LOS ANGELES — On February 25, 2015, Paige Jennings — under her nom de plume of "Veronica Vain" — published a piece in the New York Post explaining why she was leaving a potential career on Wall Street for the adult industry. Her post created a lightning storm of media attention and made her one of the most well-known adult performers of that year. Vain was so popular and in such demand that she was offered $30,000 to appear in a production; this production being her first movie, "Screwing Wall Street." Despite this success and popularity, Jennings stepped away from porn in 2016.
Though her time as a performer was short, her unique story helped her develop an audience that she used to build a presence on YouTube and Twitch. After several years away, Jennings announced that she was returning to the world of adult entertainment. Instead of being an actress, Jennings is now the CEO and founder of Vuli — a new website with a goal to revolutionize how porn is sold by creating a platform that sells a la carte high-end content. An examination of Jennings’ post-Wall Street career provides crucial insights into how a performer can evolve after they leave the industry as well as what it takes to create a new type of adult company.
The Wall Street Starlet
While some ex-performers have been critical of their time in the industry, this is not the case with Paige Jennings. While she has publicly discussed problems she observed, she has no interest in distancing herself from her adult entertainment work. “I think a lot of people mistake — because I’ve pointed out some of the issues and broken incentive structures [in] porn — [it] must mean I’m against it or I’m trying to erase my past,” Jennings explained. “That is not the case. I mostly had fun in porn and my bad experiences were only a handful.”
In addition to observing areas in the porn industry that could be improved upon, Jennings also felt there were opportunities to improve how the industry makes money. For example, in September 2015 Jennings was already working on a project called Bangbox. As reported by XBIZ, Jennings was seeking financing for what she called the "Hulu for porn," which she hoped would tackle more than just porn’s piracy problem by "combining the best of free tube and premium paysites into one customizable and searchable platform.”
It was at the beginning of her career that Jennings would concreive the business model that she would later develop into Vuli. “I actually came up with the idea my second month in porn,” she explained to XBIZ. “At the time I did not believe I could achieve such a vision since I knew nothing about the tech involved or really too much about how the industry worked.”
“I sought out some partners who, at the time, were trying to do something similar,” Jennings continued. “I attempted to be a part of their team, however, they made it clear they did not see my value and only wanted to pay me to talk about them to media outlets.” (At the time, Jennings was so popular she could easily get air time on CNN Business to discuss this project.)
Jennings knew she wanted to be far more than the face of a company and moved on from that business. “I’d already been down that road and didn’t feel it benefitted me much. I wanted to be part of a startup as that’s always been a dream of mine,” Jennings shared. “I was like, ‘I’m going to build this shit myself’ and that was May 2015. It took me five years and a lot of headaches but I did build that shit myself.”
With Vuli still years away, Jennings found herself tired of porn but still needing a career. She turned her sights towards YouTube.
Moving to YouTube: Motivations and Obstacles
Reflecting on the birth of her YouTube channel, RedHeadRedemption, Jennings shared with XBIZ why starting a channel was so appealing to her.
“My, I guess you could call 'explosion' into porn, was also the first time I really paid attention to the internet and social media. I was watching more YouTube while I was a performer, and that combined with occasional personality and acting bits I got to do for Brazzers and Girlsway planted the seed of like, 'Hey, I could do that.'"
Once she stopped performing Jennings explained that she was “left with this decent sized platform and fan base” and no interest in returning to Wall Street or getting a regular job. This left YouTube as a perfect space for an entrepreneurial-minded person to explore. Furthermore, as a self-described “hardcore neckbeard gamer basically [her] whole life,” it was only natural for video games to become part of this new endeavor.
Jennings launched her YouTube channel on August 23, 2016, and posted her first video a few days later on August 25. Titled “WTF Am I Doing With My Life”, Jennings explained why she dropped the "Veronica Vain" nom de plume and stated that the channel would be focused on gaming. Like all channels, this one evolved; Jennings mainly discusses video games on her Twitch channel, while her YouTube is mostly focused on humorous skits, Reddit reviews and storytimes.
However, the most popular topic would become her experience in adult entertainment.
Of note is that Jennings never tried to distance herself from porn. “I don’t want to move away from my porn identity because it was a cool experience and when I die, I won’t be sitting there wondering, ‘What if I had a threesome on camera?’ — which is awesome,” Jennings explained. “I just want to be seen as more than my porn identity. I’m definitely also funny and smart and driven and I want that to come through.”
Given her background and growing popularity on YouTube, Jennings uniquely understands the difficulties that faced by adult performers building their own YouTube channels as well as many internet personalities who are expanding into producing adult content. For people who are thinking of getting into porn, Jennings — as she frequently does — strongly suggests that they thoroughly research if porn is actually right for them. If someone does decide to pursue adult work, her three bits of advice are to network, be polite because it is a close community and to always honor agreements. As Jennings explained, “Always follow through on what you say you’re going to do because adult industry people are ultra-sensitive to flakes and posers and will not put up with your shit.”
