Project 2021

UPDATED 26TH JAN  

The original post is after this one.

Thank you for your answers.  I thought it fair to share these with you – and I could respond to some of the points also before taking to the next step.

1:   OnlyFans followed ManyVids were by far the most popular sites for self-production.

2:  Most have not appeared on paysites.

3:  Do you think there is a need for a pay site featuring performers like you?  

95% YES

5% NO

Your responses

“sexual representation, knowing that ur body and identity is attractive and seeing that through trans/enby porn hard to compete with hot cis straight women and cis gays with 8 packs on an all encompassing pay site“

“Not only would this be nice for representation, but I think that a platform for this is extremely marketable with the influx of trans masculine/enby performers. I love seeing our bodies, but there aren’t any specific sites one could go to in order to see the all of the variety that can be explored in this demographic that aren’t individual fan sites. It’s convenient, inclusive, and empowering.“

“I do think that it could be potentially helpful for models who are just not business savvy enough or can’t handle the amount of hats you have to wear to run everything yourself, I fully believe that the majority of models can handle the responsibility. I also believe it allows for further creativity and I think it’s in the model’s best interest to have as much control as possible of their work. As a trans male, I also feel that there’s no need to separate me/my content from mainly cis/hetero platforms.“

“It doesn’t exist mainstream yet”

“Absolutely! There’s a huge gap in the pay site porn world for the FTM community and a formal “home” for us would really raise the profile of trans masculine content“

“I am a post op trans male and the porn industry is so focused on trans women that it’s hard for trans men to get a foot in the door.“

My Response

I don’t believe there is a pay site of this type yet.  While anyone can quickly learn how to self-produce and upload to fan/clip sites, that’s a very different business model to a pay site and they appeal to a different market (although also can have synergy on building brands).   If you look what we’ve done with the trans women sites,  almost all of those models we feature have their own brands and are making good money on OF or their clips.  They still continue to work for us, not just for the pay check but that it can enhance their brand and give them a larger presence.  There is a reason pay sites have endured.

4) What do you think of Grooby making a website that features performers similar to you?

65% Good Idea

35% Undecided/Need to Know More

Your responses

“what else are u doing for this community besides making money off of us”

“It makes me happy. I love seeing our bodies celebrated, especially with the lack of representation in mainstream porn”

“They have done well with ventures so far and they would be a safe and positive resource for transmen and non- binary sex workers”

“I think it would be incredible“

“Not much experience with pay sites set up in this manner“

My Response

Just to confirm what we’re actually proposing is a pay site/members site, in the same way we’ve done sites like GroobyGirls.com, Tgirls.xxx, etc.   This means we set up shoots between performers and producers (although for this site we may be able to buy some direct).  We pay performers a model fee (you can see the model fees we’re currently paying trans women performers at : https://www.grooby.com/modelswanted/.   We then need to get a return on that outlay by attracting fans to pay each month for a membership.  This requires regular (multi times a week) scenes.  For a site like GroobyGirls we try a lot of models of different types, and those who do well return for multiple future shoots on this or our other sites.   You can also sell/promote the site for a 50% affiliate pay-out (for as long as it rebills) and we have models doing well on that.  Models can write their own profiles and have Twitter links to help with their promotion.  Once paid and paperwork is completed for those shoots, you do not have any ownership of it.  The site’s investment is in the performer fee you were paid, the producer fees, editors and everything it takes to run a website company.

“what else are u doing for this community besides making money off of us” – this is a fair question.   We’re a business, we’re looking to make money.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t do good business.  I’m not going to reel off a whole list of things that I believe Grooby has done for the community over the years – but we created the TEA’s (which run at non-profit) when trans women were getting no love from AVN/Xbiz awards and have done a lot to raise the profile and platforms of trans women in the industry.   I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and still enjoy doing it and I believe trans men and people whom I’d like featured on this website are under-represented.  At the very least, I’d like to give this website a go, and if that means we can get more money into the pockets of trans men / non-binary folk, and make a small profit, then I think that’s a fair goal.  Those of you who do sell content, know that this isn’t a quick or easy way to make money,  if it was, far bigger companies than Grooby would have done it.

5)  90% thought it a good idea to have no labels, 10% preferred to have trans man or similar label.

6)  Descriptors you used for yourselves: 

non-binary/queer

Pansexual, transgender male

transmasculine non-binary

queer/pan

transgender male

transman pansexual

gay trans male

bisexual trans male

7.  100% liked the idea of a non-cis performers site.

Your responses:

“let trans women post their own shit”

“I think that this should be open to all transmasc folks, binary or not. Sometimes, enforcing binaries with this kind of stuff can potentially be regressive. Physical expression has nothing to do with gender and I’ve seen trans men excluded from spaces because of not being on hormones or medically transitioning- the more authentic the performers, the sexier the experience.”

“I think it would be interesting to have a site dedicated to trans men/non binary folks. They tend to be a smaller category on most sites.”

“I support this as I know there are many sites that strictly feature transwomen, including Grooby”

“Unsure at present, but I believe hosting varying genders on one site would be a good concept!”

