I'm the founder / CEO of Porndora.com (intelligent adult video recommendation engine and NFT marketplace) (Take 2)

Submitted by prndra t3_yp7xnz in IAmA

Hey Reddit, this is my 2nd try at this as my first post got taken down for being too spammy.

Porndora was something I wanted to build for a long time. I was an early engineer at Tinder and I thought, "Why can't we apply simple swipe mechanics (like/disliked) with a recommendation engine to other things besides people? Could we apply them to porn?"

At the time, the domain porndora.com, was parked, but I put a watch on it, and in 2018 acquired it at auction for about $2500. I was building another company, Safara.Travel, at the time, but started to tinker away at Porndora when I had time.

When Covid hit in 2020, all of a sudden I had a lot more time, so I dove in, raised some money from friends and family, and went at it full time.

Since then, I've built up a 7-person, remote-first team with people all over the world , we've scaled our user base to the thousands monthly, we started making some money, and we've built some really cool shit, including an adult NFT marketplace and PornDJ, which is a true expression of my original vision for Porndora.

We've also tried to raise money from institutional investors / VCs and been unsuccessful. I knew it would be hard raising money in a sinful industry, but it was even harder than I imagined. So now I'm bootstrapping the company.

We've been in business for a couple years now and are NOT affiliated with the old porndora.sexy.

Site: porndora.com

Twitter: twitter.com/porndoracom

Proof: https://twitter.com/porndoracom/status/1589408666909900800

Proof (image of me in Porndora gear with today's date and /u/prndra): https://photos.app.goo.gl/e5a1Lp1fshoX87PL7

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InadvertentAutism t1_ivhwfp3 wrote

So why combine the two? Seems like an odd pairing. Can’t be that many people who want to buy NFTs while they masturbate..

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prndra OP t1_ivhy5ms wrote

There's a big problem in the industry of adult creators and artists not getting paid fairly for their work. Often times, they get paid for a day's work and never see any royalties from their work like performers in traditional film or music industries. OF has done a lot to help freelance adult creators make money, but we can do even more.

Our NFT marketplace gives adult creators a place where they can claim their profile, mint NFTs from their work, sell them, AND earn ongoing royalties from every subsequent sale.

For the consumer, it gives you the chance to support your favorite artists AND own a piece of their work!

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lurq_king t1_ivhzz22 wrote

Why would anyone want to own such a thing?

I mean, the whole idea about porn is about consumption and then moving on.

I cannot imagine anyone wanting to revisit the same thing over and over again.

And how, theoretically, would I ever be able to sell this, if I was so inclined?

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biscuity87 t1_iviaaoj wrote

It’s even worse then that I think. People will clear a browser history when they live alone. I doubt most anyone would pay money (thereby linking their info one way or another) for basically free content and then have it tied to them.

NFT’s are a joke anyways.

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rlesii t1_ivk9iln wrote

Why would anyone want to own such a thing? Why does anyone care about Monroe's shoe? How did Michael Jordan become such a star in the advertising industry? "Porn influencers" are already a thing. Go and check the biggest in pornhub or elsewhere once.

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prndra OP t1_ivi1b08 wrote

A lot of people actually like to watch the same videos over and over again, especially if they have niche tastes, but it’s more about supporting your favorite creators at this point.

We’re on the Polygon blockchain so yes you can sell as you please.

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nonamebcb t1_ivjythl wrote

What's the point of adding NFTs to porn? I know NFT people like to speculate with their digital pokemon cards but why would a pornkemon card go up in value?

What are the people producing porn getting out of the deal? How are you ensuring that the people who upload porn are the actual copyright owners? Has your company considered the risks of publicly tracking porn ownership when porn is considered illegal in multiple counties?

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prndra OP t1_ivmhwaj wrote

lol pornkemon. Why should a pokemon have more value than a pornkemon? They are both just digital collectibles and ascribe as much value as the next buyer is willing to pay for them.

What's great about adult creators and performers being able to mint their own NFTs is it's a direct path to monetizing their content. It's also a way to support your favorite artists and creators that ensures your money goes directly to them.

And yes, just like any NFTs, there is a legal responsibility on the minter to only mint and sell content you have the rights to. Afaik this is not the responsibility of the marketplace.

Similarly, I could be wrong, but I don't believe it's the responsibility of the marketplace to prevent people from buying NFT porn because they live in one place or the other. For example, OpenSea does have some adult content, but I don't believe they restrict in any way who can buy it.

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AttentionRoyal2276 t1_ivmbzug wrote

Can you explain what a porn DJ is? Maybe I'm too old to get it. The porn site I use makes recommendations based on my viewing history and videos I click like on. Isn't this basically what you are describing? I don't really see the value in NFT's either. What value do I get from them?

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prndra OP t1_ivmirnv wrote

Check it out: https://porndora.com/porn-dj

PornDJ is an immersive adult experience. Let me know what you think.

Some other sites do make recommendations, but nobody uses a recommendation engine at the heart of their product. Our entire experience is built around personalization. As a logged in user, every video you see on the site is recommended and scored by our recommendation engine. We used advanced AI and machine learning techniques to give you the best recommendations.

NFTs have as much value as other people place on them, just like all of crypto, or even fiat currency for that matter. As an owner of an NFT, you get to own a piece of your favorite performer(s) and know that you're helping support them. In the future, that ownership could grant you exclusive content from that performer and soon it will give a premium porndora membership (i.e. anyone who owns a premium porndora NFT will get premium porndora membership for as long as they own it. If they sell it, the new owner will get that premium membership)

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BullyBunker t1_iwcicwd wrote

What kind of software/programming language are you using for your site/business? Interested in getting into programming myself, plus I love porn. Figure this would be a great match for me in the future!

