The camming industry is on fire these days (in a good way!), with consumer demand for authenticity and intimacy at all-time highs. Even before lockdowns spiked traffic with folks stuck at home, the desire to interact live with beloved creators, be they of the mainstream Twitch variety or in adult entertainment, was well on its way to becoming a massive global phenomenon.
Enter Cherry.tv.
We seek to bring innovation to this industry by introducing a platform packed with features and elements that drive higher engagement and interaction.
With an open beta slated for March and a successful closed beta in the rearview mirror, the sharp minds behind this up-and-coming camming platform are laser-focused on delivering innovative features with a site whose development closely involved models themselves.
Given the team’s decade of experience fashioning community-centered products, they are looking to shake things up in what has become a very competitive landscape.
Beyond providing competitive payout rates and a sleek high-tech experience, the Cherry crew is taking gamification to the next level, with a plethora of loyalty perks that reward both fans and models for longevity.
XBIZ sat down with company head honcho Penny to break down how Cherry.tv has been developing thus far, what milestones are fast approaching and how they plan to seize the day in 2021.
XBIZ: What motivated you to launch Cherry.tv and how are you looking to shake things up in the industry?
Penny: The Cherry.tv team has been successfully creating community-oriented products for the last 10 years or so, and we are always on the lookout for new opportunities and projects where our strengths and experience can be applied.
When we started looking at the live cam landscape, it was clear to us how stagnant the industry had become, relying on the same gimmicks and tricks that brought it to life in the first place. It was also clear how most cam sites were created with the viewer in mind, especially the ones with big-spending potential, leaving the performers as an afterthought.
These factors motivated us to create a platform that finally puts performers first. The way we see it, when the performers are happy and have the tools they need to succeed, viewers - and money - will follow. We seek to bring innovation to this industry by introducing a platform packed with features and elements that drive higher engagement and interaction, where users are rewarded for their contributions, and where models are at the forefront of everything we do.
XBIZ: Describe the milestones you're aiming to achieve with the current alpha testing of the site, that will progress to the open beta phase.
Penny: When we started developing the platform, putting the performers’ needs front and center in our development process was our guiding principle. As such, the alpha tests started with a group of experienced cam models coming onboard to test Cherry.tv and providing us with their feedback.
We held over 25 individual tests with cam models, and collected all the data necessary to make improvements for the next stage - beta testing. The alpha tests were a key phase in our development, as we were able to hear from the performers exactly what they liked about the platform and what they thought needed improvement.
Following the alpha tests, we spent over 6 weeks working on the necessary changes to move forward to the beta phase. The beta phase is divided into two parts: closed beta and open beta (soft launch). The closed beta was held on December 21 and 22, where we invited a selected group of 120 people to participate as viewers, as well as five cam models to put on one-hour shows.
Our goal with the closed beta was to see how the platform would react in a live environment for the first time from a tech perspective, as well as have a better understanding of how the features we implemented would be used by performers and viewers alike. As with any product subject to testing, we encountered several kinks that we needed to iron out before moving on to the open beta phase; however, we were beyond happy with the response we received from users and performers.
We are now working towards our Open Beta launch, currently scheduled for March. During this phase, we will invite several models to perform on a daily basis to a much larger audience, where the aim is to spot and correct any issues, as well as optimize and improve Cherry.tv ahead of its grand opening.
XBIZ: Once you hit open beta, what new changes can models look forward to on the road to going gold?
Penny: During our open beta stage, models can expect a much smoother experience from what they encountered during the alpha tests. We have made top-to-bottom improvements, starting from a simple and easy registration process, a model dashboard that provides in-depth data of their performance on Cherry.tv, a faster and more stable streaming experience, optimizations in the streaming room features and set-up (such as private/group shows bots, Lovense integration and tip menu), a fully-optimized mobile version, and a team that is now 100% ready to take on any challenges or issues that performers face.
XBIZ: What features, both for models and for users, does Cherry.tv offer to distinguish itself in the market? For example, with VIP offerings like Club Cherry.
Penny: Club Cherry is our VIP offering, which gives users the ability to send direct messages to models inside of streams, become room moderators, and send unique gifts not available to non-VIP users. However, the most distinctive features for models and viewers are our gamification elements, which aim to not only create a more engaging and fun experience for everyone on the platform, but also increase viewers’ retention rate and spending.
