Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: "50,000 Naked Men" | Hacker News Reader

Chatroulette Founder Andrey Ternovskiy Raises New Funding: "50,000 Naked Men"

fastcompany.com

59 pointsinovica21 comments

It's funny, I really sympathize with Andrey, I figure we probably feel just about the same about our respective websites. Good ideas gone haywire because of initial miscalculations and being slightly naive about what would happen if you launched this thing without proper controls.

PG has it exactly right with his 'no broken windows', once there are a large enough number of broken windows in your town it's very hard to go back, even if you repair the windows. The influx or new throwers of stones will outpace your ability to repair if you didn't do it right from the get-go.

That's why the successful companies have to pivot and find a way to monetize those broken windows. When the market shows you a demand, you need to find a way to take advantage of it. In this case there are a lot of men who want to show off their junk.

I'm very impressed by Andrey's ability to use the very thing that is causing his site so much trouble and turn it into a stable revenue stream. It's a very shrewd business move, even if it does diverge from the original vision.

Exactly. I thought it was a stroke of genius. That they're now making money hand over fist off of something that turned a lot of people off and rubbed them the wrong way is great. Now if only they can beat the bad press and manage to find their niche without choking they'll be set.

It reminds me of how hotornot was burning through bandwidth because of picture hosting, and then turned it into a revenue source instead.

Later, HotOrNot signed up with online photo services Ofoto and Shutterfly, which were seeking more members, to have HotOrNot host some photos on those sites. HotOrNot sent leads to those sites, and was paid for it, thereby turning one of its largest expenses - photo hosting - into a revenue source.

(source http://www.smsmallbiz.com/capital/How_HotOrNot_Bootstrapped_...)

This raises the question if a more controlled and restricted site would have risen to the same prominence.

It appears, that a very low barrier to site usage was helpful in getting a critical mass of users in the beginning.

In other words, accept that some users will "throw in the windows" vs. the site being a ghost town.

I think it would have. Before perverts discovered camarades.com we were going through exponential growth, after their arrival growth stagnated and I think that the same goes for CR.

"But six months later, the fickle followers of Web fads have collectively hit the "next" button. Since peaking in usership in the spring and early summer, Chatroulette has been hemorrhaging traffic, with visits plummeting close to 60% in the US, according to Quantcast."

I knew this would happen, it seems everyone but he did. Is this a case of wishful thinking, or being blinded by how great he thinks his own product is? Also, the idea that they're making so much money off redirecting the people showing their genitals sounds very... unlikely. Surely these people aren't the sort who would, after being kicked from chat-roulette, go on to sign up for a dating site?

Yes it is hard to believe, but if it is true that he is making $100,000 per month, then he was right not to sell it, wasn't he? The site still has a good traffic and a lot of potential.

50,000 naked men/day is about 1,500,000 naked men per month, so $100,000 would be less than 7 cents per naked man. As this is highly targeted traffic, that does not sound completely unreasonable.

Keep in mind that 50k uniques/day doesn't translate into 30x50k uniques/months. There are probably some repeat visitors. Otherwise the world would at some point run of naked men.

Still, it's a non-trivial amount of highly targeted traffic.

I think he sees that himself now: I think I would accept the offers now, because I'm much more educated about it.

Regarding the money: The article mentions redirecting these users to FriendFinder.com, that should probably read AdultFriendFinder.com. I find it highly plausible that this kind of traffic has a very good conversion rate on an adult dating site.

Even at $100 / signup it wasn't worth it to me. AFF converts terribly.

I didn't mean to imply that they make 100,000$/mo of AFF. My point was that they probably redirect their adult traffic to something adult related and not to mainstream dating sites.

If the 500 000 visits / day number is true, Chatroulette still has pretty big user base. they can "restart" from there

I initially thought they were directing the feeds of the naked men to adult websites. In a way supplying the 'content' for adult networks.

If they took that approach, they could keep the naked men and not 'punish' them by sending them away. The naked men still think they're publishing their genitals on the Chatroulette network but in fact it's really being piped to an adult webcam site where paid subscribers watch and rate them.

Doubt any adult company would pay that much for naked men though, I don't think the rates for naked dude talent are competitive.

You would think after a while the naked men revenue would tail off as more and more are kicked off.

The title reminded me of a hilarious video from some years ago, "Heap of trouble". "Nine naked men walking down the road would cause a heap of trouble" indeed :)

Crappy quality: http://www.myvideo.de/watch/4293877/Heap_of_Trouble

Donate-to-view-in-good-quality at artist's website: http://www.stevesullivan.co.uk/heap.html

Did I read this right? He's making $100k/mnth, which is impressive! but whats the $50k for? What's the thinking behind the investment?

  According to Ternovskiy, Chatroulette is now earning
  $100,000 per month due to its refined business model and
  content-control system--all from "naked men." That's 
  triple the site's monthly "mainstream" or "normal" 
  revenue, as Ternovskiy refers to it.

To turn an old adage into a pivot: When life hands you naked men, make naked-men-lemonade-aka-affiliate-marketing.

at first I thought this was an Onion article...

I've got the feeling that this kid haven't fully realized what he's got on his hands, pity it'll be too late when he does.

That was the feeling of most chatroulette users initially (not realizing what the other person 'got on his hands').

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