Shiri Allwood Aims to Cut Out the Middleman

This is precisely why Allwood has spent the last five months building her own paid membership site, ShiriAllwood.com, which is due to go live in early next month.

“I decided to build my member site because even with my presence on (among other sites) Fansly and ManyVids, I felt like I was still leaving a potential audience on the table,” Shiri explained — “whether it’s traditionalist viewers that still prefer unique member sites over subscription sites, or fans that are aware of the massive cut that those subscription sites take, or fans that just want one comprehensive place to easily explore and stream all of my featured content.”

Creating (and now managing) her own member site was no small task. But it was a task that Shiri was up to.

“My programming background comes from my neighbor who taught me to write basic code when I was a kid, which led me to play around with editing and making basic web pages, which led me to studying computer science and web design in college,” she said. “I managed a large Minecraft community with several thousand active members around 2013-2015 ,which was my first real-world application of that knowledge. The game server was constantly getting updates and bugs that required fixes and workarounds, plus there was a whole custom website and forum attached to it. It was basically an unpaid full-time job that I did for fun.”

“Anyway, creating shiriallwood.com wasn’t particularly difficult, but rather time-consuming,” added Shiri. “I had almost 350GB of content that had to be organized, uploaded, encoded, imported, thumbnailed and tagged, which was an incredibly tedious process.”

To those who do the grunt work go the spoils. In this case, “the biggest benefit for me is I get to take home the profits,” she told YNOT. “No 60/40% split, and no big networks taking a piece of the pie (other than affiliates).”

The amount Shiri has paid out to others before going solo makes her point. “This added up to over 23k that my fans paid to just one of my platforms in my first two years of performing (2017-2018), and that number has only grown since,” she said. “I don’t think that’s fair to me, and if I run my own platform I set my own margins. After hosting costs, processor fees, and other site maintenance I’m guessing my margin will be more like 10-12%.”

Artistic freedom is just as important to Shiri Allwood as cash flow management. “No platform-imposed rules: If I want to fist myself or get bound and fucked that’s my choice!” she declared.

Such rules have cramped her style in the past.

“I love doing outdoor vids, which most of the time I’m not really in much danger of being caught or exposing strangers to something they might not want to see,” said Shiri. “However, I’m creating a fantasy, and if I do it right it should look like I’m doing something really risky which makes it more fun for the viewer. OnlyFans doesn’t understand that, however – they see anything labeled as ‘public’ and ‘almost caught’ as red flags and remove it. Even if I shot it on private land and hired a bunch of extras they might still decide it looks suspicious and remove it.”

“ManyVids is better, but one of my outdoor vids was removed because there was a pigeon that walked into frame, minding its own business – and that went against their strict No Animals policy,” she continued. “Other rules limit acts such as fisting, pee play, and bondage sex, all kinks I personally enjoy and would like to be allowed to portray as a willing recipient and curator of my own content.”

Artistic freedom also encompasses website design.

“I have free reign to make stylistic choices that represent me!” said Shiri. “Examples might include anything from the choice of using Futura site-wide, the typeface I’ve used with my logo for years, to including a Twitter module that shows my latest tweet, to styling the play-button and video controls to match the color scheme of my logo and the entire site.”

Being her own webmaster allows Shiri Allwood to be ultra-responsive. “I can get fan feedback and make changes accordingly,” she said. “Unlike most models with one of a dozen sites in a network all under one webmaster, I can make tweaks and changes to personalize the experience based on suggestions from fans. Let’s say a few users say they don’t want to see any videos where I’m wearing a baseball cap. I could go in and create a feature where that user can blacklist the ‘baseball cap’ tag, so those vids never appear when they’re browsing.”

It gives her room to grow, as well.

“To start, my site will have the basics that most model sites have,” said Shiri: “An expansive and secure paid-membership video library with HD streams, video previews and descriptions, tag-based search, an affiliate program, and trivia and where to find my co-stars. That’s just the start though, I have ideas to enrich my platform with features like 4K streams, crypto payments, merchandise, and an imageboard where fans will be able to find all the selfies and short-form clips that are on my other platforms (such as Fansly, OnlyFans and Twitter).”

The bottom line: Having all things Shiri Allwood on ShiriAllwood.com is ultimately meant to boost this trans star’s fan base and earning potential.

“It absolutely will! My vision for my site is a one-stop-Shiri-shop where you can find everything I’ve put online since 2013, with every piece of media tagged and organized.,” she concluded.

As for Shiri’s advice to other adult stars considering doing their own sites?

“Be your own boss, bitch: It’s not really your site unless you hire a developer and pay your startup costs,” she replied. “If a network comes to you, make sure you understand the contract you’re signing. You’re the product they want to sell, and just like any other clip site or subscription site they’ll take a percentage. Hiring a developer and attaining all the assets and legal documents could run you up to $10k in startup costs, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the more than $25k a year you can lose in a 60/40 revenue split.”