration for contested payments (on both sides), what are you offering more than a payment form? I wish business was as simple as "just set things up and let it run" but you know just as well as I do that it just doesn't work that way in the real world. When a problem does happen and someone decides to try to scam a model or vice versa, who is stepping in to arbitrate? You? The payment service? Are we just out of luck? **This was written before the decision to take responsibility for charge-backs, I'd still like to hear your thoughts on it if you have any.**


I really hope you understand, as we said before, that we're not here to shoot you down. We're trying to help you create a service we would want to use. You have been free since day one to make whatever service you want. We are not making this service - you are. These are just our opinions from our combined experiences in the camming industry.

Security is absolutely crucial. It's the reason I only work with certain sites and not with others. It's the reason I am very careful with how I work and who I work with. I know I'm not the only model who operates this way. If you are going to claim transparency as one of your base ethical tenets, be transparent.

Here's where we are, as far as I can see. Using your proposed service, I would be paying you a convenience fee to manage the easiest part of custom content - payment. Payment for any content, in my book, is always up-front. Non-negotiable. I don't know if the escrow service is now gone or not, but regardless... as models, for the most part, we are still responsible for client management and sales, advertising, content production/editing/distribution and customer service (in case there's a "problem"). On top of this, we kinda need to scale our pricing down so we're not falsely advertising our content as being priced something it actually is not... so we would be making 15-25% less regardless. In case that's confusing... if I were to make a video right now for a client, I would quote their offer (let's say $20 for a nice round number), confirm payment, shoot the content, edit it, package it, distribute, confirm receipt and ensure customer satisfaction. If I use your service, I would either have to tell the customer it's $20 and charge them $23-25 for it... or scale down my actual income to around $17ish. So I either charge a service fee to the customer and have to explain what it's going towards or lower my prices so it's actually the price I quoted them. It's just extra effort and math that goes towards a service that I don't clearly see the benefits of over direct payment and 100% profit without "surprise charges" to the customer. I'm sure you could relate that if you're doing the bulk of the work and direct distribution anyway, why not just use a direct payment method? Your hurdle is to have your service provide enough value and convenience to make it outweigh the losses or price spike.

Just my feedback on where this has gone. I see a lot of progress, critical thinking and business sense and deeply appreciate the open honesty on sharing who you are and where you come from. It takes a bit to balance a product out so that the benefits are worth the cost - trust me, as models, all of us know this plight. Every cam session we get people saying "but why do I have to pay you?", we absolutely know where you are coming from by trying to provide a service for a cost people are actually willing to pay without cheating ourselves in the process. I hope by working together we can find a nice balance somewhere in here.

 

[Gerald75]

Hey @DeezNA, I am glad to see you back !

Don't you worry about criticism, stay honest and sharp as you've always been. Complacency has never got any great work achieved! As I mentioned before, I am fan of "lean" approaches where users' feedbacks is of the uttermost importance (not to be confounded with users dictating the product though). It's about learning from it, like a scientific method: you formulate an hypothesis, test it and learn. You repeat this loop to try an verify you are building (or going to) the good thing, if tests are not showing convincing results then you pivot and change direction - typically what just happened to our product idea -. There's an awesome book about this called "The Lean Start-Up" if you are interested, imho it applies to any business.

Concerning transparency & payment processing: I have not named which company is going to process payments for us because I do not know it yet. Getting a "Payment Service Provider" (PSP) is actually quite a story, you need to find an acquiring bank which will accept to open a "merchant account" for you and process payments on your behalf (the PSP on his hand handle the payment information and transfer them around securely). Thing is: adult industry is a high risk industry, so not everyone is willing to work with it, and what we want to do is also considered as high risk - even if it was mainstream -. Why? Because we would be processing payments on behalf of other people for services which we do not enforce nor quality or delivery, that's called an "aggregated merchant account". Add on top of that the fact we are young & without a transaction history, and you get the sense of super mega high risk profile we represent for acquiring banks. I'm glad risk is rewarding as they say

So well it is going to take some time to find our PSP & acquiring bank - talking with over 20 of them now - and will cost us more until we prove good. Also the funny thing is they will not give their final word until they have reviewed our fully functional website, but they are the Keystone to a fully functional website.. we could build everything for nothing! I'm not complaining though, we're relentless and we'll make it work, I just mean to update you transparently.

