4 Minutes With: Juicy Jay
JuicyAds is a famous marketplace for publishers and advertisers. This company is the one and only 17-time award winning Ad Network in the adult industry.
Welcome to the latest of our new ‘Four Minutes With…’ features, where we sit down and speak with leading CEOs and business professionals and ask them for their top tips and insights into starting a business. Today we are speaking with Juicy Jay, founder of leading adult industry advertising network JuicyAds.
JuicyAds has won 19 awards (and counting) including the industry “trifecta” of XBIZ, GFY, and YNOT all in a single year. The business has also won more awards than any other advertising network in the adult industry according to Jay, who continues to be the lead developer eleven years after starting the company. The rest of his team work remotely all over the world, for a network where sexy is corporate policy.
“Everything we do from the ads we run on our platform to the way we run the company, our events, and sponsorships [the “Juicy Lifestyle”] are meant to be fun and sexy,” Jay says.
The last few years have been a difficult period for many businesses, so as a business person, what tips have you learned for coping with tough quarters?
Juicy Jay: Firstly, after selling advertising for over a decade the thing that is more true today than ever is that everything will change, and you need to change with it. Your company may grow or shrink, have good times and bad, but regardless of this, it will always change.
Secondly, an idea has enormous value but only if executed well. We pioneered many adult industry firsts, and our platform has many unique features that no other networks have. That’s both by design and by accident.
Finally, there is no such thing as work-life balance. I’ve written extensively about it in my monthly column but the truth is that the best advice I can give is that there is no boundary. We all have a purpose and a need for purpose. We need work as much as we need life and they are not exclusive things. They exist in the same world so it’s important that instead of [always] trying to get more done, that we are happy with what we accomplish and ensure that we are happy every day. Placing happiness after some goal is accomplished will only make you miserable, and a workaholic. Happiness needs to be in your life, all the time.
How can new businesses best prepare themselves for unexpected shocks?
When people first start a business — any business, they seem to fall into two categories. There are people who get things done, break a few rules either intentionally or by accident, who may be more likely to succeed because they will get done what needs to get done. On the other hand, there are people who do everything exactly right, never break any rules, and are often more likely to fail because they operate inside a box of expectations. [Understand that] you need to do something different, and you will fail at some point.
What is your most important advice for business people who are just starting out?
My advice is to ensure that whatever it is that you’re chasing has a purpose, that it’s a truly good idea, or change it as needed or let it die. Pride and ego will cost you much more than knowing when to walk away. Even when you succeed, you will have failures. Anyone starting a business needs to understand that to succeed you need to take risks, but to be smart about them. Be smart and admit to yourself that you could fail very badly, but realize that the hope of success is what will drive you hardest in your pursuit. Invest your time, your energy, your love, and your money in things you believe in and have passion for.
The crowdfunding market has been growing year on year recently, how do you see this sector moving forward next?
People are very excited to put in some money and get something real in return. With traditional investments what you normally get are a bunch of papers that say how much you’ve spent and how much your investment is worth. There’s nothing fun about that, there’s no real ownership in that. When the stock market was in free fall in 2008 I was investing heavily and made profits by knowing it was a smart move to take a risk. However, I felt no direct ownership, there was nothing real about it. I was a fraction of a percent in an ocean of other shareholders.
Crowdfunding on the other hand, lets people be involved with something real. At its core, crowdfunding like on a platform like adultXfunding.com you are part of a community of like-minded people. Everyone is aligned and invested both with money and passion in achieving a single goal. What I hope to see are communities grow from crowdfunding, while pursuing amazing ideas, because that’s what it’s really about.
What tips would you offer to entrepreneurs think of using crowdfunding in their business model?
When you’re raising funds via a crowdfunding platform like adultXfunding.com, you need to be involved in your own success. You know your pitch and your idea better than anyone else.
The platform is excellent at bringing people together, making it easy to pledge support to projects, and presenting your pitch, but the most successful pitches are the ones where you’re involved in generating the same excitement and passion in other people that you feel for your own project. Spreading the word of mouth and your own promotional materials make a grand difference.
How can your company help campaigns on adultXfunding.com?
My company JuicyAds is easily able to help anyone looking to promote their offers on adultXfunding.com, we have an enormous amount of traffic available with internal quality control. It’s pretty easy to set up a campaign or buy specific ad spots and deliver that traffic right to your pitch on adultXfunding. Even better, depending on your budget, we offer creative services at little to no cost to create fresh marketing materials and banners. There are lots of reasons to keep it Juicy no matter what you’re promoting.
adultXfunding in association with thespotlive.com
Originally published at adultxfunding’s blog on April 2, 2017.
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