Poker Bay - My Business Plan. Market Research.

[cambridgealex]

Thanks all for the posts, very constructive and helpful. Keep them coming

[Skippy]

You don't have to run auctions, you could also have a buy-it-now type option where the price is fixed.

I think the main benefits should be:

a) easy to find proposals
b) escrow service

The auction bit is a side bit imo.

Seems a lot like chipmeup (which I hadn't heard of until now).

Not really sure it's a goer, tbh.

[prettygreen]

Might need to call it something else as theirs a youtube-esque video site called the poker bay. Don't think this will work unless it was tied on the back of an existing poker company loke bad beat/BRS/Blonde

[prettygreen]

Would also lower fees so they are fairly small, they can be increased once you establish yourself. If traffic is good then you could stodge it out a bit with some affiliate banners like BlondeP.

[redarmi]

Over my years in the gaming business I have seen a lot of business plans and ideas looking for funding and a lot of them are very ill thought out.  This doesn't fall into that category and I think there is definitely an idea there but I think there are a lot of potential hurdles.  

Firstly, how do you deal with payment processing.  For gaming businesses this is hugely expensive and normally requires a big deposit, references etc.  How do you protect against chargebacks etc?
Secondly, have you modelled this financially to see how many auctions you are going to need to break even on a monthly basis?  You will incur costs and it may be that with the average stake being at, say, 1.3 for a $1k then 15% of the markup is $45 or £30...with expenses of, say £3k a month you are going to have to run auctions to put 100 players in events monthly before you break even.  That is a lot more than is sold on blonde on a monthly basis.
Finally, would be worried about your customer base.  Think auctions probably work for fairly small pieces as they push up the prices above value because demand outstrips supply.  In bigger packages you would be struggling to get them better than they could get by marketing themselves to friends and contacts and paying nothing in fees and those are the packages you really want not the £300 deepstacks.  I would also echo the point many have made before about losing the demographic of those that sell because they cannot afford to play.

I think on balance it needs a fair bit of work doing before launching.

[RickBFA]

As a relative outsider who doesn't know you, you seem like an intelligent, smart guy who could be a success in any type of business.

I hope this works for you but maybe there might not be enough volume to make this a viable business.

Given your ability, I'd consider diversifying your risk. Both playing poker and having a business linked to poker staking doesn't do that. Poker is a business open to change and regulation (as we have seen in the USA).

For me, an old fart in his forties, I'd suggest if poker bay doesn't work out, maybe find a niche in something you would enjoy away from poker.

Good luck.

[atdc21]

Hi Alex, i think its a nice idea, but dont think it would be easy to make it pay as a business.
There are going to be lots of costs involved in running/maintaining a website capable of handling safely big money transactions.I even a small e-commerce type website incurs large costs, too many people want a cut of the action, site host,credit/debit card firms, you will need a separate encryption provider,staff to help run, also the payout guarentee  thing could be big headache.
Good luck with it if you go ahead.

[Laxie]

Might need to call it something else as theirs a youtube-esque video site called the poker bay. Don't think this will work unless it was tied on the back of an existing poker company loke bad beat/BRS/Blonde

Thought I'd heard of it before...

http://www.thepokerbay.org/

Apologies if the link is out of line, but easy to google in either case.

[MANTIS01]

You have no worries about poker bay because nobody can stop you using the word bay, but Pbay prob not.

Anyway, Ebay is a success because it appeals to all people and that is the knack of a good business idea. Your idea only appeals to poker players which is a very small % of all people. In addition buyers will only be interested in staking winning players who constitute a very small % of all players. And out of the few winning players only a small % will want staking. Therefore the biggest worry is your target market is so minuscule in the first place. And because your idea isn't protected you could face the prospect of competing for that tiny market with other sites in the future.