For now we have two favorite candidates (www.ecomcharge.com / www.emerchantpay.com) for which we investigate the tech, we'd then have to investigate reputation (if you have input, I'd gladly take it). I know there are some companies with stronger brand names around adult, such as Epoch or CCBill, but we will not be going with them because their tech apparently mostly got stuck in the 90s..


Concerning the new business model:

1) About verification: I am not sure to understand your point concerning verification. This is legal requirement for this type of business, so you are verifying with us if you want to use our solution - because we cannot offer you our solution otherwise -. Do you mean that this verification should be enough to prove that you are a legit model and not willing to scam? Indeed I also think that is a big barrier to most scammers, but some still go through (we were receiving a lot of fake IDs when I was working at the cam company, including some pretty good ones and I am sure some went unnoticed).

Now that the decision to cover chargebacks have been take, there is still something in my mind in regard to who is "gonna step in and arbitrate" as you put it. We cannot do much but try and contact the customer to know, i.e. provide customer support. What I would be interested into though, is to let the model know a chargeback happened, from who / for which transaction and actually incentive the model into proceeding to customer support and figuring out why it happened. Per say, if the model get the customer to cancel his chargeback / pay the amount again then we'd pay out a reward. I believe chargebacks express discontentment (when not pure fraud, in that case nothing to be done but banning anyway), engaging with the customer in those cases can turn the situation around and the model is more suited than us for doing so. Here are my thoughts, what do you think?

2) About us providing "just a payment form": Yes the form and content hosting/distribution have been cut out to focus this product entirely on payment. It does not mean we will not be rolling out the form and content hosting/distribution later (actually we will very likely roll this out first because of the above mentioned reasons concerning PSPs), but I believe one should focus on one thing at a time and make it great: if our payment solution does not have value for you without content hosting/distribution then... we have designed a poor payment solution.

The benefits of our payment form will be the following:

- you will have the ability to process credit cards, without any upfront cost or engagement

- you will be able to generate a payment form for any content of service you sell (not just customs!!!), whether directly - for example when a customer contacts you by email for a Skype show - or on your website

- you will be able to ask for recurring payments (day / week / month), and we will update you about it went, in particular let you know with which of your customers it went wrong so you can ensure a proper customer support

- you will experience a low vendor cut compared to industry standard, allowing you to keep more in your pocket
--> I know Giftcards is 100%, but it is not real money (except Giftrocket in US), it cannot be recurring, and you cannot sell a content for a giftcard on your website

- it will be really easy in convenient, set up a payment page in a minute, get to know as soon as it is paid

What do you think about those benefits? Are you currently able to process credit cards? Are giftcards adapted to all your situations?

Personally I'd love to see models transacting outside of sites like MFC / CB / C4S and not using their tokens / payment method whenever they get in touch with the customer by another medium, be it mail, twitter or Skype. I want to run the service which lets you maximize your earnings for efforts used every time you are given the chance - hence the importance of convenience -, and if that means using gift cards in certain scenarios we should help you doing so. I would add that this is definitely not charity, if nobody can beat us at what we do we'll get rich.

3) About your example of you using the service: How is it you consider payment the easiest part? You never have any problem with it? May you tell me what you currently use for processing payments depending on what kind & how you are selling your content/service?

The escrow service is gone until we go content delivery, we can escrow only in that case.

I totally understand you concerning pricing. Btw you'll be able to input either "what I want to receive" or "what I want my customer to pay" to save you some calculations

You are right about direct payment methods, whenever it is possible you should do it (given that the benefit is worth time spent, and once we have content hosting/distribution we will be able to save you much more time indeed). I would really love to know how you are proceeding right now as it would let me be more specific to your case. I do not think your direct methods let you process payments from a web page, nor recurring ones. Do you always get real money? Can you bill people wherever they are from? Is it truly easy and convenient for them? It could be that your customers are willing to pay $2 to avoid the pain of signing up to yet another site / app to make his payment.