My response:

What I would like to do is feature as someone said above “open to all transmasc folks, binary or not. “.   What I don’t want to do, is be a gatekeeper.  We have to do it on a lot of our trans women sites (as that’s what the buyer wants) and even when we created Femout.xxx to feature girls not-yet on hormones, or just beginning we still have to have a certain criteria.   I’d appreciate some input from the community when we get to that time – to be able to feature the widest range of performers/models – but it shouldn’t cross-over with the trans women who have their own spaces.

8.  Words for genitals you suggested : pussy, dick, front hole, clit, vagina, t-dick, boy hole, front hole, junk, ass, asshole.

9. 100% used the word chest for their top half.

10. Bad words:  bussy, tranny, transsexual

My response.

Hi – thanks for coming to take a look!

Grooby is looking at the possibilities of doing a non-binary and/or trans man paysite and we’re looking to get some feedback, and see if anyone is interested in getting involved.

If you’re unaware who/what Grooby is, we’re a company that has specialised for the last 25 years in trans women erotica. I started the company in 1996 when I was a horny 26-year-old, putting together a collection of trans girl photos on a basic website. This grew into a thriving business, and is the most visible and recognised trans adult company. We’re a small company that punches above its weight, with 15 full-time staff, and 12-15 freelance exclusive producers, working with practically every trans model, running 20+ sites (150-180 scenes a month), DVDs, the Transgender Erotica Awards, etc., among other things. If you want to know more about our background, please look at http://grooby.com.

We’ve had always an ethos of presenting the girls how they want to be seen, and we focus on showcasing the widest range of trans women we can.  When most trans porn in the 90’s focussed on who the media stereotypically thought trans women were, we always wanted to show a diversity and were the first to show tatted/alt. girls, BBW, post-ops, girls early in transition, etc.  We even featured a trans man in 2003 (which didn’t go down well with the members of that time).

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on ideas for an all-inclusive, body-positive style site that was aimed to give a platform for trans and non-binary persons who didn’t have other outlets.   We tried a year or so ago, with Bare.xxx and was going to be a self-produced content platform but we couldn’t get it right.  I’m now thinking that a paysite is the way to go, as it’s the medium that we know best, we have everything in place including the webmasters, designers, experience, and the traffic – and I think the time is right.

What I’m looking for from you  is a few minutes of your time in completing a survey.   If we do this, we want to get it right.  Unlike GroobyGirls.com and the other sites, we grew as the internet grew, and as the terminology and models evolved, so did we.  Starting in a new area we don’t know as well, in 2021, this needs to be treated differently.   I’m completely open to questions, and we always have run our business very transparently but to give you a little more understanding, I’ve answered some of the questions, that I would have asked, below.

Why do you want to do this site?

From what I can see there isn’t another paysite that does this.  I see a massive amount of incredible performers on social media, and it seems like OnlyFans and clipsites like ManyVids are the main outlets.   I know from running the trans girl sites that these platforms can run alongside each other, and that performers appearing on paysites also can raise their profile.  I believe the time to do this is now.

Why do this now?

We’ve reached the pinnacle of what we do in trans websites.  We have lots of sites, with different themes on trans women.  We looked at a trans man website about 5 years ago with a trans man partner, but it didn’t pan out.  In those 5 years, and especially in the last 2 years, the amount of trans and non-binary performers has skyrocketed.  I know the income from clipsites, and it’s not great – and fan sites, work for some and not for others.  This is a way we can see if there is a large market there.  Many fans don’t want clip/fan sites but do want the reliability of what they know – a paysite.

Why Grooby?  Why Can’t a Performer Do This?

Great question.  They possibly/probably can.  However, we’ve got a foundation on which to get a site launched and in front of a lot of people.  We have media connections, we have affiliates looking for things to sell, we have marketing, we have a large reach and we have the experience.  Personally, I have a great reputation in the business side of the industry (as far as I’m aware, anyway!) and can reach anyone. Kristel has a great reputation in the LGBTQ industry.  We also have the foundation that we don’t have to turn a profit immediately, something which is impossible to do in the web site business.   It often takes us 36 months to break even, but we’re playing the long game.*

*  however, if something clearly doesn’t work, we pivot or fail it fast and look for something else.

What’s Your Interest?

I/we created what I feel is the best trans women site out there, and then grew on it.  I love to build things.  I love to see interesting and exciting people. I’m quite voyeuristic.  I get excited about new projects.  I’m seeing all these amazing performers and they get me excited, and after 25 years doing this, it takes quite a bit to do that.  I’ve also just turned 50 and if I don’t give this a go, I’ll regret it down the line.

Yes – I do want to make money from this.  That’s what a successful business does (Grooby sites are profitable, but our margins are slim, we put a lot back into content).

No – I don’t need to make money from this.  It’s a business, and if it doesn’t work, then we’ve lost money and that’s hard to swallow, but business is risky.   

We’ll look at investing $75k upwards into content over the first few months, which should go back directly into the community.  I’m open to all ideas on how to grow this site, and how it should work.

Still interested? 

Please take this survey,  and please ask any questions.  If you have an interest in being part of it, please register your email address with us.

Thank you very much.  Please forgive us if some of the questions are ignorant, or misguided.  They are there to help us learn, and to make sure we get everything correct.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9R6B9LS

I’d be grateful if you didn’t share any details of this post just yet, and you can always contact me directly @groobysteven or admin@grooby.com