You are already a CEO: why adult creators need to claim the title

Blog Post Written By: Melrose Michaels

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I want to ask you something, and I want you to answer it honestly. If someone asked you right now to raise your hand and identify yourself as a CEO, would you do it?

I already know the answer for most of you, because I've asked that question in a room full of adult creators before and watched almost no one raise their hand. Cam performers, content creators, porn stars, yes. CEO, no. And that gap, that specific hesitation, is exactly what I want to talk about today, because I think it is one of the most expensive habits our industry has.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF-aV_f-gv0

We were never taught to see ourselves this way

I have always struggled with identity, and honestly I feel like I am, at all times, a walking contradiction. I am extremely responsible and extremely disciplined, very logical and very tactical...but I am also someone who acts on impulse, craves spontaneity and genuinely believes in magic (really) and can find it almost anywhere.

For a long time, I struggled to accept that I could be two things at once, that those things could coexist, that I could be professional and structured and also be this free-spirited, creative, intuitive human being... I struggled to understand that people are allowed to contain multitudes...

And I think a lot of creators struggle with exactly the same thing, just in a different form... because maybe you are a cam performer or a content creator or someone who has done studio work, but you are also a person with a full life outside of that... you might be a loving partner or a parent, a teacher or an activist or an engineer.

You are likely all of these things at once, but there are some identities we never claim, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) tends to be one of them. We never feel like we've earned it, like we've made it, or like we have enough to show for it.

like if we claimed it out loud, someone would show up and call us a fraud, you know? I think they call that impostor syndrome, and I say that as someone who has felt it standing on a stage talking to a room full of people about exactly this.

What I made from a double wide trailer

When I was first invited to share this story publicly, I almost said no, because yes, I made my first half a million dollars from a double wide trailer, and that is a real thing that happened.

But I certainly don't have a million in the bank today to show for it, and I think it's important that you know that. In the 9 years I webcammed and the years I've spent making content since, I took every dollar I made doing those things and I put it right back into building the next thing. The money went into SexWorkCEO, into SWR Data, and into GPTease.ai. Every time, without exception, it went back into building.

I think it's easy to look at what I've built and assume I knew what I was doing... I can tell you as someone who has watched more than a million dollars flow through her bank account and back out into her businesses, I genuinely did not lol.

But here is what I did know... I knew that when you are building a business, you almost never feel like you know what you are doing, at least not the first time, and I knew that if I had stepped into my identity as a CEO or a business owner sooner, I would have built things bigger and faster. But I was too afraid, too afraid that someone would look at me and say, no, you are not...

What we actually do and why it's worth more than we charge for it

Here is the thing I want you to really sit with... capturing attention is the new currency of the modern economy, and you and I have been sharpening that skill every single time we log on, and that is not a small thing. That is an extraordinary competitive advantage in today's business landscape, and most creators are completely underselling it.

Think back to the first time you made money doing this, the first time you heard that notification sound or figured out the token conversion and realized what it actually meant.

You probably remember that night, and if your experience was anything like mine, you thought: how is this real? How is it possible that I can be here, in the comfort and safety of my own space, basically running my own show, doing what I want, and getting paid for it?

we forget that feeling, we forget what it is we actually do, which is so much more than getting naked on camera... we help people escape, we provide fantasy and indulgence and pleasure...but we also provide safety, and friendship, and a space where people can finally be whoever they actually are, sometimes for the very first time. We create environments where others feel free to explore themselves.

One of the leading predictors of early death is loneliness, and loneliness is more dangerous to human health than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. What we provide has real, measurable, human value... no other industry does what we do, and none of them even come close.

So when you are sitting there trying to decide whether your tip menu is too high, when you are racing to price yourself lower than the performer next to you on the homepage, when you are working hard to prove your value to people who already showed up to pay for it, I want you to hear this: you have lost the plot.

The question that changed everything for me

For years, I was good at performing but I was not intentionally running a business. I was working, reacting and hoping next month would be as good as this one, in reality, the shift from performer to creator to business owner did not happen overnight.

It happened the day I started asking myself a different question, which was not how do I get more tips tonight, but how do I build the thing I wish I had?

That question changed my life.

