If there were a prototype for the self-made man in the adult industry, there’s a good chance it would be SilverCash Chief Executive Officer Mike Price. A high-school dropout who toiled in various manual-labor jobs before finding his way to the Web, Price found quick success in adult. Price taught himself everything from HTML to marketing, sacrificing sleep and sanity for success. Today, he operates one of the largest and most well-branded programs in the short history of the online industry, but still manages to remain as down to earth as ever.
How did you get into adult?
In ’94, I really started messing with computers. I taught myself HTML and how FTP works, and thought, "Wow! This is cool." There were bulletin boards where you could get all these pictures, so I started grabbing them. I figured I could make a website and make money from it, so I ended up making free sites on my rented space with my local Internet provider. I developed Top 50 lists, and I figured out how to circle-jerk traffic. I ended up crashing my network’s machine, and they said I couldn’t run my site on it anymore. It had been making money, and Xpics had been pre-paying me a whole bunch of money for my traffic.
What happened?
They told me someone else had just crashed their server, and he was doing the same thing I was. It ended up being Richard Nash, who’s my vice president now. He helped me get content, and I ended up building my first pay site, Beaver Palace. Originally, I did everything: graphics, design, programming, content, marketing, whatever. I had three or four pay sites, and I came out with my first affiliate program, Digital Bucks, a pay-per-click program. When pay-per-signup programs started coming out, I started SilverCash.
You’ve been in the industry for 10 years. What’s changed?
The biggest thing now is the amount of free content—hosted galleries, video galleries, blogs, etc. It makes it even harder to get a surfer to join a pay site. Why would they? My ultimate dream as a businessman would be that the government would make everyone censor their free images. Everyone could still have their TGPs and stuff and be able to make money, but they’d actually make more money pushing it to pay sites because people would be forced to join, because you couldn’t see anything censored outside of a pay site. The problem is, that would only work in the U.S., and everyone would move offshore.
If the market continues to move away from pay sites, where does that leave SilverCash?
We’re basing everything on exclusive content. We just released 10 exclusive [high-definition] content sites that are true widescreen HD. I think to keep members joining, the only way to go is exclusive.
How have you changed personally in the past 10 years?
I think I’ve grown up. I hear from a lot of people that I haven’t changed, and I think that’s good, but I think I’ve learned to become a businessman. I’ve grown a lot and learned how to run a company. I don’t think I’ve changed a whole lot. I still shop at Miller’s Outpost and wear jeans and T-shirts everywhere I go…with a $50,000 watch [laughs].
Has the environment made you corporate?
Yeah, I’ve definitely become a little more articulate. I’m corporate in a lot of things. I’ve learned how to deal with people, talk to them, and how to manage them.
Why is it that every time I see a picture of you, you’re with a different woman?
[laughs] I just know how to make myself look better in pictures. I grab the hottest thing in the vicinity and put her next to me.
You made your mark in adult with exit consoles.
I ran a couple of big Top 50 lists: Teen Factory, Tropical Teens, and some others. You would send traffic with 200-300 other people in a giant circle. Every hour Top 50 lists would reset. For instance, let’s say at 5 p.m. my Top 50 list would reset. Whoever sent the most traffic that hour, come 6 p.m. when it updated, their banner would be at the top of the page. Throughout the day, you’d still send traffic, but the ranks would stay because the lists only reset at 5 p.m. If you were at the top, you’d have the most traffic coming back from this circle jerk. Then you’d point all of your links to the next Top 50 due to reset.
The traffic I got back each hour from all of these Top 50s, I’d send to six or seven different pages that exited one after another. On each page, generally the first big link would be a blind picture link that went to whatever Top 50 was resetting that hour. The second link would go to the last hour’s Top 50, and so on. You’d filter off some of the traffic to pay sites to make your money, and the rest of it you’d keep in the circle jerk so you could keep getting new, fresh traffic to return. It got to the point where my Top 50 was doing a couple hundred thousand hits a day and just kicking ass.
What made it hard was you had to monitor the system all the time. I really worked 24 hours a day my first few years in this business. Sometimes you’d have a 12 a.m. top list and then maybe not another until 3 a.m., so you could sleep for a couple hours. Then you’d have one at 5 a.m. and one at 6 a.m. I really got my sleep in small intervals in the first couple years, but it was worth it because I was making all this money.
What were those early days like?
The thing that was fun about it was the amount of extra money people had to throw around. It was like a big-cock contest all the time. Who had the biggest booth? Who had the hottest girls? Who had the biggest, baddest parties? Everyone could afford to do it, and now you see everyone pulling back on those things.
People aren’t making the money they used to make.
We don’t do as many sign-ups as we used to, but our members stay longer. When they changed the Visa regulations and you had to get down to 1 percent [chargebacks], that changed so many things. When we started, a free trial used to convert at 80 percent. Now, you’re lucky if they convert at 20 percent. You’re paying webmasters more. You have to offer them free content, hosted galleries, and all these things that cost you bandwidth. There’s still money to be made, but profit per sale is down.
How did SilverCash begin?
It was me sitting here one day trying to think of a name for a site. People told me it was a great name. I look back and think it’s kind of funny, but it’s such a brand now that it’s OK. I started with six or eight sites and had some guys write a program for me. It just took off. I did all the marketing and everything by myself; I was a one-man show. Eventually, I got one of my brothers to work for me, and then got a full-time programmer. Now it’s a full-on corporation.
You’ve changed it up over the years: reality, solo-girl sites, a gay program. Were these moves to expand your base, or to keep market share in an increasingly competitive market?
It was both of those things. We want to have market share in a number of different markets. The other thing is, we really wanted to have exclusive content, and the solo, reality, and HD [content] are all exclusive to us.
What about SilverCash gay? What do you know about gay content?
The people who do their jobs the best are the people who are truly interested in them. I tried to make some gay sites, and I’m horrible. I had people rip on me on the boards, because in some of the text on one of my sites I used the term "butt pirate." I can say "she’s a hot little teen" and I understand the language, but when it came to putting the words on my gay sites, I had it wrong. We released some reality gay sites that were shot by gay people, and those do really well. Now we’ve brought in Robert Sons, who is gay, to manage our gay department. He oversees it; chooses the wording and the pictures that go on the sites. We want to focus more on the gay sites, and we need to have people who understand the market to run the division.
Is that as lucrative a market as straight porn?
I think so. There’s not as much traffic going around, but it’s just like any other niche. People want to see it.
You’ve always been big on branding. What do you think spending all that money on branding has done for you?
It’s made us a household name in terms of porn and affiliate companies. I talk to so many people, even in the mainstream, who know of us. We’re spread across the world, and I definitely think the marketing really helped us in the beginning. We’ve got a really great brand, and I don’t think I’m just tooting my own horn. It’s been successful.
What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
When I first started, Richard told me to go to the shows. The more people you know, the better. Also, honesty is key. If you’re a liar to one person, you’re a liar to everybody.
If you were ever on the cover of Forbes, what would the headline read?
High School Dropout [laughs].
