It might be pushing it a bit to say that patriotism inspired the men behind adult software development company Mansion Productions to enter the adult entertainment business. However, for Norwegians Oystein Wright and Garry Owen, the men behind Mansion, the impetus to join forces and venture into the world of XXX and T&A came about through their shared birthplace.
After leaving his hometown of Oslo in 1996 to study business administration in America, Wright, a longtime network systems consultant who’d worked in Norway with Oslo Data Center, was unexpectedly recruited into the world of the adult Internet when he met tech mavericks Clay Andrews and Joe Hall, who offered him an executive sales director position of a then-fledgling Paycom. Wright first declined the offer, but accepted nearly a year later when Paycom relocated to Santa Monica, where he was living. He soon landed a client in webmaster Owen, who already had started a few pay sites and affiliate programs. Recalls Wright, “Garry didn’t know I was Norwegian, so I called him up and spoke with him for maybe 20 minutes in English before I switched to Norwegian and totally freaked him out. After that, he became my client.”
Their friendship endured even after Wright left Paycom to become the vice president at dot.commer International Settlement Corp (aka i-Banc), an online banking institution that eventually evolved into a check processing organization specializing in government services. Meanwhile, Owen formed Mansion, using Paycom’s affiliate program software to manage his own pay sites. When he decided to look for someone to help him with the new venture, Owen turned to his old pal, and Wright came on board as chief executive officer and partner. It was, as they say, a match made in heaven. “Garry and I think the same way; we have the same values,” Wright explains. “Norway is a small country, and we all grow up with the same school system, so everybody kind of thinks the same. And that kind of hit the jackpot with [Garry and me]. Of course, it’s easier to trust somebody you know has the same values.”
In the beginning, Mansion offered pay sites and affiliate programs – along with Web design services and hosting – to clients. It used Paycom’s affiliate program software to manage its sites, but found that the program did not fit its needs. “There were no real tools or anything you could do for marketing purposes,” says Wright. “And the process of adding an affiliate was very cumbersome. It was really hard for anybody who wanted to ‘go big,’ because they were limited by the lack of functionality. That’s when we figured out, ‘You know what? We could do this better, maybe automate the process.’ So that’s what we did."
Oddly, the value system that Wright and Owen claim to share is not instilled by their birthplace. “It’s kind of funny, because in Norway, the whole ‘adult thing’ is not that popular; it’s kind of frowned upon,” Wright states. “So, for me as a Norwegian in America, to find another Norwegian who is in adult was a strange coincidence.”
However, the reaction to Mansion’s first product, MPA (Mansion Productions Automation), wasn’t so strange. Offering the convenience of auto-generation of linking codes for affiliate tracking, statistics, affiliate management, and payouts, as well as simple marketing tools to help webmasters, the software was an instant hit with program owners. “The moment we sold our first software package was the day I sensed something great was going to happen,” Wright says. “And it did. It was a pretty simple idea that soon became a best seller in the industry. It was clear that we had hit a niche in the market that was completely untapped."
But success wasn’t overnight. “Being two partners with several employees, our own bare hands, and a big will to succeed made us survive the first few years on pennies and dimes,” says Wright. “We didn’t have any venture capital; we didn’t take up loans. All we did was reinvest into our company to grow it at a steady pace without risking putting ourselves in debt. It was very tough for a while—especially the months we could only afford to pay our employees and not ourselves. There were months I could hardly pay rent back then.”
Eventually, MPA proved successful enough that Mansion decided to expand on its success by, Wright says, “taking it to the next level.” Introducing MPA2, the first affordable cascading billing solution between multiple processors to be tied together under one linking code, “made a huge difference,” Wright recalls. “MPA2 came out in the spring of 2002 and [was compatible] with seven different payment processors, thus seriously optimizing the join process.” Wright and Owen then sat back and watched as the industry ate it up. “The results were immediate,” Wright says. “We saw that programs switching to MPA2 increased their sales by more than 20 percent overall. It was a shock, but a pleasant shock.”
Unfortunately, Mansion soon found itself embroiled in controversy when webmasters began to complain that the MPA2 software contained an undesirable “shaving” option. Webmasters cried foul, but the feature had actually been included at the request of MPA clients as a way to protect program owners from foul play. “We thought it was a really smart feature because it could offset webmaster fraud,” Wright offers. “But that turned out to be a very bad misconception.” Realizing their mistake, Mansion immediately removed the feature, but the damage had already been done.
In the meantime, Too Much Media, which had been a client of Mansion’s, launched its own version of the MPA2 software in NATS, capitalizing on Mansion’s misfortune by loudly touting a “no-shave” feature. They managed to lure away some Mansion’s clientele, although they essentially offered the same product. Wright gives props to Too Much for their timing but concedes, “They had something pretty good to take a look at [using our version of MPA2] for about a year before they launched theirs.”
The next year was more difficult for Mansion, but it managed to stay on course, in spring of 2004 launching the next version of its proprietary software: MPA3™, which is “so comprehensive it is hard to single out just a few of [its features],” Wright boasts. We’ll try. In addition to more than 20 different payment processors, there is a slew of features that make business much easier for program owners who work with numerous affiliates.
MPA3™ immediately put Mansion back on the map, re-establishing itself as a major player in the industry. It also has the competitors champing at the bit to keep up. “MPA3™ has set a standard in affiliate program software that others are now trying to duplicate,” Wright says. “Right now, I feel like we are 99.9 percent clear of that whole stigma we had for a while. These last few years have been very good.”
With any luck, Wright says, the next few years will be just as good. Sales for Mansion’s other popular product, content management software MAS™ (Member Area System), have been extremely high. And, Mansion looks to be an industry leader for quite some time. In addition to version two of the MPA3™ software that will “break some new boundaries in the affiliate program part of our history,” Mansion will also unleash a few products that will keep webmasters – as well as brick-andmortar content producers – very happy. “We are coming out with a new software targeting the many producers in our industry [and] making it easier to take their current offline or partially online business fully online.”
All that bodes well for Wright and Owen, who couldn’t be happier with Mansion’s rebound. “The success of the company comes from a place of integrity, knowledge, a little luck, and lots of hard work,” Wright says. As for being a “comeback kid,” Wright shrugs the label aside in favor of sticking to the facts about Mansion: “First of all, we have the best product. We have, by far, the best support out there for similar solutions. At least that’s what our clients tell us. We’ve been around the longest; we have the experience. Lots of experience – good and bad – so we’re past that whole growing experience where things were low and we didn’t know how to control our own growth. And financially, we’re very capable, so that’s very nice.
"you know," Wright continues, "we're going to be here for a while."
Pictured: Oystein Wright, CEO of Mansion Productions.
