The Well: N 82 50 24 (10.03.07)

[N 82 50 24]

So... a bunch of people asked me to do a well. I asked "where?" and they said here. So here I am. Ask away.

References:

[ QUOTE ]
you should do a well nat...

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Nat I'd love to see a well as you have a very different story to lots of other 2p2ers who've made 7 figs from the poker boom, and seem like a cool/interesting guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
QFT, did read your post in the EDF thread but more info would def be interesting

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
MTTC maybe, then post a link from here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Source:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...umber=12295329

[lippy]

What kind of money did you get from your sale of the poker db or whatever it was to BluffMedia?

[Paul B.]

What games and stakes do you play?
What inspired you to create thepokerdb?
What percentage of your net worth was from the sale of thepokerdb?
Did you program thepokerdb yourself? If not, who did?
Please fill us in on other upcoming poker-related projects.

[Keyser.]

How did you start out? Just a low-limit grinder who decided to start the pokerdb or what?
What does your screen name mean?

[N 82 50 24]

[ QUOTE ]
What kind of money did you get from your sale of the poker db or whatever it was to BluffMedia?

[/ QUOTE ]
I owned 50% of thepokerdb.

My business partner (graydot) who I co-founded the site with took cash in the form of 36 monthly payments. I won't say the amount because it's his business and I shouldn't reveal that info without his permission.

I took three things.

1. A minority equity share in BLUFF media, which is a number of different things other than BLUFF magazine. My equity is small and is in the single digits.
2. A revenue share of the db subscriptions.
3. A revenue share of online ads.

Why did I do that?

Well, for one, the equity share diversified my interests. While I'm still heavy with regards to poker, I'm not as heavily concentrated in one area.

Secondly, graydot had kinda reached his capacity for helping me to run the site and we were being overwhelmed with issues. It's pretty hard to keep a site like that running smoothly and even BLUFF, with a team of 3 full-time developers, still has trouble with it sometimes today. I wanted that type of support and help for the site to make it better and I think we've done that.

Thirdly, being a part of BLUFF opens up the door for me to a lot of other things. I got all sorts of access to things at the WSOP this summer because of BLUFF ... all of which are things I would not have been able to do without being a part of a big poker media organization.

Let me know if you want more detail on the reasoning behind the deal.

[N 82 50 24]

[ QUOTE ]
What games and stakes do you play?

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I don't. I've basically stopped playing. When I stopped (summer 2006) I was playing 2/4 and 3/6 NL. I decided to stop because I was starting law school and I didn't want the distraction. And since then, my favorite stomping ground (party) has gone away and I think the games are too tough to make it worth my while to start again. I've never played multi-table tournaments in any significant volume.

[ QUOTE ]
What inspired you to create thepokerdb?

[/ QUOTE ]
I was running a site called PSCrew, which was a forum for PokerStars players. I wanted an objective rankings system to compete with P5s. That never happened, but thepokerdb grew out of that effort.

[ QUOTE ]
What percentage of your net worth was from the sale of thepokerdb?

[/ QUOTE ]
Really tough to say. A lot of things have grown out of thepokerdb or are somehow related to it. But just what I received is probably somewhere around 40-50% of it. I really don't know though since a lot of the valuations of my holdings are ridiculously subjective and depend on the future of online poker.

[ QUOTE ]
Did you program thepokerdb yourself? If not, who did?

[/ QUOTE ]
graydot (linked earlier) did the hard stuff. When we started, I was a huge programming n00b. I just had an idea. Since then, I've gotten waaaaaaaaaay better at php and databases. I programmed a lot of things for thepokerdb, but none of the really hard things. Also, usually I would make a page (such as the player.php, which pretty much everyone used a lot) and then Paul would come in later and fix it to make it faster and whatnot.

[ QUOTE ]
Please fill us in on other upcoming poker-related projects.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I have another data-related website set to come out at some point. I'm currently beta-testing it and I will be inviting some MTTc'ers to help me out pretty soon.

Also, I am the producer of this project (http://www.thepokerfilm.com), which I anticipate being pretty popular. The clips should be out within a matter of weeks, maybe sooner.

I also have two interesting poker ideas on the backburner that I plan on doing as soon as I have time.

