SEAN CLARKE HAS a business card that reads 'director operations, online porn, Whoopers Network' and dollar signs in his eyes. After spending the first half of his career pursuing executive jobs in the new economy, he plans to get rich peddling pornography over the Internet.
'We'll break even in four months,' Mr Clarke said. 'Asking how much money we are going to make after that is like asking me how long a piece of string is. It can be as long as we want it to be. The only limitation is how far we want to go.'
Judging by its office, in a Yau Tong industrial building, Whoopers Network has all the trappings of a porn empire, exactly what parent company - adult toy maker Wellux Industries - aspires to be. Visitors are received in a room where the walls are lined with vibrators shaped like dolphins, inflatable dolls with open mouths and mannequins wearing leather bondage gear pierced with silver studs. The carpets are midnight black shag, the ceiling is lipstick red and the air smells of stale cigarette smoke.
Dutch expat Ronald Steenbergen began Wellux in 1981 to make plastic kitchen appliances. He discovered there was more money to be made making sex toys. Mail order sales gave way to Internet sales. The logical next step was to start selling porn.
'At first we were embarrassed that we had started doing this. Now we are embarrassed to admit that we used to make coffee-makers,' Mr Steenbergen said.
Whoopers Network, virtually unknown here in its home town, is already an international operation. It has a studio in Prague where 30 women titillate viewers around the world using streaming video in live chat sessions. Programmers in Britain and Holland keep the site running.