Poker Bay - My Business Plan. Market Research.

[smashedagain]

Really disappointed to see this come to an end. Keep positive and come up with some more ideas. Lots of people on here have given you some sound advice and encouragement. For now we can just blame Keys for a shit idea

[giveyourcash]

Alex,

I think you're close and with a few tweaks the basic idea could work. I have a fair amount of money sitting around from the poker glory days and would actually be interested in a joint venture, two heads are better than one and all that. Obviously you don't really know me from adam so I'll just put the idea out there and see what you (and other forumites) think. If you see the potential maybe you'll think working together is a good idea too.

You want a business to grow organically and preferably be at least break even pretty quickly. I don't think going for the home run is a great idea. Start out just at DTD where you have a great reputation and a lot of goodwill. Offer the idea to Rob and give him a free small stake in the company so that he has in incentive for it to succeed.

The site idea is basically the same (whether an auction format or a buy it now type deal) but specifically for DTD tournaments. You could possibly then integrate it with the DTD online site and settle payments through their infrastructure (this may be a regulatory issue however). you could even have a computer set up in the building to help people set up their accounts and maybe even use the DTD mailing list for super targeted super cheap advertising.

Obviously a lot of this idea is contingent on Rob you have a great reputation and a lot of clout and Rob should go for it because he'd have more people buying in to his tournaments and his % ownership plus it creates great atmosphere when multiplle people have a financial stake and are railing every final table, hell you could potentially even let people cash out their pokerbay accounts at DTD and then there's more money for table games and what have you. The best part is that it gets around the grimming issue because DTD has the ability to withhold the money at the cage and allocate it to the correct people and you can buy people into events directly they don't ever need to touch the money.

You simply have a flag in the DTD computer system that says player X was bought in via pokerbay (not sure I love the name) an what % of their winnings they should get and what % should go into your account to then be instantly paid to the stakers.

If it takes off then you have a success story to show to other casino groups (dtd prize pools went up by X% and here's the figures to show we drove that traffic to them) and get them to buy into the idea for their clubs and that's how you get your organic growth.

Like I say I think working with you on this would be awesome so let me know what you think, and if others on here think this is an even worse idea than the original let me know also.

[giveyourcash]

A few more thoughts,

People were against this because it felt impersonal, people like to stake others so that they have something to sweat and can help out having it DTD centric brings back that personal element you can go to the club and see your stakee in action, you know when and where he'll be, similarly if you roll it out then john doe in Leicester or Birmingham or whatever can watch his stakee in gala. It's local but scalable.

Another problem people had was why go through you when we can just stake on blonde without a fee. The service you are providing is the guarantee that the money will be held at the cage, you can stake without any fear of your money going walkies. Also because your overheads are lower due to DTD integration you can make a profit on a much lower set of fees.

[PizzicatoXev]

The amount of people publically selling their action for DTD tournaments is pretty pretty small you know...

[cambridgealex]

Thanks very much Tom, some great ideas in there. I'll be in touch, but realistically not until I get back from Colombia which is end of august.

[giveyourcash]

The amount of people publically selling their action for DTD tournaments is pretty pretty small you know...

Currently yes but it's a market you have to create. You need the dedicated poker stakers to get the site off the ground and that's where alexs rep comes in but ultimately you want to embrace the punter stakee. Be like betfair, they are loved by the sharps because they have great lines but those lines are so great because it's the punters who pay the price. The guys who don't mind taking the worst of it for a few % and for small figures if it gives them one more guy to rail another sweat to get them excited. The idea will only succeed above basically covering it's costs if it creates a new type of stakee someone who plays poker occasionally and finds one more way to get some good action. They're just looking for a reason to stick around after they bust and what better way than by having a piece of someone on a deep run. I really don't think that's out of the realms of possibility. Once you have that pool of money it'll create it's own demand even if it's people looking for a simple 1:1 (after fees) stake. Getting sellers is no problems at all the problem is finding enough people willing to take a punt for a bit of a sweat and where better to look than an established casino?  

Edit: It's actually better than the betfair model because betfair is by definition a negative sum environment it's every penny they take in fees has to come from a depositor so they have to drum up a continual stream of losing players. In a staking site potentially there could be more money being paid out than is deposited and still room for profit, there should be in fact if the horses are worth more than 1:1. The shortfall is made up by the extra prize money won.

[blueace]

Looking outside the blondepoker box, most of my friends dont use forums, but gamble and play poker. This is your target market. I would use a site like this (probably more to stake than be staked). I obv cant through blonde at present. Im pretty sure a lot of my friends would.

[DungBeetle]

"Edit: It's actually better than the betfair model because betfair is by definition a negative sum environment it's every penny they take in fees has to come from a depositor so they have to drum up a continual stream of losing players. In a staking site potentially there could be more money being paid out than is deposited and still room for profit, there should be in fact if the horses are worth more than 1:1. The shortfall is made up by the extra prize money won. "

This would be true, but falls over once I consider that I have never met a poker player who doesn't think he has a 25%+ edge on the field.

The simple fact is that poker tournaments are by definition a negative sum environment because of rake.  Having every player claim they are worth 1.5 doesn't change that.

[MANTIS01]

Yeah don't give up, the good news is www.pokerstable.co.uk is now available at a very reasonable rate through mantis holdings plc

[ACE2M]

I'll give you my idea for free and you can add it to your fledgling business if you like it.

It is to allow the people to punt between each other in a betfair bet matching style on various tournament markets.

E.g. last longers, best peak position and loads of others i thought up

The idea was to do it on online tournaments as you could obtain completed lists of tournament finish positions and breakdowns and automate the payout process.

This stops the grimming potential and allows people to bet with anyone, quickly.

E.g. every tournament that revolves through a poker site lobby is also available in your site and x person can post a last longer bet of $100 in a particular tournament open to anyone or to specific set of players if they are registered on the site. People can take all or part of that $100 and then based on everyones finish position they software will payout the appropriate funds minus your commision.

You can extend it to live tournaments where every finish position is documented but you prob can't get enough data to do it effectively.

I once spec'd all this out in great detail, wrote the scripts, did the design look etc, then i worked out the amount of work involved and the potential profit but it just didn't add up, but part of a bigger operation it could work.

Could give you a step in the online poker rooms if you make it good, the holy grail would be to let people bet out of their poker balances and have a link in the lobby but then the sites would obviously want a fat cut.

[pleno1]

also did a lot of work on a similar project.

[ACE2M]

also did a lot of work on a similar project.

great minds

[skolsuper]

Some classic human nature ITT. When you were gonna do it, everyone thought it was a terrible idea. Once you've said you aren't gonna do it any more, every post is in favour.

[Gemini Kings]

Some classic human nature ITT. When you were gonna do it, everyone thought it was a terrible idea. Once you've said you aren't gonna do it any more, every post is in favour.

I completely missed his post saying he is shelving the idea.

[EvilPie]

I was under the impression that you'd already invested money in the software and website and that it was pretty much ready to go.

If this is the case why not just launch it but have it as a free service with no guarantees just for your friends or other people you know to use? Don;t even handle any money, just let them use it for their auctions.

Maybe you could allow other people to use the service but on the strict understanding that there are no guarantees.

If it tests ok maybe you could look in to making it commercial. You could possibly ask for a token payment if any particular stake goes well. Call it a donation to keep the site up and running.

Seems a shame to totally shelve it if you've already invested enough to get something out there.

Obviously if it's nowhere near ready then none of this applies.