Pornography is a taboo topic that is almost never mentioned in business books. In fact, this is an absolutely legal activity (in most countries) and it would be hypocritical to avoid mentioning it here. Here are the reasons why:

• Porn websites generate more monthly visits than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined, although a recent study by Forbes says that their share is only 4% of all other websites.
• The porn industry is responsible for 30% of the entire internet traffic.
• 2/3^rds of employees watch porn at their workplace.
• A new porn video is created once in every 39 minutes in the USA.
• USD 3,075 is spent on pornography every second.
• 28,258 people watch porn every second.

A while ago, the biggest porn website – PornHub, launched its latest weird campaign, which aimed at raising money through a crowdfunding website for a new project – the first porn movie shot in space. More than $10,000 was raised on the very first day and soon the idea attracted hundreds of thousands of supporters. The reason for the slower money raising, compared with the Exploding Kittens project, is easy to explain – not everyone is eager to publicly confess that they visit porn websites, while even fewer people want to have “financing of a porn video in the space” in the bank statements on their credit cards.

In short, society is commanding this type of services at full blast, huge sums of money are circulating there but in real life (apart from that of coders) no one is talking about it.

Things are absolutely different with coders. As I already mentioned, this is a special kind of people. In many companies I have worked in, I have attended a presentation of demo versions and pieces of the code of a certain software product or website before other colleagues, while a porn video was playing on the screen. Many programmers work on several screens and part of one of these screens is often occupied by nude pictures or erotic videos.

If anyone used to be skeptical about the power of adult websites before reading this chapter, you must be already convinced that there is a huge business niche behind this industry that at first sight may seem unserious. An industry where more than $3,000 is spent every second but the state has blocked it… Still, there are many countries in the EU (and Europe in general) where the creation and distribution of pornographic content is absolutely legal and regulated under the law.

With no intention to be exhaustive, here is a list of the countries where this industry is legal: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Malta, Cyprus, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey.

Outside Europe, the list continues with: Canada, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Taiwan, and Azerbaijan.

There are also countries where this type of activity is legal but put under specific restrictions. These are UK, Russia, South Africa, India, and Australia.

Before you undertake such type of activity, you should hire a lawyer, who is acquainted with the matter and the laws of the state you will operate in. As a whole, I would advise you to choose an EU member state because this way you will save yourself a whole bunch of judicial and accounting problems. The Netherlands is the best choice.

Do you have to be there physically to master your business? No, of course not. After all, you are doing online business – you can be anywhere in the world, your coders – somewhere else, the filming of the content – at a third location, while the sales to be directed to a country that allows access to such type of websites. And here you will need the lawyer to establish the structure (companies, assets, accounting, etc.) in line with the laws of the concrete state and thus meet all rules and regulations.

As you have learned from the very beginning, pornography is an entirely new world – a parallel internet reality that is rarely intertwined with any other. You may be used to working with PayPal and other popular payment systems in online stores, but if you decide to start offering pornographic content, you will have to choose payment systems for porn websites. The same is valid for the advertising – you may want to advertise everywhere but you will be able to do it only in networks and websites allowing such type of content.

And last but not least – the hosting. You should explicitly declare that you are going to operate a website with adult content. In contrast to any other business where the hosting may be based wherever you wish, with porn websites it is advisable for the hosting company and/or servers to be physically located in the country where you have decided to base your business.

How can you make money from it?

Everything you have read so far can be used in the parallel reality of the porn internet, too. Here are some examples of the money-making methods described earlier in the book but applied through the prism of the 18+ websites:

– You can sell adult products in the form of a sex shop.

– If you create a video, graphics, or text content, you may require a subscription fee to it or to the full version of the texts and video materials. Some websites offer 90% of their content for free but if one is a fan of the high-quality pictures, they may afford to pay between $1 to $10 for a monthly subscription.

– You can make money from advertising – this is the most widespread model for these websites. In contrast to the conventional ones, with these websites all the practices that are otherwise banned are allowed – you can open as many windows as you wish without bothering that the consumers will hate you. You can reload the banners and have as many as the screen can take – something that is unacceptable in a normal website.

– The affiliate model is also particularly widespread. You may create a simple porn blog that does not require anything on your part as an investment, except the regular hosting fee, but the links placed there may lead to websites you recommend. You will receive a commission for every subscription fee paid – identical model but addressing the 18+ audience. It is important to bear in mind that this model may save you the consultation with a jurist, accountant, and lawyer – you simply publish a blog, while your commissions are paid to virtual accounts, which you can redirect to your personal credit/debit card, or convert them into purchases of different goods and services. What you are required to do is to declare your income at the end of the year and to pay a tax on it. Fast, easy, and simple! Of course, this fast model can earn you a few thousands of dollars a month but it will not make you a millionaire. If you decide to enter the big game and to make that $3,000 per second, you will have to invest more time, money, and nerves.

– You can also create a sex matchmaking website or an aggregator website for such type of paid services.

– Last but not least we have the tourism aspect. Have you ever heard of sex tourism? Most people connect it with men touring the world to sleep with prostitutes in countries where prostitution is legal. In fact, sex tourism is an industry that is in no way inferior to conventional tourism. Here is a single example – cruise ships, as big as 20- or 30-storey hotel buildings, start on a journey from different points of the world every day. The ships are hired by tourism companies offering sex trips for gays, lesbians, couples, and whatever you can think of. You will not see these trips advertised on TV, on the trams, or at the subway stations, but they are not least attractive than the conventional cruise trips, both in terms of attendance and revenues. Starting such an activity requires tens and sometimes hundreds of millions but the investment in the resale of such services is accessible for every micro or small business.

Money from pornography but not quite

Many people are still living within the moral, religious, and any other type of restrictions set by the society. The very thought that they will work with pornography and this will be their main field of business leaves many people thinking that they are doing something inappropriate or illegal. They have the feeling that their business is one of those shady and even criminal activities, connected with the traffic of people, drugs, and weapons. No matter how ungrounded these feelings and thoughts are, it is hard to erase the feeling of guilt and society’s judgment with a simple book or by simply telling oneself that everything is legal and there is no problem.

In parallel to all this, there are countless services you can offer to everyone willing to deal with pornography. Here are several examples:

• You may offer a streaming service, which can help the reproduction of video materials offered on adult websites.
• You may offer a payment system with debit and credit cards, or text messages (SMS).
• You may create a new advertising network, which connects advertisers and websites publishing advertisements.
• You may create a website for ratings, charts, optimization instruments, automation, and so on.

Practically, you may offer everything you think such a website may need. Indeed, in this case, you will need much more knowledge in the concrete fields, bigger investment for software development, as well as more time and money for setting foot at the market. However, the bigger investments are grounded because the profit will be much bigger.

Here is how to make money without being in the porn industry but still it will pay you for your expert services.