Tim Stokely
I think the adult industry is typically ahead of the curve when it comes to new tech and I think content behind a paywall model really, really suited.

Alex Barker
is a former merchant banker. If Tim is an unlikely pornographer, Guy is a complete fish out of water. Before OnlyFans, Guy was retired. He’s mild-mannered and ever so polite.

Tim Stokely
There was a healthy amount of skepticism. Got invested in some of the previous platforms. Some had gone really well, some really badly. After many attempts to convince him, I remember Guy saying, okay. . .

Patricia Nilsson
The early days for Tim were a hard slog. He sent hundreds of emails to performers and influencers trying to explain how much money they could make on OnlyFans.

Tim Stokely
I remember receiving one email from one influencer saying, “this is hands-down the most stupid business idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Alex Barker
OnlyFans launched in 2016. One thing that fansfan.com find more really put the wind in its sails was a clever referral program giving creators a cut of other people’s earnings if they brought them to the platform. Guy thought Tim’s goal of half a million pounds revenue in 2017 was totally ridiculous. They ended up with ?2.4 million. A lot of the creators were adult performers and sitting with the Stokelys, that’s something you can easily forget. They don’t seem like porn people. Mentioned nudity and Guy almost starts to blush.

I didn’t think of it as being adult. I wasn’t interested in adult, but it was about supporting Tim.

Patricia Nilsson
This was genuinely a family business. Tim was CEO and Guy, the chief financial officer and supportive father. Tim’s sister and his two brothers were involved too. But then in 2018, at a point when OnlyFans was growing fast and showing it had real potential, the Stokelys did something surprising. They decided it was time to bring in an outside investor. They sold OnlyFans but stayed on as the executive team. Within a year of selling, their platform just exploded in popularity.

Man Stokely

Clips about OnlyFans
OnlyFans is massively a part of the pop culture Zeitgeist right now.

Cardi B is on the platform. You have Chris Brown.

Now why are you tipping the switch, man? Michael B Jordan’s mustache.

Alex Barker
During the pandemic, it reached two million creators and 180 million users. A significant proportion of them were buying or selling porn. OnlyFans gave the tired old porn industry a new lease of life and everything on the site was behind a paywall, so much harder for children to access. But with the success came a lot of bad press for Tim. But also unease over OnlyFans normalising pornography, making it seem just like any other career.

Patricia Nilsson
A lot of men and women saw the huge payouts to top porn stars and thought, “I can give this a try.” But most couldn’t build a big enough following, and some probably realised porn wasn’t something you can just dabble in and regretted trying. Anyway, it’s fair to say OnlyFans really caught a cultural moment and courted plenty of controversy. We, of course, focused on the business side and the money. What you need to understand is what makes OnlyFans different. It succeeded not just because it could take money, but because it could pay it out.

There were, of course, stereotypes in regards to the bling Essex man making millions out of porn

Alex Barker
It built a financial bridge from fans’ credit cards straight to the bank accounts of creators. The bigger OnlyFans became, the more its reputation was associated with a porn revival and the more nervous banks got moving its money around the world. So nervous, one bank even stopped providing a personal bank account to Tim’s brother, a former banker, just because he was involved in running OnlyFans.