I wanted to make a not so long post, but I am afraid that did not work once again ><

Have a nice day,
Gérald

 

[DeezNA]

Oh yeah, this is gonna be a big post. Get comfy, grab a cup of coffee and your reading glasses, we're goin in. From the top!

Thanks for the compliments and trust me, you will never have to worry about anything but blunt honesty, wordy responses and excessive semicolon usage from me; ask anyone on the forum. =P

I'm glad you are being open, honest and taking feedback, many start-ups would not really take model feedback into consideration as it usually involves cuts to their revenue.

Concerning transparency & payment processing: We are well aware that the adult industry carries a heavy stigma and is being cracked down on by many major banking institutions and transfer companies. It's a damn shame and it's not happening without resistance. Fortunately, there are several companies that do not shy away from their adult industry ties - the most reliable are typically tied to the most successful adult sites. Unfortunately, the first ones that come to mind are the exact ones you are trying to avoid due to their antiquity. The irony in this is that their antiquity, name value and endurance through this industry witch-hunt are actually big selling points for these services. I would highly recommend not ruling them out; many people feel safer using names they know and providing multiple payment options for the customer is a very good thing. If they are not compatible with the tech-level of the service you are looking to provide (which I'm not sure would really be an issue, the interface doesn't seem that complex, it's just a matter of making it available for mobile which is really just novelty), then I would understand... but I'm pretty sure you can buy tokens on MFC through Epoch on mobile, but don't quote me on that... so I'd take another look into that if I were you.

As much as yes, you are taking some risks and yes, the banks and merchant services are as well... ultimately we, as models, are putting ourselves at the highest level of risk. You're not laundering drug money or human trafficking, this is a legitimate (albeit vastly misunderstood) industry. At the end of the day, we are being asked to give our real names, addresses, bank account numbers, 2 forms of ID, etc. etc. to people we will never meet and have no idea whether to trust. Identity theft, stalking, waking up to drained bank accounts or much, much worse - these are real risks we face and real security is absolutely necessary as a primary line of defense. As a middle-man, you don't have to deal with the lust/threat/exploitation element of the adult industry except, potentially and by proxy, just the legal side. It seems you're trying to skirt the responsibility that comes with "high risk" money brokering by finding a PSP that will take that risk for you and then having us deal with them. If that's the case... if we're dealing directly with the PSP and simply using an interface you designed... what are you really actively doing for us?

Concerning the new business model:

1) About verification: This turns into a big one so I'm just gonna fly by the seat of my pants here.

Verification never comes without a contractual agreement between service and model (or service and client, for that matter). This contract typically involves a lot of protection for both the model and the site, such as: legal protection for our identity and personal property (ID, info, etc.), assistance in payment disputes directly involving your system, exemption of your company from having to compensate for losses caused directly by client or model scams, etc. I'm sure you know this stuff, but it's really the biggest line of defense any of us will have and it's pretty integral in assuring safety - it's just very important for you to assess how hands-on your service is willing to legally commit to being. If a model has been verified by your standards, there should be absolutely no reason why you would have reservations essentially vouching for them in a legal dispute. Yes, fraud happens. Yes, scamming happens. Why are you even verifying if you aren't actually vetting the models? If anything slips through the verification process, that's kinda on you. That's... kinda why you verify models... to ensure they are who they say they are. You don't do that with clients, I'd be much more worried about that side.

So, once again, if you're not taking responsibility for actually transferring the money (rather referring us to a PSP), for payment disputes (PSP again or model/client direct discussion) or for verification... what are you functionally and legally responsible for? I would assume you are responsible for the services you provide, so what services are you providing that you take full responsibility for and will provide customer/client support on?

Good segue into the next section...

2) About us providing "just a payment form": I like that you are thinking about things practically, very smart. Interface is important but it's a little like building a body by slapping a bunch of muscles and skin together and leaving the bones/organs until the end. I'll go through your benefits one by one with my thoughts:

- you will have the ability to process credit cards, without any upfront cost or engagement. This is kinda misleading (I would say false but that's a bit harsh). There is a cost, either to us or to the customer, otherwise you wouldn't be making money. Convenience of credit card usage is a good benefit though.

