InterClimax owner Claudia Van Lubek is a former adult entertainer. So is her husband and business partner, Werner. Both of them made quite a name for themselves while performing in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, particularly in Amsterdam’s notorious red light district. They know the industry backwards and forwards, from the inside out.
Why, then, would she so unabashedly admit, “Our ideas never come from the adult industry”?
“This might sound strange to people, but we try not to look at other adult companies,” Van Lubeck says. “This is to ensure our ideas are different. We look at mainstream companies a lot and try to focus on the future.”
InterClimax CEO Ben Jelloun adds, “We love programming here, and we do our best to lead the industry with out technology to make sex viewing on the Net faster and more enjoyable for the end user. So we look into the companies that have nothing to do with our industry and see if we can take their ideas and convert them.”
Founded in 1997, Amsterdam-based InterClimax (www.interclimax.com) specializes in live video feeds and interactive content. “Differentness” has been the company’s goal from the start. Both of the owners are Dutch, and it just made sense to them, Van Lubeck says, to take Amsterdam’s storied sex industry live into cyberspace. Between Werner’s experience as a systems analyst and programmer and his and Claudia’s performance backgrounds, they thought they had a winning combination.
At the time, the concept alone was different enough, but the company didn’t stop there. Today InterClimax operates more than 50 studios around the world and provides powerful content to affiliates and licensees that include some of the biggest names in the business: VividCash.com, Penthouse.com, and Private.com, among a host of others. Many of those companies could afford to establish their own Amsterdam presences, yet they choose to use InterClimax content.
Why? “The secret is hard work: having a loyal and smart team of workers who all understand that we have to go that extra mile to keep our customers happy,” Van Lubeck says. “We have regular discussions in our offices about where the technologies will go and what will happen with billing in one or two years from now. InterClimax also customizes our feeds to fit our partners’ needs.
“We have made many ‘different’ decisions in the past,” she continues. “For example, four years ago we stopped recurring billing. This was replaced with ‘lifetime memberships.’ Other companies then followed us. Time and again it has been seen that ‘copycats’ are always following us with our ideas. I take that as a compliment!”
Van Lubeck sees her company as very forward thinking, and she insists it remain so. One of the ways she says the company maintains a leadership position in its market is by continually pushing the technology envelope.
“InterClimax is all about live content and technology,” she notes. “We are proud of what we have accomplished, including pushing the boundaries of the Internet. Our latest site update now gives the possibility for members to have their very own Webcam streamed online. This means that the models can now see the member during a ‘gangchat’ or a private session as well as the member seeing the model in real time.”
That particular bit of InterClimax technology has given rise to some interesting tales, according to Jelloun. For example: “We have two brothers – one who lives in New York and the other in L.A. The funny thing is, their meeting point every day is in a chatroom with one of the models who works at Camsathome.com for a chat between them first, and then with the girl.”
Kinky? Perhaps, but Jelloun says, “I call it freedom!” He also calls it profitable. According to him, word-of-mouth referral is a very significant source of new revenue for InterClimax.
The company’s bi-directional live-feed technology recently gave rise to a new service that’s available to affiliates and licensees. Called i2i, the product “gives the user the ability to plug his Webcam into his computer and, without downloading anything, he can be viewed by the model and other site members. That makes the community even bigger, because you have people watching and interacting with each other in real time,” Jelloun says.
Van Lubeck calls the product a “treasure,” and she says the Web is full of such surprises. “The Internet is like a treasure hunt: You never know if you’ll find something valuable, but once you catch the gold, you treasure it like your baby,” she says. “This is the way we treasure our business partners – and our models, too. The result is a business with more than 60 employees, 250 models online daily, and Webmasters who continually use our feeds. We are fully customer-serviced 24/7 for both members and our studios alike – and we only provide our services to honorable companies in the adult industry.”
Honesty and integrity are touchstones for Lubeck, who says bluntly that she abhors cheating and shady techniques. “Back in 1997, Werner and I saw a huge opportunity in the adult market,” she says. “With the experience we had both in the sex industry as performers and with running a business, we knew we could run a profitable operation. But we knew it would require lots of hard work, and we understood we would have to run our business completely legal and honest. So we surrounded ourselves with some good people and combined our basic philosophy with continually developing to keep up with the latest technologies. It gave us a great advantage.”
It also presented a number of challenges along the way. The rapid pace of growth in the adult online industry never allowed InterClimax to rest on its laurels for very long. Over time, however, Van Lubeck says it has developed that marketing, not technology, has been the greater test of the company’s ingenuity.
“Today the marketing aspect is the hardest part,” she says with characteristic candor. “We’ve been looking at fresh ways to advertise via different media: television, newspapers, Internet radio, Internet shows, and mainstream magazines. We’ve developed software that makes it possible to stream directly via the Internet to television offering up to 25 frames per second. We see this technology has great potential in other markets and not only within the adult market. InterClimax broadcast our own television show within the Netherlands last year. It was shown every night for two months and now can be found at Webcamgirls.nl. This was an in-depth, fly-on-the-wall look at our models; how they live and work. The show was a great success for all concerned and brought us quite a bit of new exposure. Just advertising on the Web isn’t enough these days.”
Jelloun agrees. Formerly a stock broker who started his adult industry career with DollarMachine.com, he says, “There is so much sex on the Net, and so much of it is free. To make money in this industry, you have to have a vision and imagination. The days of watching pictures and clips are dying, because people are willing to spend money when they have something interactive to control. Our best marketing and advertising is giving the end-user what he wants – and giving Webmasters the content they want, so they can believe they are using the best content there is right now. It’s all about making money and making people trust you and believe in your program.”
“Our industry is very much based on trust,” Van Lubeck says. “You need to be able to trust each other with your business. A good, reliable name is the number one priority for any adult business. InterClimax is no exception.”
The philosophy appears to be working.
“InterClimax is making more profit than ever before, and we will keep growing,” Van Lubeck reveals. “In our business, you have to be strong to prove you are a real business and not just a bunch of porn farmers…. The newbies keep us going, bringing fresh blood and new ideas into the industry.”
What does the future hold for a progressive company that continually pushes the envelope? InterClimax’s principals are tight-lipped about specifics: “We will soon integrate our streaming technologies to be used by cellular phones and other compatible consumer devices,” Van Lubeck says. “Hopefully, in the near future InterClimax will also have its own TV channel in various countries.”
They’re also realistic about the state of the industry: “We are at a point that the golden days are over,” Van Lubeck says. “We are an established industry now and have to work exactly like other mainstream companies to stay ahead.”
Jelloun phrases it another way. “My opinion? The only way you can make money in our industry now is by introducing something new and unique. If you don’t, you don’t stand a chance.
“The sex industry will always stay with us to the end,” he continues, “but to survive we have to have a good image so end-users will trust us. We have to have more imagination and ambition so we can drive the technology faster and faster. The people who drive the industry the right way will be around for a long time, and we at InterClimax are going to be one of those companies.”
