XBIZ World is pleased to present “Execs of 2015: The Year in Review.”
Each of the executives we spoke to below has one thing in common — they are among the finalist nominees for the online industry edition of the 2016 XBIZ Exec Awards.
We’ve been seeing a lot of competition and more opportunity as a result of everyone starting to pay more and more attention to mobile traffic in all markets. Mobile may have been a secondary revenue stream for most of the big players, but it’s definitely in the spotlight now. -Lernmond Khodaverdy, Twistbox Entertainment
XBIZ captures the thoughts of these influential and motivational leaders as we sought their take of the year 2015.
The following question about the year in review was asked to those running for the Progressive Leadership Award:
XBIZ: How has your business evolved over the past year? How did you adapt to or take charge of this year’s trends?
Jesse Adams
CEO, Mikandi
“Our biggest evolution over the past year is expanding our app store beyond apps. We’ve always believed that the future of adult entertainment is owning the technology that delivers the best experiences. Apps promise a better experience than mobile sites, so we had laser focus on powering the adult app market. But over the years, adult content creators were consistently requesting mobile-first publishing tools from us for other types of content such as videos, comic books, e-books and games. So we started building high-quality content players such as our HD Android video player and comic book reader, and the response from our partners was phenomenal. We realized that at the end of day — whether it’s an .apk, .mp4, .jpg or .cbz file — providing adult content creators with the technology they need to deliver the best experience in a mobile world is where we can provide incredible value to our industry.”
Jack Avalanche
Owner and CEO, Cherrypimps.com and Avalanche Services
“Within the last year, we’ve been working to — for lack of a better term — embrace multiple sides of the market. On one side, we have our production, which has allowed us to partner with over 20 of the hottest and coolest up-and-coming porn stars as well as many established stars. On the B2B side, we’ve expanded partnerships with existing brands — and many new — to the same effect. These partnerships have allowed us to grow exponentially and offer our consumers a better product that is constantly evolving, improving and delivering the entertainment they want. The market may be more competitive than ever, but a good, solid product still sells.”
Todd Glider
CEO, BaDoink
“Speaking strictly to the company’s evolution over the year, the most significant move was our entry into the virtual reality market. The development and launch, the ongoing refinement and marketing of BaDoinkVR.com has been exciting at a level I can only equate with the rise of the smartphone.”
Lernmond Khodaverdy
Vice President of Products, Twistbox Entertainment
“We’ve been seeing a lot of competition and more opportunity as a result of everyone starting to pay more and more attention to mobile traffic in all markets. Mobile may have been a secondary revenue stream for most of the big players, but it’s definitely in the spotlight now. So there is more focus on optimization and adapting than ever before. But competition is a good thing: it keeps us hungry and makes us better in the end. Being focused and efficient was key. As new products launched and mobile traffic increased, there were more opportunities to make money — and it’s natural to want to do it all and be involved in everything, everywhere. But we really dialed into our key markets and are looking forward to an exciting 2016 full of new products and expansion into more markets.”
Anna Lee
President, Utherverse
“Our business has evolved from working with virtual world web technology to producing live action adult VR content. I have really embraced the change, as my professional background actually originated in film production. Being able to apply my knowledge in production to emerging VR technologies has been an amazing and tremendously rewarding experience. We have always prided ourselves as a company on being at the forefront of bleeding-edge adult technology and continue to do so with the creation of HoloFilm Productions. With VR headsets about to hit the consumer market, producing content in anticipation of that is key. If you build it, they will come.”
Angie Rowntree
Creator and Owner, Sssh.com
“Over the last year, there has been a major increase of interest shown towards porn for women — which we have embraced by being more out front and in the public eye, including my appearance at the Sundance Institute. We also focused on adopting new technology such as shooting in 4K, developing a VR platform, use of drones, exploiting new social media outlets, etc. 2015 also saw us being a lot more ambitious in our filmmaking, merging cinematic filmmaking with adult erotic content to further gain mainstream recognition. That resulted in one of our new releases, Gone (Sssh.com/gone) being called ‘a ground breaker in filmed pornography’ and ‘the most significant porn film of the year.’”
Brick Rucker
Co-Founder, Vuier.com
“We have been really impressed with the initiative people are taking to do things themselves instead of paying for or relying on others to do it for them — and additionally, with the way people have integrated social media into their marketing. One of the reasons we created Vuier was to give the power to monetize content, both live and video clips, any way a person wished to whether on websites, through social media platforms, or anywhere else feasible. It’s been cool to see how it has been received, and trends show that people will be using such solutions to build their revenue streams and brand presence. That is highly motivating.”