- you will be able to generate a payment form for any content of service you sell (not just customs!!!), whether directly - for example when a customer contacts you by email for a Skype show - or on your website. Awesome! On mobile would be a very good selling point for some models/customers as well.

- you will be able to ask for recurring payments (day / week / month), and we will update you about it went, in particular let you know with which of your customers it went wrong so you can ensure a proper customer support. Yes, documentation and verification of all transactions is a big one. Especially when tax season comes around... Very glad to hear you mentioning customer support.

- you will experience a low vendor cut compared to industry standard, allowing you to keep more in your pocket
--> I know Giftcards is 100%, but it is not real money (except Giftrocket in US), it cannot be recurring, and you cannot sell a content for a giftcard on your website. Good selling points. Would like to see a solid percentage estimate but now that I know that you don't have a PSP lined up this absolutely makes sense now.

- it will be really easy in convenient, set up a payment page in a minute, get to know as soon as it is paid. Yes, yes and yes. Convenience, documentation, quick, sleek. Just need to add safe, secure and customer/client support to that list, it would look a lot better.

As for the other questions/comments - Are you currently able to process credit cards? No. Are giftcards adapted to all your situations? GiftRockets are typical for US-based transfers, GiftCards are a good for a few reasons but all models should know to redeem them immediately and up-front as they can be cancelled/voided by the customer.

Addressing off-site transfers/transactions: It should be made very clear that all camsites that I have read up on contractually forbid facilitating off-site transactions, so those are dangerous waters. This is why it is not commonly seen, we can only legally advertise these transactions through other sites (C4S, MV, etc.) or through a neutral networking site (Twitter, Tumblr, etc.); some sites even forbid advertising your Twitter. This is at risk of losing our job (getting our account shut down), so most models take this very seriously. As for gift cards, I would never see any reason why anyone would need to help models with the transaction of card-for-content any more than the statement I made above. It's incredibly simple and taking any kind of brokering fee for that would simply be exploitative.

3) About your example of you using the service: Payment is by far the easiest part of the content-production process because the client either pays or they don't. Selling the product involves negotiation, production and editing takes time and energy, delivery is simple but relies on confirming client receipt, customer after-care is a bonus but it's essential (in my eyes) for repeat business and ensuring customer satisfaction. The hardest part about payment is assuring a customer that you are reliable enough to be paid up-front - that's kinda on the model and customer to establish that trust, if it's not there it really doesn't matter what service is used.

I, personally, use tokens as a primary (so I can advertise more directly, to a broader audience and even make events out of content distribution, like raffles), GiftRocket as a secondary for US-based and GiftCards as a last resort or for international. Some members prefer GiftCards as they know the money is going to go right back into improving their camming experience (in my case). My off-site sales are mainly for my artwork/tattoo design commissions, as my performance is primarily interactive and I do not offer off-site interaction that can be purchased with anything but tokens... but my content has been available through GR/GCs in the past and I have not had any problems with my system. Once payment is confirmed and redeemed, I transfer through a service that generates a secure FTP URL and notifies me anytime this address is accessed (on PC and on mobile) and when the content is fully downloaded so I can confirm receipt and delete the URL after content has been downloaded (also good to prevent sneaky assholes from trying to copy/paste the URL for others to download free shit).

Due to my strict, non-negotiable up-front payment policy, I have never been scammed (knock on all the wood). All of my sales have been self-facilitated and most were with GiftRockets: they're incredibly easy to use and I've never had problems with them. That being said, these are not my primary source of income and I do not focus on content as a primary (or even secondary) income source; other models rely/focus their business model on content distribution a lot more than I do. I have had nothing but positive experiences in working directly with my clients, as I can establish a dialogue with them and provide the best product I can to meet what they are looking for. I honestly would not see any of my clients signing up for (let alone paying extra just to use) another payment service, nor would I see myself going through a verification process unless it provided many benefits that other services do not already offer.