The level system we put in place encourages viewers to send tips and gifts to models in order to level up and gain “status” on the platform, as well as to unlock unique perks and rewards. For models, leveling up means getting a higher revenue-share, more visibility on the platform and special privileges and rewards. It also means that models can easily differentiate users with tipping potential from those who are mostly lurkers. VIP users earn 10% more experience when gifting or viewing private/group shows for both themselves and the models.
Our gifting system utilizes gifts instead of plain, boring old tips and an automated action menu (similar to tip menu), encouraging viewers to engage and interact more with the performers, which ultimately translates to more earnings.
In the near future, we are adding even more features that play to our strengths and experience as game developers that will take live cams to the next level.
XBIZ: Tell us your approach to recruiting new models and retaining them in the coming months and years.
Penny: Our approach is fairly simple: we show models what Cherry.tv is and what it can do for them, and then take it from there. We believe that our entire philosophy of creating a platform with the performers as our priority really resonates with them, and we have been putting our money where our mouth is.
Models have been involved in our development process since the initial conception of Cherry.tv, helping us craft a product that meets their needs and wants, being the first ones to test the platform and providing us with vital feedback during our alpha and closed beta stages.
The recruitment and retention strategy relies on offering the models a platform where they can thrive, with an around-the-clock support team and fair revenue distribution.
XBIZ: How does the Cherry.tv team coordinate behind the scenes to juggle site developments, customer service and model care, especially in today's socially distanced environment?
Penny: The Cherry.tv platform up to this point has been built almost entirely remotely, and like many other companies around the world, we had to get pretty familiar with the inner workings of Zoom and other forms of online communication, which to be honest, was not a far reality for us before this pandemic, seeing as we have our operations scattered across several continents.
On the bright side, with nobody being able to work in a physical office, we realized that we could hire the most suitable people for the numerous positions we were looking to fill, regardless of their location. This turned out to be now one of our greatest strengths: a team of engineers, marketers, community managers and product designers from all around the world, each bringing their own experiences and knowledge to make Cherry.tv the best platform it can possibly be.
XBIZ: Once Cherry.tv starts gaining momentum, what are your plans to achieve a scalable business that can grow fast?
Penny: Our founding team is lucky in the fact that this is not our first rodeo, and we have successfully scaled multiple other businesses in the past. Our core values do not change based on scale. We want to continue to provide the best experience for models as possible and implement their feedback.
As we are scaling, bringing a significant amount of traffic into the platform will be one of our core goals, and optimizing our algorithms to make sure both new and existing models are able to receive that traffic will be of utmost importance. We hope that, as with other modern social media platforms, joining a year or two after launch does not diminish content creators’ ability to earn a solid income from their work, as long as they can put on a good show!
XBIZ: Let's discuss servers. How does Cherry.tv seek to ensure a smooth streaming experience and site stability, especially during times of high traffic?
Penny: The Cherry.tv server infrastructure is based on a scalable Kubernetes cluster hosted on AWS. These clusters are spread in multiple regions across the globe. Using the best available GPUs, our servers transcode the videos and serve it using Cloudflare DNS for low latency on a global scale. Our technology is based on node.js which provides a very high performance application layer but also allows our development team to move faster with innovating and delivering new features.
XBIZ: How will you handle the rankings and level system on your site, determining models' status in terms of earnings and time spent online.
Penny: The rankings system is currently divided into two categories: Daily and Weekly, though we plan to add a Season ranking in the very near future. Models are ranked solely according to their earnings on the platform. The rankings are further categorized according to the performers’ gender as well (female, trans and, soon, male and couple), which ensures that we give everyone equal opportunities to be featured as a top performer on the platform.
The level system, however, is determined by a combination of two factors: time spent online and earnings. Every model on Cherry.tv starts off at level 1, and as they stream and receive tips, they start to level up and increase their status on the platform (higher pay-outs, more visibility, special perks). As a model progresses to higher levels, the earnings factor becomes the dominant one, since we want to ensure that models who put on quality performances receive the recognition they deserve.
XBIZ: What are your biggest goals for this year?
Penny: Our biggest goal for 2021 is to create a platform that performers keep coming back to because it fully delivers on what a cam site should have: great features, fair revenue distribution and around-the-clock support. For us, the most important thing is to ensure that the answer to the question “Am I better off at Cherry.tv than in any other cam site?” is a resounding “Yes!”
This year, we aim to gain the trust of our models and users, implement their feedback and work our hardest to build the best cam site and adult community out there. With an open beta soft launch in March to get all our technical kinks worked out, then by Q2, we will push to get the product out to as many users as possible.
