Any CFO would be interested in an organization that is 100% cash-generative, has always been profitable, has no physical product to be sold, has relatively low labor costs, international notoriety and is currently riding through massive growth — all in an industry with access to a global consumer base and relatively low competition.
But the company’s name and model for some carries a stigma. OnlyFans, a content platform where celebrities and adult content creators build subscriber-based communities to access exclusive videos and photos, is a pioneer of its growth model. The company has had a tremendous impact on monetization in social media, content creation, and younger generations in arguably both positive and negative ways.
In the company’s execution, finance chiefs from all industries can learn from OnlyFans’ CFO Lee Taylor, the first-time finance chief who stepped into the role with a mission to create financial and data systems that could sustain significant growth.
Lee Taylor
CFO, OnlyFans
- First CFO position: 2019
- Notable previous companies:
- Elektron Technology
- Flurocarbon limited
- Winfresh UK
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
ADAM ZAKI: Your company has gone through rapid expansion in users and revenue. A good CFO is always a bit skeptical; did you ever tell the other executives to check the brakes for the sake of long-term growth?
LEE TAYLOR: Not in the traditional sense, but I understand what you’re saying and I agree with it. CFOs are commonly accused of being pessimists, or the person standing on the brakes. That’s our role, right? We’re here to challenge the business and deal with decisions with a focus on the sustainability of the business.
One of the unique things about OnlyFans is its self-funding. We have always been profitable and cash-generative. The challenge of our growth has not been where do we invest, but how much do we invest to grow and drive growth? We never had to spend lots — like a typical pay-to-grow model — for example on advertising campaigns or company acquisitions. Our growth was organic because the use case of the product and the demand was something completely new in the industry.
"The challenge of our growth has not been where do we invest, but how much do we invest to grow and drive growth?"
Lee Taylor
CFO, OnlyFans
Our growth was about scaling our operations, our know-your-customer (KYC), technology and safety, all at a level where we could encompass growth. Right now, we are working to go a bit further in our processes to ensure we are ahead of any [possible upcoming] regulatory requirements.
Your company has processed $15 billion in payments since its inception, which requires a lot of labor or really good technology. What types of digital transformations have you gone through on the finance team?
TAYLOR: When I joined the company in 2019, it was my first CFO role, and I hadn’t heard of the company before I interviewed here. But one of the appeals for me is that I could build the finance system from scratch.
So, when I got here, there was no finance system, there was no tax team, and everything was manual. I took the company’s finances from an Excel spreadsheet and built out a great team who then helped me build strong and scalable financial systems and operations. It took a lot of work. My role in that process enabled me to get a hand on the business and figure out what, from a technical perspective, the business does and needs.
(via SignHouse as of 2022)
On the operations front, we still have a lot of room for digital transformation, so I look at technology now and think what technology on the market now will stand the test of time while also helping us meet our challenges of creating systems that can continue to scale.
One thing I’ve enjoyed in my career is to get into the deep end of something and solve problems. Technology is a huge part of this, but people are too. Through the first couple of years, it’s been fascinating to me that we’ve been able to build out a team that can run the operations in the way they do. My team has been such a big contributor to the success of the company and the ability of our systems to grow.
There’s this idea that your company may be looking to move away from adult content and expand elsewhere. Is this accurate?
TAYLOR: I think this is a very common misconception that we are trying to move away from explicit content. We are not trying to get away from that because we’re able to support adult content creators and help them to monetize in a safe environment, given the scrutiny in the space and the risks involved with user-generated content, is a credit to the platform, the team, and the creator community.
Now, do we believe that users have the right to 80% of every dollar generated from their content? Absolutely. There is no reason why an over-18-year-old content creator should not be putting content on our platform if they believe fans would be willing to pay for it. As long as they are over 18, we provide a platform for creators and fans the freedom of creators to share and monetize the lawful content they produce and view in a safe and secure environment.
Behind-the-scenes videos in sports and comedy and things of that nature are other great examples of how our product can be used as a monetization tool for other types of content.
We think there is an incredible opportunity for content creators from all genres to benefit from our platform, but at the same time, we’re passionate about providing a safe environment for our community of adult content creators and by no means are we trying to get away from that part of the business.
OnlyFans credit themselves as market leaders in the KYC and online safety space. How do you do that alongside rapid growth and at scale?
TAYLOR: This is an interesting area of focus for us. The company started in late 2016. In the early stages and still even now, doing this at scale has been a challenge for us given the rapid growth. But what I believe we do that’s unique to other providers is we don’t rely on one source of data from one company and outsource responsibilities there. We pair human review with state-of-the-art technologies to verify our users. Naturally, one of the first challenges was scaling the human staff we had and then training them in our systems.
"In the early stages and still even now, doing this at scale has been a challenge for us given the rapid growth."
Lee Taylor
CFO, OnlyFans
We’ve been able to automate as much as we can on how the platform gathers information from its users, which has helped us a bit. Globally, we are requesting 10 pieces of information from creators. Previously it was nine, but tax IDs are now the tenth one that are becoming more of a requirement globally. So, the first stage is to collect the information, and then the second is thinking of all the valuable inputs that our human moderators would want to have so they can effectively verify users, like social media handles and engagement levels, for example.
Once our moderators have the information they need, we give risk scores to the creators themselves, looking at their social media handles to make sure they are not a risk to the business. Things like professing hate speech on another platform would be a concern and would probably make the creator’s onboarding go for a senior review. The trolling and hate speech you find on other platforms, brought on by anonymity and without social repercussions, that really can’t be had here. It’s radically reduced because we know the identity of everyone on the platform.
You joined the company early on. Is the start-up mentality still there?
TAYLOR: Yes, a lot. If you look at our executive team, we have five people who have a very distinct area of responsibility. None of our executives sit in ivory towers and they’re heavily involved in the day-to-day business.
We have to keep that mentality to get things done in the ways that we have. It’s a key strength of our business to have fluid communication with the leadership team to move quickly and be able to enact changes when we need to.
Outside of your CFO role, you are a founding member of The F Suite, an exclusive CFO leadership group. What was the idea behind this and how do you approach networking?
TAYLOR: The kind of leadership or CFO networking side of things is still pretty new to me. I identified a couple of years ago that having a strong network to kind of lean on and learn from experience-wise has been incredibly helpful. I think when you’ve worked your way up to CFO, you start to lack the ability to learn from people who are naturally above you.
So, when I became CFO, I realized this and began looking for a networking or leadership group of like-minded individuals to help me build that network. In 2020, during my search for the right group, they approached me and asked me to join with the title of founding member. It has no commercial reality to it, no external providers were looking to advertise to members. It was an authentic connection between senior finance professionals.
"When you’ve worked your way up to CFO, you start to lack the ability to learn from people who are naturally above you."
Lee Taylor
CFO, OnlyFans
Like I said, this is all pretty new to me, the networking side of everything. I’ve recently joined a community called GenCFO. I went to one of their events last month. It’s all about there being a common denominator of leadership building and making connections without sales. So far as a CFO, the networking side of things has become an extremely rewarding part of the job.