Any advice for someone like me to get in this field among other niches of the porn industry?

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prndra OP t1_iwd8j20 wrote

We have a modern tech stack, full-stack Typescript with a GraphQL API. We run node on the BE and React on the FE.

It's actually easier to get a programming job in the adult industry I think as there are so many people who refuse to work in this industry because of moral or societal biases.

My advice is the same for anybody looking to become a developer:

  1. Learn how to code. I recommend javascript as it's the most ubiquitous language and you can most easily work full-stack if you know javascript.

  2. Practice. Do exercises on Leetcode or Hackerrank. Build your own things. Get good enough where you don't need to google in order to code simple tasks.

  3. Pick a focus (e.g. web or mobile or backend). It's really hard to be a decent full-stack developer. Pick an area that you enjoy and get really good at it. You'll be much more hirable.

  4. Interview, a lot. You'll probably need to interview at 10-20 companies before you can do well enough at the interview to get hired. This means you probably need to apply to 50 to 100 jobs just to past the recruiters and get enough interviews. At this stage in your career, it's a numbers game. Improve your odds by being a great communicator and a great problem solver.

  5. Use Porndora, a lot. :) Lmk what you think of the site. As soon as you're ready, I'm happy to interview you for a role at Porndora. We're always looking for talented people who want to change the adult industry for the better.

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BullyBunker t1_iwio3eh wrote

Okay, I will get on that soon. Due to some prior commitments, I won’t be able to put full effort into learning programming yet. Will have free time in late December, so I’ll get on that!

Even thought of trying to get into porn as an amateur. Thought those two would go well together

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jadijadija t1_ivkbove wrote

U guys using any A.I. in your recommendation engine or otherwise in general?

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prndra OP t1_ivmkofg wrote

Yes, we're using AI in the recommendation engine, but we don't yet have enough data to reach our end goal of a convolutional neural network. That's why we need more users!

We're also working on some other really cool products that utilize AI and machine learning:

  1. PHAR (Porn Human Action Recognition): We're building an API that you can send a video, and we will use computer vision and combination of machine learning models to accurately tag the sex acts that are occurring in the video.
  2. Facial anonymization: We're building a filter that we can apply to videos to anonymize adult creators who need privacy for their work.
  3. Minor detection: We're building a ML model that can detect minors in video.
  4. NSFW detection: We're building a model that can detect NSFW content in general
  5. Hand-free mode: We're building in voice detection so you can control the site with just your voice.
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AboutAsItGets t1_ivle7h0 wrote

Who developed it for you? Why so many frameworks and load of javascript stuff?

Also it doesnt work for me, didnt accepted my "i am over 18" confirmation (firefox with adblocker).

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prndra OP t1_ivmjt8c wrote

I'm a developer by trade myself and we have a team of 2 devs and a data scientist right now continuing to work on it. It's built in React so yes it uses a lot of javascript.

Thanks for the bug report. I just tested in Firefox 106.0.5 with no ad blocker and it worked fine, must be something to do with your ad blocker. Which ad blocker are you using?

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AboutAsItGets t1_ivnli6k wrote

uBlock Origin and NoScript javascript blocker, but was whitelisted on that domain to test.

and as a developer my self, i can only tell you that you are making a mistake on heavily depending on JS, and third party libraries to top it. Only sick large teams can afford to maintain such hell on a large scale project (especially one with so high performance demands). And even those you see have troubles to even come up with a new feature (discord, twitter, facebook & co) per year.

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prndra OP t1_ivoq0wz wrote

Thank you!

I don't understand your recommendation here. Don't all websites that do anything meaningful heavily depend on javascript? Most new companies are built by a few devs using many js libs to enable them to move fast. We are able to implement a new feature every couple weeks with only one dedicated FE dev. Every other startup I've worked at uses a similar setup with either React or Vue, and 1 or 2 FE devs, and can implement a new feature at least once a month.

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Glittering_Iron_9749 t1_ivn1m0d wrote

Would you say your site is palatable to women?

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prndra OP t1_ivnewdf wrote

Yes! We're actually one of the few sites that differentiates between porn for straight women and straight men. We also put lesbian porn on the same level. Our mission is to make porn accessible and enjoyable for everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or kink!

We also have a special 'Porn for Women' category which features more sensual, safe, and female friendly content:
https://porndora.com/category/porn-for-women

Check it out!

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IAmAModBot t1_ivmicez wrote

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Salt-Umpire4840 t1_iwgt2or wrote

I saw you were a tinder engineer earlier.

Why you don't think you can build a App like tinder or similar which preform well and people love it more than similar Apps?

I'm thinking to give a try for this idea.

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prndra OP t1_iwh8yyk wrote

Hey, not sure what you're getting at. I've been a professional software engineer for almost 20 years now and have built a bunch of things (Tinder and Porndora just happen to be 2 of many).

If you have a specific idea for an app, I'm happy to give my 2 cents ;)

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Salt-Umpire4840 t1_iwha3r4 wrote

I love your experience and field you are in. This is an amazing journey that you have done. I'm happy to hear you worked for tinder.

As I'm seeing there are many problems with dating apps and less features (I have some idelogies regarding problems which still exists).

You know it as well. That's why I'm thinking about these things more deeply.🙂

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