"Discover what excites the world and deliver it seamlessly to our members.” That is the mission statement of Paper Street Media. That is the vibrant company spirit fueling every maverick maneuver, energetic evolution and graceful gamble.
And as Paper Street Media COO Salima leads the company to build upon their strong teen content foundation, with strategic forays into the MILF and gay markets atop the momentum of sites like MYLF.com and FamilyDick.com, the acclaim is already pouring in with tangible results from traffic behemoth Pornhub.
Our roadmap is always clearest in the present, and foggiest in the future. Things change fast in adult, in ad technology and on the internet.
From tried-and-true brands like Team Skeet and its offshoot Little Asians winning Pornhub awards, to numerous affiliated channels breaking top 100 and top 50 rankings, Paper Street is no stranger to navigating the content game — and filling the coffers of loyal affiliates in the process.
To better comprehend the philosophy underpinning so much of Paper Street’s approach to delivering strong content to consumers, working closely with behind-the-scenes partners and flexing marketing muscle to great effect, XBIZ sat down with Salima for this company profile.
XBIZ: From its genesis to the present, what has been the single most dramatic shift in Paper Street Media’s adaptive business model, amidst the industry’s many fluctuations?
Salima: I think adaptive is the keyword. Our single greatest strength is being adaptive to the market. Originally we were working with independent sites and we learned that launching networks within a genre could offer more and conversely attract more.
We also place a great deal of stock in our relationships and instead of relying only on our own reach, we collaborate with affiliates and tube sites to optimize our reach.
XBIZ: How do you ensure a smooth workflow from the pre-production team to your contract directors and the post-production team, as far as quality control for content and adherence to company guidelines?
Salima: Our processes are always being refined. We provide guidelines to each team member and support open communication between all the production departments. We are strong believers in kaizen. We’re never not working on improving processes.
XBIZ: When partnering with affiliates, assessing data to optimize growth and retention, what is your sales team’s approach to executing an individualized plan to maximize profits?
Salima: Every affiliate is different with different needs and different kinds of lead generation. We start with best practices depending on how we characterize their traffic -- deal sites, blogs, etc.
After assessing their market and reach, we meet with each affiliate individually to build-measure-learn the magic formula to convert their traffic, so in the end, each affiliate ends up with a custom, hands-on plan.
XBIZ: If a site is declining and you decide to revamp the current production model before redirecting efforts elsewhere, what kinds of new techniques and storylines do you implement?
Salima: We try everything. If it was previously a POV site, we might try a full production model. If it is gonzo, we might add a storyline. If it has a storyline, we might drop that back so there’s less dialogue.
If it’s a site with weekly updates, we might switch to two or three updates a week. We shake it up and then listen to the feedback and watch the analytics.
XBIZ: Discuss your method for making company goals transparent to team members, after collecting feedback from site subscribers and employees.
Salima: Our roadmap is always clearest in the present, and foggiest in the future. Things change fast in adult, in ad technology and on the internet.
If we spend too much time planning for an unstable future, we waste precious resources. With this being said, our company objectives are updated and published internally every quarter.
XBIZ: Tell us the most significant ways your core audience has changed (or remained the same), throughout the years.
Salima: Originally our core audience was limited to the teen genre, but as we’ve expanded into MILF and gay markets, we have gained new core audiences. We are constantly coming up with new niches in each of our staple genres so we don’t cannibalize our own product.
We do cross-market and upsell between genres, but our most successful launches are new niches within a genre, such as introducing LittleAsians.com as a standalone site to our demographic of teen viewers. We are currently our own number one affiliate.
XBIZ: On the tech side, what kinds of innovations have you implemented to improve the user experience?
Salima: We are always working with shortened attention spans, so to keep our customer’s interest, we roll out faster streaming, faster downloads and faster ways to discover new content.
We understand it’s a buyer’s market and we have very little time to capture and convert. We lure with aesthetics, captivate with options and finally close with attractive pricing.
XBIZ: When you’re testing a new product, be it a previously unexplored twist on a genre or a fresh way of shooting, how do you roll out enough content to gauge meaningful data without committing too many resources?
Salima: We’re gamblers. Sometimes we lose our bet and sometimes we hit a jackpot. If we can keep the lights on and meet our financial projections, you’ll find us at the table rolling again and again.
XBIZ: How has your 2019 goal of increasing your presence in the MILF, gay and teen space via various new site launches unfolded so far? Discuss some milestones you’ve hit this year.
Salima: Wow, is it already April? Without giving away proprietary data, we can attest that Porn-hub is a proportionately decent measure of the market’s reception to our concepts.
- Team Skeet (our teen network) won Porn-hub’s Best Network award in 2018.
- Little Asians, a Team Skeet Premium Channel, launched in January 2019 and broke the top 50 Pornhub channels in less than six weeks. Today it is #28.
- We launched MYLFDOM, a MYLF Premium Channel the first week of March, and it’s already on a similar trajectory. MYLF also resides on Pornhub’s top 100 channels and has become a gold standard in the genre almost overnight. We’re especially proud as this was our first big reach outside of our teen demographic.
- FamilyDick, which is in our gay network (ChargedCash), was named Pornhub’s Best Site in 2018.
XBIZ: What’s next for Paper Street Media in the coming years, as far as “big picture” ambitions?
Salima: When asked about our goals, we return to our mission statement: “Discover what excites the world and deliver it seamlessly to our members.”
In 2019 we will continue to expand our networks with new content and more intuitive user experiences.
