
Ask HN: I own a large adult business and am moving to the Bay Area soon - throwaway12818
Hi folks,<p>Long time HN member here. Using throwaway account for obvious reasons.<p>I am a serial entrepreneur with multiple exits in different industries. Right now I operate an adult business with millions of daily users.<p>I am moving to the bay area soon and trying to understand how I should present and market myself there. I have heard mixed things about adult industry reputation in the bay area. Some say that the environment is very liberal and people actually have a good reaction to this industry, others say that VCs don&#x27;t do business with anyone who has touched adult.<p>Please keep in mind that I am going to sell this business in a few years and will start something non-adult related after. So it is important for me to not let reputation from being part of the adult industry hurt my chances for getting investments and talents for my next idea.<p>Thanks in advance for your insights!<p>Cheers!
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ThrustVectoring
With a successful enough exit, you don't particularly _need_ VC money for
future businesses. And your business name should have the standard discreet
naming system - something generic for putting on resumes, rather than
something explicit like "titties-r-us LLC".

Past that, the conversation is about a generic video site, and you can talk
about content and bandwidth and getting traffic etc without ever mentioning
that it's porn. Don't lie if asked outright, of course, but competent people
should be able to read through the lines and notice that you have the good
sense to keep the porn involvement discreet.

Like, people don't punish you for being involved in porn unless they're super
Puritan. They punish you for not having the good sense to shut up about it and
the related risk of you embarrassing them by association. Demonstrate that you
can talk about your business activities without being crude and they'll be
more willing to play ball.

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throwaway12818
This is a great advice, thank you! This is more and less how I have been
approaching this industry so far.

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dhimes
Well, his username might be relevant... :)

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ThrustVectoring
Not unless you're _really_ into airplanes and mechanical engineering.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_vectoring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_vectoring)

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dhimes
Kidding aside, I was thinking rockets.

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Animats
Well, Kink.com just moved to Nevada. But that was because California OSHA
started requiring condoms for porn. Also, because the once-abandoned SF Armory
was now too valuable a piece of real estate for that use.

The only other porn producer I knew in SF gave it up around 2007 when she
moved to Texas. SF used to have a film scene, but it relied on cheap large
spaces being available, and those are all gone.

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nailer
Did they sell the Armoury?

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Animats
No, they're leasing space in it. I once read that Peter Ackworth owns the
Armory personally, and just leased it to his company, Kink.com.

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dahdum
I'm not a super networker or anything, but I've never met anyone involved with
adult entertainment that admitted it, or VCs that openly invest in it. I
always thought of it more as an LA thing.

I honestly don't think we're so liberal you won't have reputation problems
later on, but with multiple exits you have a track record to offset.

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nailer
I got chatting to the camera person before my talk at a JavaScript event once,
just about AV stuff. I assumed he was a programmer who also shot events, but
when I started talking tech he mentioned he wasn't a programmer, and was down
from LA and normally shoots adult on some well known sites.

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setpatchaddress
When I was working for a pro audio company out of LA, I ran into a product
manager there who had been a sound engineer for porn. Good person.

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DoreenMichele
I will suggest you read the book _Mayflower Madame._ She discreetly ran a call
girl service in New York while hobnobbing with refined, elite people. That
might give you some sense of how to handle yourself.

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burneristoast
I think it's highly likely that you're going to run into problems if you don't
know in advance which people are probably cool with it.

The Bay Area is incredibly fucking square. Square square square. An outspoken
contingent of people here like to talk a good talk about their openness, but
it's a facade that belongs to a constellation of myths people like to believe
about themselves.

I would avoid run-of-the-mill hoi polloi "startup founders" and all associated
professional/networking events like the plague. Some of them have their heads
so far up their assess that they will take zero interest in what you do for a
living and never even ask, but a lot of them are nosy as fuck and will make it
really hard for you to cleanly maintain the veneer of whatever you've decided
you're going to say about what you do. A lot of the nosiness is driven by
egoic insecurity and class politics.

Every person I know who I could _guarantee_ would be cool with it is super
wealthy-- most of them 8 figures+ net worth. Your priority should be meeting
them. They can help you navigate the square waters and figure out where, and
with whom, it's safe to be real. If you want an intro to some of those people
I could probably help you out. As a last resort-- and I hate to say this--
join The Battery but avoid everyone under the age of 40 or so.

Edit to add: wealth managers will be helpful for making connections to the
right people. Networking with them is an easy "in." Most will want to know you
even if they don't think you'll let them manage your money.

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lsiebert
There is one thing people definitely aren't liberal about... sexual
harassment, especially by people in power. Let's assume that you aren't that
person, and perhaps even took a training seminar to make sure you are thinking
about such things. Good, but it's your employees too. I'd encourage you to
think about things like a senior engineer misbehaving, and how your response
as CEO could effect your reputation. Also some people may try to join your
company thinking they will get a pass.

Frankly if I was running any business in the bay area, but especially an adult
one, I'd want someone working for me helping to both build a professional
culture of appropriate behavior (with regular mandatory seminars for both new
and continuing employees), and building mechanisms for reporting and dealing
with issues responsibly (IE not just covering your ass) should that culture
fail to prevent problem behavior.

Be proactive about it, to the extent you can.

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nicksalt
Hey Mate, Just be yourself and own being yourself. In my opinion people if
your a good person, enjoyable to work with, and mean well you will rise to the
top no matter what. Some people use excuses as crutch for being shitty people.
You got this. Good Luck.

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TaylorGood
What’s the driver to relocate prior to selling the adult business?

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throwaway12818
The reason is out of my control and family related.

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himom
Considering how very little sex happens in and how many surplus males there
are in the Bay Area, it’s probably not such a bad move.

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xstartup
Do you own production or just distribution? You might just need a generic
name. Lookup Manwin/MindGeek

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sidcool
Does he/she mean porn when saying Adult business?

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throwaway12818
Yes it is a pornography website.

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Kinnard
Why was this flagged?

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throwaway12818
I have no idea why they have flagged my post! I am asking a honest question
about the bay area culture. It seems even mentioning adult industry gets you
flagged there!

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dang
HN users are overwhelmingly not in the Bay Area. Perhaps 10% are. It's been a
while since I looked at the numbers.

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jklein11
10% seems like a pretty large share for a single locale. Are there any
geographic regions that are of a similar size with as large a HN viewership?

Also, the original question seems broad enough to be applicable to people
outside of the Bay Area. In essence the OP was asking how to soften the stigma
of an adult business background to future investors.

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angersock
Why would you move someplace with hyperexpensive real-estate and overpriced
dev talent?

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anovikov
Why other IT people do it? Probably same reason: to launch some cool new
project and raise funding for it.

OP asks if he can prove himself as worthy to VCs by bragging about his
successes in the porn area.

With 0 first hand experience with Valley VCs, i'd say that i absolutely
respect everyone who makes money in the porn business. Because it is damn
hard. I tried and failed miserably and i don't consider myself a dumb guy.
This is an ultra-competitive field.

