They appeared in mid-December with an affiliate program readily stocked with sites, and announced they were giving away a 42-inch plasma TV to one Webmaster in a random drawing; they followed that up with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle in February. And they kicked off the new year by concocting a plan to release 52 sites in 2005 – one each week.
Who are these guys again? “People really want to know where the hell we came from,” U.S. and Canadian managing partner Gerard Della Porta offers.
Instead of dominating the American market first, as so many companies try to do, and then moving on to conquer the world, SPACash did things somewhat in reverse, although U.S. domination is still up for grabs.
SPACash is the offspring of LiveInteractive.net, the brainchild of a now 19-year-old entrepreneur from Montevideo, Uruguay named Pel Martin Caetano.
When he was 13, Caetano started to design Web pages, and in two years had his first Spanish-language Adult site. He says he still remembers his first check, for $45, from September 2000.
Soon, he’d be cashing bigger checks. By the time he started high school, he was making $4,000 a month from his business, which quickly made books and classes seem unnecessary.
“I was in school for two months when a female classmate asked me why I was going,” Caetano says. “I decided to leave high school to work non-stop in my parents’ house.”
What followed would be blow to anyone who considers education to be the best investment. In 2002, Caetano got together with some friends and promptly created the SPONSORadulto.com affiliate program, which launched in August of that year. By October of 2003, SPONSORadulto employed 20 people and owned half of the Spanish market.
Ready for the next challenge, Caetano decided to try his luck in France, signing on partner Antoine Moreau, and after a bit of research, rolling out the affiliate program SPONSORIX.com.
“It took a lot of time to do it, but we wanted to be the best and do everything we needed to become the number-one affiliate program in France,” Caetano says. “France was a good challenge for us. It was a more complex market and bigger than Spain.”
By early 2004, SPONSORIX was the biggest thing going on the Adult Web in France. LiveInteractive had 20,000 affiliates combined with their two programs, which brings us to the states, where Caetano is hoping his magic touch pays once again.
SPACash now has more than 30 sites, thanks to their ambitious site-a-week program, which is possible because the company’s 125 employees work in two shifts. What makes SPACash more attractive is that it was launched with the specific mission to be a truly global program, incorporating Caetano’s previous programs and adding a larger reach. As a means to achieve that, their sites, which include a large amount of exclusive content, are all available in 10 languages.
“SPACash is a global company. We can maximize all of your traffic on a global level,” Della Porta says.
In addition to sites, the SPACash team can also crank out Webmaster tools. The company already boasted more than 5,000 hosted galleries, 20,000 banners, and 2,000 FPAs by early February.
Add to that some generous promotions – in February the company raffled off a seven-day Caribbean cruise to one lucky Webmaster, as part of a recurring monthly giveaway. This is in addition to a well-stocked rewards store.
Clearly, the message has been sent – we want your traffic and will offer you more to get it than anyone else.
“We never quit. We don’t want to get to the top and then lay back,” says Della Porta. “We’ll never stop improving our programs.”
And that makes for a lot of late nights, often resulting in Caetano, Della Porta, and Moreau falling asleep in their office, only to wake up and get right back at it.
“The goal is providing the best product to the Webmasters. If money were the goal, then some people wouldn’t come to work anymore,” Della Porta says. “The goal is to continually strive to be the best. We all share that vision, from Martin to myself to Antoine. The key decision makers are on top of our business and we’ll always be that way. That’s what makes us different and will keep us on top.”