As for other porn stars wanting to grow their brand on YouTube, Jennings believes that they need to move past just using their sex appeal. “For adult performers who want to expand, the most important thing you can do is to stop relying on your sexuality and sexy thumbnails to get views,” Jennings told XBIZ.
“Those do not get you the viewers and community that you want. Those viewers are just there to ogle you and maybe warm-up for your porn later. You have to hook them with your personality. And doing makeup tutorials and vlogs of your gym workouts don’t cut it unless you are very entertaining,” Jennings shared. “You have to be creative, possibly informative, and entertaining simultaneously. Further, learn some basic photoshop to make nice thumbnails and try to make 'clickbait-y' titles to grab people.”
To help grow the channel Paige promised to post a video explaining why she left the porn industry when RedHeadRedemption got a thousand subscribers. This goal was met rather quickly and on September 29, 2016, she released a video titled “This is Why I Quit Porn.” Her channel currently has over 215k subscribers and that specific video has over four million views.
While this video did help her get more subscribers and views, it did cause her to run up against YouTube’s algorithm and policies. This has caused Jennings to worry about the delicate balance she has to strike between producing content audiences want from her versus what is financially good for her channel.
“I wouldn’t be so reluctant to make more porn-related videos on YouTube if the platform didn’t actively work against you when you make that content,” Jennings said. “Basically, it all gets demonetized, and when that happens the algorithm picks it up less and promotes it to new viewers less, and the subscribers you get from porn-related content generally only want to see porn related content anyway. Thus, it just makes it more difficult to run a humor-focused channel if most of my subs only click for porn insights.”
The success of “This is Why I Quit Porn” led to her making other videos about the porn industry and changes she would like to see made. One of those videos was “Why I Quit My Porn Company (and what it was).”
In that video, Jennings talked about her previous porn business. After this, Jennings saw that numerous members of her fan base had suggested raising money to help her build this company on her own; many even stated that they would invest their own money. An entrepreneur to the core, Jennings realized that this was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.
Vuli’s Creation
On December 27, 2017, Jennings posted a video titled “Want to Build a Company with Me?” As the title implies, Jennings announced that she would develop a business and invited viewers to invest in this venture.
Instead of crowdfunding, Jennings decided to raise funds needed for this business via investments in exchange for equity. She invited those in her audience to email her and learn more about the opportunity. Within two days of publishing the video she had over $100,000 in commitments from her audience, within one month had the legal workings of the “friends and family” round finished, and the money in a C Corp bank account.
Though Jennings described this business as Bangbox in the video, that is not the name she would maintain for it. Bangbox or a similar name would be descriptive enough to represent a porn company. After all, there are dozens of adult entertainment companies with the words ‘bang’ or ‘box’ in their name. However, Jennings wanted a brand that better helped her company stand out. When speaking to XBIZ about Vuli as a name for her company, Jennings rhetorically asked, “What does 'Hulu' mean? Who knows? Business names just need brandability and the ability to stick in people’s minds.”
The initial invitation for investment worked and Jennings was able to begin assembling a team of developers to help her turn Vuli from an idea to a real website. In an effort to keep stakeholders and fans up-to-date with Vuli’s development, Jennings started a YouTube series on called “The Startup Diaries."
While Jennings’ startup vlogs provide an important and insightful look into how a tech company grows, people outside of her fanbase may be left with this question: What is Vuli’s business model?
Royalties
Jennings described Vuli as the “Amazon Prime for porn.” Vuli will produce and offer some original content, but its main goal is to offer all of its content under a video-on-demand model. “While VOD sites do exist already, I think it’s long been sort of a black sheep in porn with most 'porntrepreneurs' opting for trendier business models like Netflix-style subscriptions or VR porn,” Jennings explained to XBIZ. “I think there’s still a sizeable market for a la carte.”
In addition to not wanting to compete with websites that offer porn for free, or behind subscriptions, a primary goal Jennings has for Vuli is to create a system that pays royalties.
“It’s incredibly important to make clear that Vuli pays performers royalties on all content sold on Vuli featuring them, and already has a tracking system built for this purpose,” Jennings stated. “I think this is probably the single biggest differentiating factor because while performers make a shitload from OnlyFans now, are they going to be doing that in 20 years? Are they going to have made enough in porn to live comfortably for the rest of their lives? I think for most the answer to that question is a resounding 'no.'"