--Hold on, let me catch my breath...--


Good lord I type a lot, sorry for that.

In short, I would love to hear what kind of liability/hands-on interaction your service plans on taking. I know it's long-term and you're still fleshing everything out, but it's important to think about these things. I, personally, would never work with a payment service that would not actively arbitrate payment disputes. It's the only thing you are offering besides design and convenience. Arbitration may often times be as simple as contacting the merchant on our behalf (or the customers') and investigating the case, but more than anything it builds good-will with us, the models. It shows you care and have our backs if someone tries to fuck us over - that is something I would definitely take a small paycut for.

 

[BiancaBaker]

Also just to clarify because I dont think you read my post right I dont take Amazon Giftcards- I have no use for them when I was talking about Non-US I was talking about Giftrocket- Which a lot of girls use to take payments (and we get 100 percent) That is why I suggested you get in contact with clips4sale (who is very reputable) and try and work out a plan with them to bring us a platform to take customs.

 

[Gerald75]

@msbiancabaker you are right I understood you use Amazon gift cards & Gift rocket. Why do you prefer C4U over Amazon gift cards for international clients?

@DeezNA I would definitely use Epoch and/or CCBill when adapted. I contacted them indeed, and for example, from the own words of one of their sales representative CCBill is not adapted to what we want to build: it simply cannot deliver some parts. For example they cannot integrate to someone else's webpage, you always have to be on an Epoch / CCBill templated page, which kills many many possibilities.

Don't you worry, I am giving my name, address, ID, bank account to quite a few people as well, in particular to be legally responsible for anything that may arise from our activity. It means that if someone manage to fraud our network to make/sell things highly illegal (such as some contents..), we can be going to jail - would be a matter of proving "best efforts" against this arriving -. But you are right, we're not on the frontline.

I'm not trying to skirt the "high-risk" part, risk simply comes with costs and people willing or not to take them. We do need to find PSPs willing to, and select the one offering the best balance between costs/benefits. Whenever a "risk" actually turns into something bad occuring - such as a chargeback - the PSP makes us pay for it, and also has some costs associated with it on his end. It's just a matter of splitting "who pays for what" so that it remains fair and everyone has the incentive of not letting bad things happen . This is the kind of balance I was looking forward to find about chargeback protection, but now it appears to make more sense to simply cover them all and consider all verified models as legit from day1.

The PSP role is "simply" to process transactions and data about transactions on a very technical level, and very secure way. Interface as you put it, designing great experiences for customers to actually have a reason to use the PSP is our job. I think using great interfaces just make your life better, removes all frictions and keep a smile on your face while achieving your goals in a more efficient way.

So, once again, if you're not taking responsibility for actually transferring the money (rather referring us to a PSP), for payment disputes (PSP again or model/client direct discussion) or for verification... what are you functionally and legally responsible for? I would assume you are responsible for the services you provide, so what services are you providing that you take full responsibility for and will provide customer/client support on?

I believe there's been a misunderstanding. We're not, and we'll never be, taking transferring the money from a technical point of view: that's the PSP role and it comes with tones of security mesure. What we are taking the responsibility for is accepting that a particular customer with a particular credit or debit card transact with us, and the risks associated with this customer - chargebacks, fraud - and credit card - being stolen etc. -. If after we had the PSP process this transaction for us it happened to be a "bad one", we'll be paying for it out of our pocket and hence taking responsibility.

You asked me my thoughts about chargeback protection, and what I tried to explain is that chargeback will come out two particular scenarios in our case:

1) the guy is a fraudster and want his money back, or got his card stolen for real and want his money back. There's nothing to be done about this, just pay and move on - and ban the guy -.

2) the guy is unhappy with the quality of the content or service he purchased through our service (maybe it was not delivered, or not in time, or different from what he thought), point is in that case: our service worked since he could purchase. So sure, we can talk with the guy, but the only person who can really ensure an effective customer support here is the model who sold him a content or service, not us. Whatever happens we'll pay the model for the chargeback, but I'd like the model having an incentive in engaging with the customer to fix the situation. Do you see my point?



