Assumptions

Toys are not a get rich quick scheme

There are certain things you think you know. These things aren’t always true. Take movable type. First was Gutenberg’s Bible right? Wrong.

The people of Korea had metal type centuries before that and the first movable type document we know of is a Korean Buddhist document of Zen wisdom called Jikji printed in 1377, 78 years before Gutenberg printed his Bible. We have one version of this printed piece still in existence, it’s in France. White privilege is real or we wouldn’t be the center of the map and make all the third world counties so small (because they aren’t).

Sex toy history is like that. As Nikki pointed out in Facebook after my Lawyer posting, she had no idea double dildos were made during Roman times. As all x-ray techs, and we in the adult industry, know, if you can imagine an object for penetration, someone will have tried it. There’s nothing that hasn’t been done. I have no doubt that ancient sculptures were used by someone even if they were religious. In fact, if they were religious, I guarantee someone used them. Nothing better than what is taboo.

The oldest sex toy was a prehistoric dildo uncovered in a cave in Germany. It’s estimated to be about 30,000 years old and it was used to light fires. Duel purpose tools are nothing new…

There are ancient Greek and Roman phalli, and Japanese jade ones. These objects I read were to have been to promote fertility though rather than for actual stimulation— sure. The leather Victorian dildos on the other hand we know were used.

It’s funny that we assume. The biggest fallacy that’s universally assumed in sex toys is that we are all financially fabulous; that this industry is bullet proof. Hell, I just googled it.

Usage and ownership of sex toys is on the rise worldwide. The global sex toy market is expected to grow steadily between 2019 to 2026, from approximately 27.17 billion U.S. dollars to around 52.7 billion U.S. dollars in that time period, reaching a value of 80.7 billion U.S. dollars by 2030.

And I wonder where the fuck do they pull these numbers from?

When my friend Professor Lynn Comella at UNLV quoted those professed numbers a few years ago, I reached out and asked where she got them and told her my concerns. I then shared with her the only industry study I’d seen that I thought was qualified. That one came from AVN (it’s ancient now and I can’t find my copy that I’d sent her- I held onto that article for so long). The truth is that most the industry is owned by individuals that don’t have to declare to the public how much money they earn. And there isn’t a category “sex toys” for the IRS. We were a plastics manufacturing company. I’m not saying the numbers may not be right, but I want them qualified.

Sex toys are the new get rich scheme. Before sex toys it was porn sites. As Mike was fond of saying, “You sell yourself to the devil and immediately your gonna make a million bucks.” Mike worked in the porn industry. He had been a performer and a photographer and then one of the first pay per view sites (Fulcrum Studio). He told me so many tales of the upstarts on GFY.com (Go Fuck Yourself), the webmaster bbs. So many intro’s of “I just started my site” with dreams of big payouts. Running a website like that was a lot of hard work. He shot content and then edited it, posted (the easy part) and then protected the site from all the attacks (both from cyber and from FBI). It was not the get rich quick scheme it was made out to be. When the internet got loaded with free porn and videos and pay per view sites lost a lot of their traffic, sex toys seemed the way to go. Wicked invested heavily.

When Kris and I first started with this plan to make dildos, we did it ‘cause we thought it would be fun and we thought we could support ourselves on it. It seemed like just the kind of industry that we could be unabashedly ourselves in. The naivete was hilarious.

When we started selling dildos in 1998, our expenses were minimal. We had rent for our 1200 sq ft shop in Colorado Springs (I can’t recall how much but somewhere between $400-$600). We had some friends we’d pay a day here or a day there, under the table, to help out when we got slammed. We had packaging costs of a 4-cent header card and a 2-cent poly bag and two staples. We had utilities and internet. We had silicone and pigment. And that is about it. We took draws for living expenses. And yes, we had yet to get insurance (liability or health). The first year my sister (a CPA) did our taxes- she couldn’t believe our profit. She said we were “as good as jewelers”.

