Before Jill and Jak Palmer garnered millions of followers and viewers as the streaming and content creation duo known as JackPlusJill — alternatively JackandJill — they pursued Masters degrees, and found themselves indebted to the tune of $100,000.

Paying off student loans into their late 30s and 40s was not something they wanted to deal with, especially as new residents of the San Francisco Bay area, where metropolitan life was and is pricey. The pair sought jobs in the big city, but then Jill saw an HBO documentary titled “Sex Now,” about livestreaming.

We have individual strengths and weaknesses we try to leverage when it comes to work.

“Hey, maybe I could do that to earn some extra money,” she thought to herself. Soon, the two ventured into camming. Initially they just hoped to earn some extra cash, but soon realized it offered a full-fledged career.

Now, as acclaimed and award-winning stars who rock hundreds of thousands of fans on social media and regularly top the rankings on sites ranging from Pornhub to Chaturbate, they reveal what they’ve learned together on their way up that hill, in this exclusive Cam Star of the Month interview.

XBIZ: How have your cam shows evolved over the years?

J+J: The tech and quality of our shows has improved over time. With the exception of the location(s) we choose to livestream from, not much has changed about the format of our shows. In the past, we had incorporated VR, green screens and several other novel things into our show, but we mostly stick to a talk show and performance-based format.

The type of people we feature on our shows has also changed over time. We used to work with a lot more people who were brand new to the industry. Adult work is so pervasive in popular culture now, it’s almost impossible to find people who don’t know what livestreaming, Onlyfans, etc. are, so currently we work with more established creators. But we also feature promising amateurs from time to time.

XBIZ: What is your favorite camming platform and why?

J+J: This is easy: Chaturbate. We’ve been on a few other cam sites and have been courted by several brands to stream on their platforms. Chaturbate takes care of their models, has great traffic and has shown a willingness to listen to their models. There really is a noncompetitive sense of community within Chaturbate that other platforms can’t seem to foster for several reasons. We’re happy to call it home.

XBIZ: Discuss what other revenue streams you pursue, such as independent content, and how you manage your time.

J+J: We have quite a few revenue streams. We have our OnlyFans (OnlyFans.com/JandJBTS and OnlyFans.com/Tradeofalljaks). We sell our films on clip sites and we have an entire VR line on SLR and VRPorn.com that is competitive with the big adult VR studios. We have our personal website, YouTube, podcast revenue and of course livestreaming income. We manage our time by balancing our long-term goals with things that make the most money. Rarely do we do “trades” with other well-known performers, mostly sticking to offering paid trade shoots.

XBIZ: As a duo, how do you split up responsibilities and work together collaboratively?

J+J: We have individual strengths and weaknesses we try to leverage when it comes to work. Jill is more of a “people person” and Jack is more of a technical-minded person. This dynamic means Jill does a lot of the messaging, recruiting and scheduling; Jack does more of the editing, camera composition/setup, website work and interfaces with technical support staff.

XBIZ: Talk about your approach to marketing in terms of promo content, fan interaction and your preferred platforms for driving traffic.

J+J: We’re terrible at social media, promotion and marketing. This is why livestreaming has been great for us. We have 800,000 followers on Chaturbate and they show up when we get online. They give us immediate constructive feedback on what we’re doing right and wrong. Livestreaming truly is the trenches of adult internet work, but it’s what we excel at and where we get our traffic. We were never really “cool” kids in school and we’re definitely not the overly confident type, so being edgy or trendy online isn’t something we do. We’re not in Twitter groups. We don’t do share-for-shares. We don’t buy promo. Everything we do is organic.

XBIZ: How do you balance your professional lives with your personal relationship?

J+J: We don’t do a good job of this either. For the last couple years we have been working at an unsustainable pace. I think finding the right people to help scale our business and tackle our business goals has been instrumental to helping us find balance. Both of us have very high expectations for ourselves and a crazy work ethic.

XBIZ: What do your fans most commonly request from you and what drives the most revenue for you overall?

J+J: Threesome content, but that’s only because it’s what we’ve built our brand on. What you do in the adult industry dictates the types and tastes of the fans you get. If you start out doing hardcore scenes, you’ll get fans that enjoy and expect more of that from you. Same with any genre, especially taboo work. This is why we always tell people to start slow and only do things that align with your ethical and personal preferences. If you violate that, it’s asking for an emotional breakdown or an identity crisis.

XBIZ: How do you handle shoots with other performers, ensuring paperwork, consent and content releases all go smoothly?

J+J: We have a personal/production assistant that helps ensure we get all of our paperwork signed. We have our own documents we have prepared ourselves using industry-accepted form documents as boilerplate. While we should probably get these examined by an industry legal expert, they are pretty straightforward. We have a loosely defined show format that allows people’s personalities to shine, while sticking to a script that won’t push us out of our comfort zone. Bottom line: we try to make sure people have all the information they need upfront and know that this is a professional shoot that will be sold on the internet for money.

XBIZ: Discuss your biggest goals for 2023 and beyond.

J+J: Work smarter, not harder. We want to embrace our role as a producer and highlight emerging talent in an industry we see as saturated. We also want to think a little harder about life after sex work, or at least life with less of it. We have plans to diversify our efforts to include opportunities that either overlap or are completely separate from the adult industry, that we’re excited about.