Originally Posted by
ChatGF
Of course if you have not a cam site, you do steps and first you focus on having one (software, design, billers, contracts, help pages). However I can tell you that the software and hosting is like 5% of expense of a cam site, especially now that there are ready-made script and that hosting is so cheap - compared with 10 years ago when I started and cam sites seemed magic to do and heavy to host (unsure if you know, but streamate it was an hosting company before and still it is, had more servers then it could sell then used that investment for own stuff).
There are pre-made cam scripts that sell for prices from $2k to $10k, most small and mid-size sites can be setup with $5k to 10k including design and customization from those scripts. If you search well with google you can even find who sell the script for some sites you worked on (of course MFC, SM are custom - but camworld, camwithher etc. you can reach their developer and they can sell a license to you too for 5k - 10k or so, of course without their customizations). Totally custom it is not very advisable why to reinvent the wheel if wheels are sold in bulk. About hosting I can tell that small to mid cam sites can do it with 4-5 servers for $2k or $3k per month hosting which is frankly a joke if compared with advertising cost worth filling few servers of traffic.
What I say it is, you should consider now at early stage all the steps needed until the final stage, and setup the site it is not the cost or complication here, if you have few $$ to give to professionals who have done sites for others (beware of who claims he can but have not working sites to show! Ask what cam site(s) he made before to accept his offer).
So the question is, after you have the site up and running, how you bring there enough paying customers from day 1, and at same time how you keep enough models online there despite they not get as much sales as they need.
Some sites who pay 80% exists, isn't skinvideo one? But there are so few models and I read here commebnts from o,dels that they gave up as too few boys. Then no girls why the boys whould not quit too.
What I mean is that sites with high % pay already exist and existed before but they either kept super small or been basically boicotted by models not for low pay or bad rules but simply as not enough $$ made as not enough paying guys there.
So for the whole site to work you need a way to bring guys (buy traffic = money you invest) and in meantime keep the girls there until not enough guys (pay minimunm hourly? bonus? = money you invest).
If you want models to earn in site $X per day first month, you can not expect the advertising needed will cost less than 5 times this $X - of course after 5 months you have the previous members still there and paying so they all sum up and you end up spending in ads no more then what models do, but 5 months of ads for 100 models it can be $10,000's or more likely $100,000's, pardon me.
Also if you pay the models 80% or more, and biller take 5% to 10% minimum, then for adverts you have 10% only from income (considering it is a union site so no income, no profit org, all re-invested) so you have $100,000 to spend in adverts each $1 million the models should earn, so each your advert should bring 10 times the sales it costed, and within few months, and the only traffic source I know so good it is stealing customers out of streamate and the such, not by banners or blogs or so - but then each model can steal own guys from sites already and do skype and be paid in zombaio with not even a site.
So let's assume you have a way to pay low the paying customers traffic - then you could simply be an affiliate webmaster and send same traffic to cam sites who pay big the affiliates (it is the same ones who pay low the models) and make more money then as a model. Just an example. What I mean it is that to test if a new site can be up, you should do a test with an existing site, to send traffic there as affiliate and see if you can "launch" such other site with your traffic, then you can launch your one too. You test with $100 of adverts how much sales you do in any cam sites, then you know if you want X sales on your new cam site you need $X money in adverts, and there it is where (by experiment) in the forums (those of webmasters as GFY) someone said one million dollar and there I agreed, saying $500k possible too, this is for a 6 months launch would be $100k a month all of adverts. Note mid size tubes ask $30k per month for popunders placement, just as example you could buy just these for 3 tubes, if talk of tubes, not that massive still. If buy banners in member areas of pay sites that's also thousands dollars a month each. Banner networks and so on. There are many ways to buy traffic, but is not gifted really.
So at the moment I think a collective site can be setup easily enough with under $10k, but then for launch you need traffic and this would cost more than a collective can think to afford, if purchased.
What models could do it is to steal i.e. move best guys from cam sites into that collective site, a form of strike (or more likely a breach of contract with sites), but this would require constant stealing of customers from cam sites and if models are busted one by one when discovered, with time these would be all banned models in every site except the own collective one, so traffic of new users would decrease too much. If site would pay lower % the models to have more to reinvest in adverts it could keep up on its own, but the issue it is, it would pay too low the models :)
Then you would have yet another site mostly like others.
Note that I seen many sites launched by non-models and failed (i.e. no guys then no girls then site lonely). I am not saying there that cam girls can not run a site as good as others! Others have run bad enough the sites, at least planned wrong as failed, I say cam girls are not safe from planning good as others.
Also not necessarity should the proudness let you avoid to talk or deal with anyone related to cam business. Not everyone may want to help, but someone who have successfully enough setup and run a site may give information or more. Further why don't you buy an existing site that is not so known, and revamp it. I hear often of cam sites for sale in forums, it may cost less then buy/develop from scratch.
I mean skip quick and cheap to the step of having a working cam site, then next there is the step of how to get paying guys in it, and there it is where I would focus as soon as possible, as it decides it all.