The penetration pricing we fell into setting the price of our goods was based on me making assumptions. I thought that the industry must mark up their cost of goods plenty and I was betting 3 to 4x. Our first sales however were not to distributors who would need those discounts to give stores the wholesale price. My assumptions were totally off. We came in really cheap because really, and don’t tell anyone, I didn’t know what I was doing.  I had this formula… silicone was our biggest expense so I 5X the cost of the silicone in the toy and then adjusted up to a round number to pay for blemishes (blems) that didn’t pass quality control (QC).

And I still didn’t know what I was doing when I did learn the percentages distributors expected. By then we had one, maybe two employees but otherwise… still no insurance. LOL. For the first year or so it seemed doable (?).

When Mike joined Tantus in 2006, right before the one and only Pasadena AMNE (Adult Manufacturers of Novelty Exposition), we had moved to Chula Vista, we had the most employees in Tantus’ history, we had about 12000 sq ft warehouse and all the expenses of that, we had trade shows and advertising expenses, if you had a foreign business, we gave an automatic 10% off which had started our first year with Canadians whose economy was down— in essence, we were bleeding.

One of the first tasks Mike did when he came on board, and after he had interviewed every employee prior to stepping up (which allowed him to cut some of the fat off the employee expenses) was to go product by product and figure out really just how much they cost us and how profitable or not they were. This was a huge project.

Our accounting computer had been lost in a hard drive crash that no one could salvage. We had a paper trail and we were putting that back into a program again (another of Mike’s tasks). Mike had made the excel sheet and done one of the items and he took a young woman whose name was Roseo (she was either in trimming or assembly, actually probably both) and tasked her with doing the rest. It was a BIG job. It took her weeks. Mike harped on her daily “I need these numbers! When will it be done?”

Roseo was right out of high school. She and her best friend had come wandering into Tantus, possibly having read a Craigslist ad, possibly word of mouth. They had worked at a movie theater together and I think I hired them on the spot. They were young and we were a fun place to work—a place where you could be unabashedly yourself.

I went into her office one evening, we’d assigned her an office for this project, and there were the completed binders done at last with her resignation letter on top. We never got to thank Roseo for what she had done. Those numbers literally saved us from going under.

Those numbers also made the industry kinda hate Mike.

Roseo had finished on Friday, and Monday Mike made outgoing calls to all our accounts telling them there was an immediate price increase on most of our items and our very most popular item at the time, The Little Flirt, was discontinued. We were selling the Little Flirt wholesale for $3.33 and with every sale we were giving away a McDonalds Happy Meal. The numbers were so upside down that it was the only way we could talk about it without crying.

Mike would call a buyer or a CEO. Tell them about the price increase and why. He would apologize for no forewarning, listen to their complaints, hang up the phone and then my phone would ring by the same client, trying to be the exception to this. It was Mom vs Dad and I was the softy everyone knew. Mike and I shared an office so I heard everything and had to keep the same wording. It was gut wrenching. But in the end we got through it. There were several people however who never forgave Mike. It was a hard time.

If you don’t think one person can change your life, or the life of your company, they totally can. Roseo did! She saved Tantus from bankruptcy. She never knew it. Her job was critical and she didn’t understand it but she got through it none the less.  I think we tried calling but were not able to get a hold of her; she’d had enough, she’d done her part.

I found this picture from a Christmas Party in 2003. Roseo had just joined our crew then. (edited for privacy)

Mike, when he came on board, began “All Associates” meetings. First question he asked at the very first one was who thought Metis Black was a millionaire- all hands rose.

Tantus wasn’t a place to get rich at. We squeaked by and barely so at times. In 2006, when Mike started, Tantus was 8 years old and my salary was $40,000. Mike came in at the same rate. Mind you, we still didn’t have health insurance nor 401k’s. No one was getting rich no matter what the newbies on GFY thought, but we had passion and that went a long, long way.

Thank you again Roseo. I hope you carry fond memories of our time together at Tantus, and not just the number crunching. You had such a big future ahead of you- we were happy you shared some of that time with us.