3 years on the edge

N. - Tell us how you met each other.

G. - We first met at the preparation course before university. We spent the following 5 years studying together, and we could not think of any future other than a regular job in a nice office with a nice boss.

D. - It was 1995.

N. - How did you come to the adult business?

G. - In early 2000 we worked in one company which dealt with the web a bit. Once I discussed my university diploma with the boss, and Dima sat nearby surfing porn sites and shouting profanities at the banners. And I tell him, like, relax, man, someone has earned a couple of bucks thanks to you. We had a laugh over that, and in the evening I thought about these words over and over again. Hey, I thought, it does make sense. So I attempted to find information about earning online in the adult scene. The first things I found were Russian message boards, Crutop and Master-X.

N. - So what did you begin with?

G. - We started from some TGP experiments. I remember my first business plan drawn up after reading Master-X articles. I decided we needed money to buy a server, domain names, some content, and what kind of start-up capital we may need. And remember we were students at that time. We had to borrow money, though hardly anyone believed we would be able to pay it back.

N. - Sure, lots of people were skeptical about Internet as a business sphere, it wasn't too developed in Russia. When did you start something really personal and serious?

G.- First was the understanding that things are not that simple as the articles say. We made some serious amendments to the initial business plans. We started dealing with our own traffic, tops and AVS sites. Just as we entered the top site scene, we met Alex Xe. It was him that we started earning good money with.

D. - Yeah, spent 20 hours a day in front of the computer, really.

G. - I did enjoy working for 2-3 days, then sleeping for, like, 12 hours, and plunging into work for another 2-3 days. Things are different now. Anyway, we started wanting more and tried creating an AVS of our own. We had experience to do this. We always do it like that, starting things which are frightening even to think about. Still, we start them and usually succeed.

N. - How did you get to thinking about your own affiliate program?

G. - It happened about 1.5-2 years since the AVS was launched. During this time we changed like 6-7 billing companies.

N. - I can imagine the pain in the neck.

D. - Sure, and money, too. One billing would delay payouts, another would not pay at all. It was a time of billings to close one after another, as you might remember. We used our own money to settle the affiliate payments. Once a month we spent time counting it all, and only two people seemed to be earning nothing. It was us.

G. - It did harden us, really.

N. - Not just hardened, it boosted your reputation among affiliates dramatically.

N. - Was it an easy decision to launch an affiliate program?

D. - The final decision was made in the autumn of 2003 in St.Petersburg. We came there to settle the preliminary issues and have some business talks with Alex Pro.

G. - First we wanted to launch a couple of paysites for our own traffic, and then the affiliate program came naturally. So, after everything was settled, it was launch time. In 3 months we had the first paysite ready, and the program, too. We had a problem with the title, though. HQ-Cash? A nice and unusual one, eh? (laughing) So we got the name of Cash Maniacs. Us not using HQCash was a coincidence. Just days before the launch, Dima tells me in the morning, like, hey, someone launched HQCash, we got HQ-Cash with the hyphen - we have to do something!

D. - We were counting the days before our launch, everything was set up, and then this stuff happens.

G. - A new name had to be invented. Alex Pro produced a list of 5 domains in a day, CashManiacs.com among them. I checked whether it was free - bingo! Bought it right away, called Dima for his opinion, and he liked the name. So we used it.

N. - Tell us about your idea of the Sylvia Saint contest.

G. - It came in a couple of days from the purchase of the cashmaniacs.com domain. First I thought we could shoot her to attract people, as nobody in Russian adult business did this. I contacted some porn star content producers, Jacub from adultczechcontent.com replied. When I suggested that we film Sylvia, he was surprised; he was sure it would be far too expensive, but I did not care much about the price. We arranged the shooting in a couple of days. On the day of the shoot, Jacub made me feel really uneasy as I waited for his call for the entire day. He called in the morning and the news was good. When I saw the stuff that was produced, I understood it was more than worth the effort. The sets were gorgeous! Jacub is a great guy to work with, I'm so grateful.

N. - So how did you talk her into a night out?

G. - It was later. We tried to invent something to attract webmasters, different from all other contests.

D. - This slogan, "Cash Maniacs on the edge of attack", was born at that time. In Russian it is a rhymed reference to a pop song well-known at that time.

G. - Yeah, it is still popular. So, when we were working on the promotion plan, Alex Pro produced a real speech about people working with us, earning lots of money and being popular with top chicks of the world like Sylvia Saint. We liked the concept and developed it into a contest.

N. - How much did she get?

G. - Well, not too much in fact, she was more concerned with the timing. We were so lucky with the shooting, finishing the thing in 3 days. The idea of getting someone to go out to dinner with Sylvia appeared in late December, and hardly anything was ready in July. We spent months talking over every paragraph in the contract which our US lawyer prepared. She was to approve it with her own legal people. A lady in business, you know what I mean, and a very nice person to talk to. Hope Sylvia likes it if she reads this interview :)

N. - Tell about the way your program developed later. We already know about the start and the contest.

G. - Things developed. We tried to embrace as many niches as possible to give our affiliates an opportunity to earn using the potential of all the niches. We launched over 50 paysites within 2 years. In early 2006 we had an idea to structure the varied content into a single and usable portal. This is how maniacpass.com emerged.

N. - I know that within maniacpass.com you have per signup and revshare. What do the majority of webmasters use?

G. - About 70% use revshare. Lots of people liked our "$200 for a site" offer.

N. - Tell us more about this offer.

G. - This is a promotional giveaway offer. We give $200 for every site a webmaster creates for maniacpass.com. Our basic idea is to have as many sites as possible within minimal timeframe. When a system has many sites, it's profitable to promote. However hard we try, we can make 200, or even 300 sites per year. This is not enough, and this is why we attracted webmasters to the process of creating sites and promos. To stimulate them, we introduced this giveaway. Moreover, a webmaster gets a commission from sales his or her site generates. Well, this is pretty standard, the usual revshare, but with a handsome $200 extra. We see it's successful by the fact that there were 25 sites when we started in middle July. In late August there were 100+ sites on board and growing. 75 sites and over 1000 FHGs were created by our affiliates.

D. - I guess nobody ever paid for creating sites, we're the first.

G. - We try to attract as many people as possible. If a webmaster does not operate lots of traffic but has a talent to build quality sites, why can't we give this webmaster something worthy? If this person sells sites good, why can't we give him a choice from hundreds of sites?

N. - What share does a webmaster get from sales on the site built?

G. - 10% of $5 per sale.

N. - Aren't you afraid to have too many sites and become bored with them?

G. - We don't let people build sites from one and the same content. The content archive constantly grows. And again there are loads and loads of content online. You just have to be able to sell it in an appropriate way, and it will do you good. We think we can make the content work.

N. - Now I see why you are called Cash Maniacs :) Right, I guess I could check out your program, too.