“Performers have been asking for royalties for years and talking about how they deserve them — and they do — but the headache of 500 studios trying to pay thousands of performers on their various sources of distribution revenue isn’t plausible. Vuli will be that centralized place that can pay royalties in perpetuity. Yes, it sounds ambitious, but I’m doing it and I made it work by building it in to the margin of profit.”
Bottlenecks and Startup Dysfunctions
As is common for all startups, Vuli has had to overcome bottlenecks stemming from the industry’s general challenges as well as obstacles unique to itself.
“The biggest disadvantage any porn company has is market saturation,” Jennings communicated. “There are many studios and many subscriptions. You want Bob’s subscription? Okay, well, he’s already subscribed to Evil Angel. Oh, what about Tom? Well, Tom has that all-you-can-eat network subscription to Brazzers properties or Adult Time. I don’t even think piracy is as big an issue as it once was because free sites are littered with actual garbage and are difficult to find what you want and porn businesses aren’t going to get money from Chad who only needs 30 seconds to jerk off to a vanilla missionary video anyway.”
A somewhat more personal obstacle Jennings dealt with when building Vuli was realizing she hired the wrong person. As she discusses in her video “Vuli Beta is Launched!” Jennings hired a friend who claimed to have the technical expertise needed to build many of the features that Vuli needed; one of these features being an integrated payment system. Though Jennings had to make the difficult decision to fire a person she considers a friend, she was able to find a better replacement. More importantly, this is a rite of passage most CEOs go through when building a business from scratch.
Learning from Vuli’s Development Career and Industry Reflections
“I’ve been very humbled by failing a lot,” Jennings said. “I used to give people more of a benefit of the doubt but now, unless it’s in writing, I’m not interested. I just don’t have the time, and I’m sure a lot of business owners can relate.”
Completely developing something from an idea to finished product or functioning service is an experience that changes people. While these are rarely massive personality changes, self-reflection and growth are frequently bundled with every successful business. And Paige Jennings is no different.
Being willing to not micro-manage can be seen in Jennings being hands off with the production of "The Golden Key." Described as “Vuli’s exclusive first original series” on the company’s homepage, Jennings gave the director, Hank Hoffman, complete freedom with this project. (Of note, "The Golden Key" stars Charlotte Stokely, Gianna Dior, Luna Star, Michael Vegas, Olive Glass and Ramon Nomar.)
“It was the first time I produced anything and I’m happy with how it turned out. I wanted something very cinematic and unique, and I gave Hank literally full creative license to shoot it exactly how he wanted,” Jennings said. “I’m not sure he’d ever done that before and he definitely said it’s one of the prettiest things he’s ever shot.”
“The lesbian scene with Charlotte and Gianna literally looks like a painting the entire way through. I hope to continue working with him and other talented, shall I say, ‘indie’ adult producers who want a shot to make something out-of-the-box in the future.”
While Jennings is extremely positive about "The Golden Key," its production did force her to rethink her opinions on porn studios in general. “I definitely empathize more with what studios are working with now that I’ve been on the production side,” Jennings revealed to XBIZ.
Now behind the camera and responsible for editing and distribution, Jennings understands the pressures on companies to constantly produce. “They have schedules and deadlines and calling around to align everyone’s schedules is just a pain," she said. "Content is also overall just rushed out and mass-produced these days and then cut into a zillion pieces to distribute across the web and get as many clicks and subs as possible and meet their monthly quotas so current subs don’t unsubscribe, and they have a limited budget because they only have so many subscriptions to fund production.”
“The people on the business side are pretty normal and nice, though there are bad eggs," she reflects. "This is also something I’m going to try to address with Vuli by creating a platform that incentivizes high-end productions because consumers want to buy that directly and performers want to promote content that they are proud to be in and had an enjoyable experience making.”
The Future of Vuli
Vuli unfortunately launched as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic began to ripple through the economy. However, her current biggest problem is prepping content from other studios so that they can be uploaded onto Vuli.
“I’m literally drowning in content from various studios that I don’t have the time to put up myself quickly and I don’t have employees to help yet," she said, "but this is probably a good startup problem to have.”
Outside of that, Jennings is planning to do a marketing campaign to promote Vuli in early 2021 with what she sees as a simple message: “We want to be the streaming-only VOD porn platform and we want every single person involved — from the sound guy to the studio that owns 1000s of hours of content to the starlet who just got into porn to the couple who wants a classier viewing experience — to gain something positive by association with us.”
When reflecting goals and what the company becomes, Jennings wants consumers and industry members alike to see Vuli the way she does.
“Vuli to me means being fair and ethical to everyone involved," she said. "We pay studios more, we don’t prey on customers or stick them with hidden recurring fees, and we pay performers royalties on any content sold. I suppose, to me, 'Vuli' means revolution.”