[N 82 50 24]

[ QUOTE ]
How did you start out? Just a low-limit grinder who decided to start the pokerdb or what?

[/ QUOTE ]
I started out when my someone who lived on my hall freshman year of college (in 2000) introduced me to hold 'em. I am one of the few who did not start because of Rounders. I didn't really pick up the game until a little later on in college, but I became interested then. He still has a picture that I took of him when he got back from AC one weekend with like $1100 and I thought it was the sickest thing ever. Anyway, I proceeded to start playing under his guidance and I just kinda moved up from there. But thepokerdb kinda arose out of PSCrew, which I describe above.
[ QUOTE ]
What does your screen name mean?

[/ QUOTE ]
N = first initial
82 = birth year
50 = parents' birth year
24 = birth year of a grandparent

I just wanted something cryptic and that fit the bill. It's pretty rare for people to figure it out on their own, but yet, everyone knows that it must mean something. Which is kinda what I was going on.

[Paul B.]

What type of hosting plan was thepokerdb on?
What were your expectations for the site?
What sources of revenue were most significant and how long did it take for you to turn a profit?
Do you think poker will become "legalized" and regulated in the US? If so, how did you think it will affect the poker economy?
Did you finish law school?

[N 82 50 24]

[ QUOTE ]
What type of hosting plan was thepokerdb on?

[/ QUOTE ]
All sorts of plans. We started on a $10/month 1and1 plan (LOL). Then we switched to a server owned by Paul's friend. We blew that thing up almost immediately. Then we got a VPS (virtual private server) w/o too much power. It slowed to a crawl pretty fast. So then we finally got a dedicated server with a decent processor and 2 gb of RAM and that sustained us until we moved everything to BLUFF. They have some kickass servers, although their webpage can suck because some ad buyers force them to serve ads from the buyer's server.

[ QUOTE ]
What were your expectations for the site?

[/ QUOTE ]
Everything happened too fast to even have any. I never sat there thinking, hrmm, I think we can get to x. The day we opened user registration I think we got like 5-10K people and just blew up from there. I was always more amazed at how popular it was than sitting there thinking/wishing/hoping/wondering/setting goals.

[ QUOTE ]
What sources of revenue were most significant and how long did it take for you to turn a profit?

[/ QUOTE ]
We turned a profit basically immediately. thorladen (the db's first subscriber) sent me $500 back in August of 2005 when I helped him analyze the Gigabet TLB bet. If you recall, thor made a large bet against Ozzy and he wanted to know who had what sorts of scores that were counting in their "top 20" spots for the month. That was more than enough to cover our costs at the time and we never went below the zero line.

When I ran the site, subscriptions were the most significant. Now that BLUFF actually works on selling ads, I'd say that subscriptions and ads bring in similar amounts.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you think poker will become "legalized" and regulated in the US? If so, how did you think it will affect the poker economy?

[/ QUOTE ]
I kinda doubt it. One of my majors in college was poli sci and one thing I learned there was that effecting new public policy is like trying to push around an elephant. It's astoundingly hard to get politicians and others to move on an issue unless it benefits them in some way. I don't see that happening here. However, I see the Stars/FTP dominated market as being pretty strong and I don't see them going anywhere. I think online poker will continue to be healthy because people love the game, people love to gamble and playing online is a great way to enjoy those activities without too much cost or hassle.

[ QUOTE ]
Did you finish law school?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not even close. I did one semester in the fall of 2006. I did okay -- I was pretty much dead in the middle of the class rankings-wise, which is actually pretty good for a law school like Emory. Then I stopped for the spring of 2007, which means I couldn't go in the fall of 2007 (because I still need to take the spring 1L classes, which are offered in the spring only). I can restart in January if I want to, but I haven't made up my mind. I'm leaning towards just doing an MBA program and not doing the rest of law school, but that's far from set in stone. Right now I could:

a) Never go back to any kind of school
b) Do a JD/MBA at Emory
c) Just finish my JD at Emory
d) Stay at Emory, but just get an MBA
e) Get an MBA elsewhere

Any and all are still a possibility, but I'd say e, d and a are the most likely, ranked in order of likelihood.

[N 82 50 24]

It's 6:30 AM so I'm off to bed. I'll check this when I wake up.