I started researching my competition and pricing myself strategically. I tested and tracked what I posted and when, and what that did to the traffic coming into my room and the revenue that followed. I built out systems that would lead my ideal customers directly to me. I started thinking in terms of months and years instead of just tonight's stream.

and slowly I stopped seeing myself as someone who performs on camera and started seeing myself as someone who runs an enterprise.

once that shift happened for me, I couldn't stop thinking about everyone else... because the information that helped me get there wasn't some secret or complicated thing. nobody was teaching business to adult creators, nobody was talking about pricing strategy or business structure or long-term planning, and the few people who were talking about it were charging a fortune for basics that should have been free, with no credentials or proof that they had ever actually done it themselves.

Nothing makes me angrier than taking advice from someone about something they have never done. That is why I built SexWorkCEO. Free business education for adult creators, no gatekeeping, because information is power and it should not only be available to the people who can afford it.

Why I built SWR Data and GPTease.ai

As SexWorkCEO grew, I kept running into the same wall. Creators were asking me questions and I had answers based on my own experience, but my experience is just one person's story and one person's lens. Whatever worked for me likely looks very different for a trans creator or a creator of color, and I was aware that sharing my experience was only ever going to help people who looked and lived like me.

What I didn't have was data, real numbers, and proof of other people's experiences that could show the full picture of what was actually working across the industry.

so I looked into it, and I realized that nobody had those numbers. The platforms knew what was working for their own creators, but no one knew what was happening across the industry as a whole. Everybody had opinions, but nobody had data. So I built SWR Data, the adult industry's first dedicated market research firm... not to impress anyone, although I have never stopped wanting to be impressive.

but because our industry deserves the same level of research and analysis that every other industry takes for granted. When we have real data, we can make business decisions based on what is actually happening in the market and not what someone on Twitter says is happening. We can walk into rooms with executives and lawmakers and journalists and say here are the numbers, here is the proof. Data is how we stop being dismissed, data is how we make sure we are heard...

and even then, there was still a gap...creators were learning and informed and still couldn't run their businesses smoothly because the tools available weren't built with us in mind. Most of the tools in our space were built by people who had no idea what our actual work looks like or what we actually need, and that is exactly why they never quite do what we want them to. Every major AI tool had content policies that excluded us entirely. I couldn't use them to write a tip menu or brainstorm cam show ideas or script a custom video.

They weren't built for the work that I do, so I built GPTease.ai instead. And I want you to hear that clearly: you do not have to wait for someone else to build what you need. You don't have to wait for permission, you don't have to wait for this industry to be handed tools or resources or respect, you can build it... I didn't know how either, but I figured it out along the way, and you will too.

What It actually cost and what it was worth

I am not going to make this sound easy, because it was not... building a businesses is hard, this industry is hard... there have been times I wanted to quit, and there have been times recently where I genuinely asked myself whether any of it was worth it. I know I could take the skills I've built through years of camming and content creation and business and go do something mainstream, probably with a lot less friction.

When someone misunderstands my strategy, or sees something in my data and decides it reflects my character, or when it is the very people I am trying to serve who are occasionally the ones pushing back hardest, it is immensely painful in a way that is hard to explain. It is already scary to be seen. It is twice as terrifying to be seen as something you are not by people you care about.

But here is what I also know... the education I put out through SexWorkCEO has resulted in thousands of creators making hundreds of thousands of dollars from free information. The data we have collected at SWR Data has been used to lobby Congress, to influence platforms and to shape what this industry looks like going forward. GPTease.ai has changed the way creators optimize their workflows and stay competitive in the age of AI. And none of that would exist if I had kept waiting until I felt ready, or legitimate, or impressive enough.

I feel a real responsibility to the fact that if I don't walk this path, no one else will know it's possible for people like us... when I started, there was no one to look to as an example.

There was no map, so somebody had to carve a trail, and yes, you get scratched up and lost a few times along the way, but you leave markers behind you for the people who come after.

You are already a CEO

If you have ever sold something, you have a business. If you have a business and you are the only one running it, you are acting CEO. If you have built a brand, produced your own content, created and run your own promotions, managed your own marketing and handled your own customer service, you are a CEO. You just haven't claimed it yet....

you do not need anyone's permission, you do not need to wait until you feel ready, you do not need to explain yourself and you definitely do not need to have it all figured out, because I promise you I don't either...

you just need to claim it, and when you do, and you find yourself inside those rooms and sitting at those tables, save a seat for the ones who are still on their way, the way someone is saving one for you.

P.S. If this is the push you needed to finally start running your creator work like the business it already is, come find us inside CEO Society. It's free, it's full of creators at every stage of the build, and it's the place where the identity shift actually starts to stick.