The site will introduce buyers to horses and if both parties are happy with the eventual price the buyer will contact the horse and offer to buy any future staking at that price, cutting out you and your fees. What's more you will be gambling that the players who get staked actually run good and have a positive ROI for the site. Obv there will be data about the history of horses for poker bay so if they don't win comps and fail to bring good advertsement to the table the service will lose it's appeal quite quickly. Don't forget there will be no fluffy staking based on contribution to the forum etc, it will be pure business.

I think it's worthwhile that a poker player wants to invest poker winnings into a business but imo you should think of something outside of poker. I don't think putting all your eggs in the poker gamble basket is a good idea for a pro player because the business could struggle and you could downswing so poker will be burning your money very quickly.

[EvilPie]

Would you allow people to sell packages or just individual tournaments?

For what it's worth I'm trying to say that if you start this thing please don't allow people to sell packages. You're giving yourself huge exposure to grimmers if you do.

Come the next world series you'll get loads of random people putting up threads selling $60k packages. They might only sell at 1:1 because nobody has a clue who they are. The stakers won't care though because everyone knows that the WSOP is easy and it's worth a punt at 1:1 if pokerbay guarantees the stake.

It only takes one of these $60k packages to go through and you're f**ked!

[RED-DOG]

You have no worries about poker bay because nobody can stop you using the word bay, but Pbay prob not.

Anyway, Ebay is a success because it appeals to all people and that is the knack of a good business idea. Your idea only appeals to poker players which is a very small % of all people. In addition buyers will only be interested in staking winning players who constitute a very small % of all players. And out of the few winning players only a small % will want staking. Therefore the biggest worry is your target market is so minuscule in the first place. And because your idea isn't protected you could face the prospect of competing for that tiny market with other sites in the future.

The site will introduce buyers to horses and if both parties are happy with the eventual price the buyer will contact the horse and offer to buy any future staking at that price, cutting out you and your fees. What's more you will be gambling that the players who get staked actually run good and have a positive ROI for the site. Obv there will be data about the history of horses for poker bay so if they don't win comps and fail to bring good advertsement to the table the service will lose it's appeal quite quickly. Don't forget there will be no fluffy staking based on contribution to the forum etc, it will be pure business.

I think it's worthwhile that a poker player wants to invest poker winnings into a business but imo you should think of something outside of poker. I don't think putting all your eggs in the poker gamble basket is a good idea for a pro player because the business could struggle and you could downswing so poker will be burning your money very quickly.

After reading a post as good as this, I would normally say something complimentary about the author, but I don't want to become part of Mantis's sig.

[tikay]

Why ever not Tom?

You'd be in excellent company.

[EvilPie]

Along the same lines would you cap the amount of staking someone asks for?

Also would you protect yourself against zero profit (for yourself) stakes?

Take Mr Random Fish. He wants to play the WSOP main event but he's only got $500 to his name.

He puts up a thread on pokerbay asking for staking.

Loads of people offer to buy a piece at 1:1 because that's all they think he's worth.

He sells his 95% because during WSOP there's a big market for pokerbay. What does pokerbay get out of this? From what you've said it's nothing.

All that's happened is you've guaranteed the stakers investment which is quite a large sum. Personally I'd be more than happy to throw a load of money at this at 1:1 hoping to get a few slices of random players in the WSOP. If an honest one binks I get paid. If a grimmer binks I get my money back.

[RED-DOG]

Will running this business take up all of your time Alex? Are you prepared to make that sacrifice?

[EvilPie]

Actually I've just read that you only send sellers their money when they get knocked out.

This is actually great protection for grimmers.

They can keep selling huge %s at zero/tiny mark ups and only get outed if they win.

Maybe if they have a small win they could pay up. No point keeping the money in the early stages.

A few min cashes should get them enough of a following to be able to play something really big at some stage. Maybe they could save the grim for the min cash at the WSOP main. That'd be worth it. They don't even need to feel guilty about it either. They know that they aren't grimming the stakers. It's only the website that loses out and all thieves know it's ok as long as you don't steal from joe public.