I am glad you find the selling points are good, and I fucking should add security/reliability everytime. I take it for granted, as no financial service can run without it, but as a proper salesman I should mention it.. thanks for training me !


For the off-site transactions using a different payment method than tokens, I am aware those cannot be advertised on-site and would not ask anyone to do so. But often I see models asking for tokens even when dealing off-site, because they find it more convenient in the current state, this I would like to replace. It's sad models get a 50% cut while dealing off-site when they could get a cut of only 15-20%, and it only happens because of convenience. When posting on Twitter about your raffle for example, why not have some like "Tickets at $17 on https://pay.me/DeezNA/132" instead of "Tickets at 200 tokens" ? You would get around $14 per sale, instead of $10, for a cost of $17 instead of $20 for your customer?


Concerning the liabilities & interactions our service plans on taking:

We are building things in a bit of a different way called "micro-services architecture", where for example the payment we are discussing is a micro-service. Each micro-service is a product: it has to be worthwhile for models to use it stand-alone, but also each micro-service can integrate with one another to deliver greater value. I'll detail this a bit just after, I first would like to clear out your question about payments: we will arbitrate payment disputes, that's customer & model support for ensuring a smooth and proper use of our product. It is mandatory.

So payment will be about convenience, low vendor cut, security and reliability as well as arbitration in case of disputes. Besides this there are 2 other main micro-services we envision for now: content hosting & distribution, and online store.

As we see it payment and content hosting/distribution constitutes the main socle of the online business of a model. We are not going to be very innovative in regard to content hosting/distribution, it's only things that already exist which we want to propose free, in a way well adapted to models (for example as Project Manead has made).

Where we want to be innovative is in the sense that we want the other micro-services to integrate into the content hosting/distribution software: think of facebook Apps kinda. You activate the payment service if you want it, and all of a sudden you become able to send links which first displays a payment form and then gives your customer access to the content you sold him once he made the purchase. You activate the clip store service if you want it, and all of a sudden you can select among your hosted contents which ones you want to be accessible online and at what price.

Eventually we want to build more of an ecosystem where other developers could also create "Apps" we did not think of, like people are doing with Chaturbate bots. These Apps would ask you permissions regarding your contents, data etc. as for the ones you are downloading from the Play Store and powering useful tools for you. Maybe someone will come up with a raffle App which let's you select the prizes and then generate tickets to sell via our payment system automatically, and update you whenever one is sold etc. I am not being too specific, because as you mentioned we are still fleshing out, but do you follow me on this idea?

I did not want to speak about it from the beginning because I am convinced each service alone, without interacting with the other ones, should hold enough value for models to sign-up to it and use it. Otherwise it really is terribly designed, and mixing many shitty services in a 'grand vision' is definitely not gonna make a good mix happen

Have a nice day,
Gérald

 

[BiancaBaker]

Because I dont take Amazon Giftcards- I dont have any use for them- I know some girls take them but I want $$ not a giftcard to purchase things- I think what C4U offers is amazing- 100 percent- a platform for us to safely take money- Yes the guy is charged a fee but I don't see the cut so for me if the guy doesn't mind paying then its not an issue. There are a ton of girls who use C4U (I'm sure you looked at the model list) they also have a place to take calls & even offer things up to 5k (whether its a dinner date, custom pic set, panties, etc) -


2) the guy is unhappy with the quality of the content or service he purchased through our service (maybe it was not delivered, or not in time, or different from what he thought), point is in that case: our service worked since he could purchase. So sure, we can talk with the guy, but the only person who can really ensure an effective customer support here is the model who sold him a content or service, not us. Whatever happens we'll pay the model for the chargeback, but I'd like the model having an incentive in engaging with the customer to fix the situation. Do you see my point? -->>

Sometimes NO matter what you do the guy is unsatisfied- these guys purchasing custom content is seeking something specific or they wouldnt have ordered the custom to begin with- the issue here --> I do this full time BUT a lot of girls don't and I get a LOT of customs- Im not going to re-do something that I did perfectly but the guy sees imperfections with- You wanting the model to give a guy an incentive is ridiculous > I would never re do something I did perfectly -