Ask HN: I own a large adult business and am moving to the Bay Area soon

Why would you move someplace with hyperexpensive real-estate and overpriced dev talent?

What’s the driver to relocate prior to selling the adult business?

Does he/she mean porn when saying Adult business?

I'm not a super networker or anything, but I've never met anyone involved with adult entertainment that admitted it, or VCs that openly invest in it. I always thought of it more as an LA thing.

I honestly don't think we're so liberal you won't have reputation problems later on, but with multiple exits you have a track record to offset.

Well, Kink.com just moved to Nevada. But that was because California OSHA started requiring condoms for porn. Also, because the once-abandoned SF Armory was now too valuable a piece of real estate for that use.

The only other porn producer I knew in SF gave it up around 2007 when she moved to Texas. SF used to have a film scene, but it relied on cheap large spaces being available, and those are all gone.

Why was this flagged?

With a successful enough exit, you don't particularly need VC money for future businesses. And your business name should have the standard discreet naming system - something generic for putting on resumes, rather than something explicit like "titties-r-us LLC".

Past that, the conversation is about a generic video site, and you can talk about content and bandwidth and getting traffic etc without ever mentioning that it's porn. Don't lie if asked outright, of course, but competent people should be able to read through the lines and notice that you have the good sense to keep the porn involvement discreet.

Like, people don't punish you for being involved in porn unless they're super Puritan. They punish you for not having the good sense to shut up about it and the related risk of you embarrassing them by association. Demonstrate that you can talk about your business activities without being crude and they'll be more willing to play ball.

I will suggest you read the book Mayflower Madame. She discreetly ran a call girl service in New York while hobnobbing with refined, elite people. That might give you some sense of how to handle yourself.

Considering how very little sex happens in and how many surplus males there are in the Bay Area, it’s probably not such a bad move.

Do you own production or just distribution? You might just need a generic name. Lookup Manwin/MindGeek

I think it's highly likely that you're going to run into problems if you don't know in advance which people are probably cool with it.

The Bay Area is incredibly fucking square. Square square square. An outspoken contingent of people here like to talk a good talk about their openness, but it's a facade that belongs to a constellation of myths people like to believe about themselves.

I would avoid run-of-the-mill hoi polloi "startup founders" and all associated professional/networking events like the plague. Some of them have their heads so far up their assess that they will take zero interest in what you do for a living and never even ask, but a lot of them are nosy as fuck and will make it really hard for you to cleanly maintain the veneer of whatever you've decided you're going to say about what you do. A lot of the nosiness is driven by egoic insecurity and class politics.

Every person I know who I could guarantee would be cool with it is super wealthy-- most of them 8 figures+ net worth. Your priority should be meeting them. They can help you navigate the square waters and figure out where, and with whom, it's safe to be real. If you want an intro to some of those people I could probably help you out. As a last resort-- and I hate to say this-- join The Battery but avoid everyone under the age of 40 or so.

Edit to add: wealth managers will be helpful for making connections to the right people. Networking with them is an easy "in." Most will want to know you even if they don't think you'll let them manage your money.

There is one thing people definitely aren't liberal about... sexual harassment, especially by people in power. Let's assume that you aren't that person, and perhaps even took a training seminar to make sure you are thinking about such things. Good, but it's your employees too. I'd encourage you to think about things like a senior engineer misbehaving, and how your response as CEO could effect your reputation. Also some people may try to join your company thinking they will get a pass.

Frankly if I was running any business in the bay area, but especially an adult one, I'd want someone working for me helping to both build a professional culture of appropriate behavior (with regular mandatory seminars for both new and continuing employees), and building mechanisms for reporting and dealing with issues responsibly (IE not just covering your ass) should that culture fail to prevent problem behavior.

Be proactive about it, to the extent you can.

Hey Mate, Just be yourself and own being yourself. In my opinion people if your a good person, enjoyable to work with, and mean well you will rise to the top no matter what. Some people use excuses as crutch for being shitty people. You got this. Good Luck.