HeroPoker CEO Challenge:

http://businessforpokerplayers.wordpress.com/

Hey guys, this is just a personal project of mine, if you're going back to your studies or working part time, then take a look at it and their might be an entry that might help you out.

Feel free to pass it on to other mid-stake guys who maybe couldn't make the move abroad and are looking at options.

I had a blog similar to it on TL, but it was deleted and this one is related directly to players taking time off.

Cheers,
Dave

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Comments (16)

This blog will be a bit personal but in light of the constant changing environment and general player's confidence, I wanted to share this with our players. The only intent here is to give some insight into my intent as Hero Poker's CEO. It is more of a personal story than anything else, so please just take it for what it is.

“Being the CEO”
First off, the irony of the title of 'CEO' doesn’t escape me in its meaninglessness, but I chose it because it does represent succinctly my over all position in the firm. I think the proper term would be president (which nowadays seems quite dated) or managing director (which I prefer as we are incorporated and have a board). But for the purposes of posting, CEO is short and sweet and to the point, but again, the irony isn't lost on me that the title of CEO is normally applied to either a public company or a private company which is large enough in size to have other executive directors than you require a 'chief' one. I mention this because it is an easy target for criticism when applied to a new company (rightly so); especially when most statements that I do put out should be done by the IR department or the PR staff. But again, I have made a conscious decision to post and make statements myself in line with our company's position.

I think at this point most of Hero's players know my professional background as a former regional marketing director for Stars and a former senior management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers (major accounting/advisory firm), but I do not think I've really shared my intent in taking on this role as the managing head of Hero Poker.

“The Poker Challenge”
In many ways I did hint at it with my very first blog post, 'a poker CEO's challenge: to make a top 5 site in 3 years' or so. It was basically a take on the common poker player blog theme of 'building a bank roll from $10 to 10k or my challenge to go pro in x number of years'. This came out well before 'Black Friday' and both pre and post BF, the task hasn't become any easier or less complex.

I think that it is not possible to build a 10k bankroll from $10 anymore, maybe this was possible 5 years ago, but nowadays, in the game of NLH, players are extremely well educated; especially at the micro stakes where they play nitty abc poker to hone their focus and disciplined. In very much the same way, thinking to establish a new poker site within the last two years or so, would be considered by anyone informed on the subject, an impossible task. Maybe 10 years ago anyone could have taken a shot at it with a minimal level of capital, business network and poker knowledge and had some profitable months. But now, even if you were extremely well funded and had a great management staff, you'd still find it to be a daunting task; so much so that the investment and return wouldn't be worth the risk.

“I Actually Really Love Business”
When I first started my professional career it was as a Korean gov't international analyst for technology which lead into being a negotiator for technology joint ventures/agreements for both development, transfer and commercialization. I enjoyed the job and my biggest achievement was setting up the first long standing R&D cooperative research agreement between Korea and the EU, which has since grown into a permanent relationship. Great job, international travel, gov't agent, great reputation and so on, but I didn't like working with political constraints. Meaning that sometimes the best decision wasn't done because of political considerations - that even if the technological assessment recommended one option, that option may not have been chosen because it was not in line with the political agenda of the gov't, which is nothing exceptional or new, but it didn't sit well with me.

When I had a chance, I applied for a private firm, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and I did feel under qualified, even with my academic background and experience. PwC is mainly known as a global accounting giant, the biggest of the big 4 (E&Y, KPMG, Deloitte & PwC) and I applied for the consulting/advisory division. I luckily got in and remember the entire 1 month interview process as clearly as it was yesterday. The one defining question that stood out was when one of the senior partners questioned me, with a sneer, on why did PwC need a business negotiator and one with gov't experience when they were looking for hard nose consultants with pure academic/experience pedigree. And I said, 'if you want another consultant, then I'm not you're man, if you want me someone to add something to this firm, and bring in new contracts and business, then I'm it, otherwise don't waste your time'. I'm sure it was 90% bravo at the time, but I meant it, and I got the position. As far as corporate ambitions, it was pretty much a dream come true because I finally got the opportunity to really engage in what I thought I was talented in and that was business strategy.

“How I got into Poker”
Earlier to this period, most of my close younger friends from my Starcraft days had started to play poker. I was involved with Starcraft, not as a player, but an organizer with the World Cyber Games back in 2000 and 2001. In early 2004, one of my roommates, Elky, asked me to help him get sponsorship with Stars. Up to this point there was only Moneymaker, Isabelle, Lee Jones and I think they had just signed on Greg. So I agreed to help Elky only because he really wanted it and I was basically the only professional business person he knew at the time, but it wasn't like I knew anything about player sponsorships. But I had a gov't trip to Frankfurt at the time and then took a flight to France to attend the first EPT Deauville and the rest is history on Elky's part.

I still remember when Elky was just starting to play and he was trying to teach me and remember opening up 2 tables on PS to learn with my $20 transferred bankroll and Elky looks at me and says, 'no no no' and opens up 2 more tables and says start from there. Well, I was just an average gamer, so I'd play all night, get up to $30 on a couple of the tables, start shoving all-in cause I had a mighty stack and lose it all then grind it back up to even by 7am then go to work just exhausted. Calculating my hourly at $0.30 an hour, I realized that I should stick to my gov't day job early on. But I digress.

“Doing What I Do Best: Business Strategy”
When you're a management consultant at a pure management consultant firm, you usually only work for a couple of years then move on to a senior executive position in one of the firms you've been consulting for (getting scouted). Very rarely do you stay on, simply because the work load is just non-stop. Most people have a misconception that consultants are called in to fix problems, that really isn't the case. They are called in when a company is in a period of growth or new business (thus the company can justify the cost of the consultants). When a company is going under, they call in the accountants and bankers to get an idea of what is the true value of the assets and liabilities in how to distribute them and shut things down with the least amount of cost. An accounting firm, however, is structured more like a law firm partnership, so going for partner is really a good option as the higher up you go, the less day to day operational work you do and your pay gets increased quite dramatically.

I think I always had a corporate chip on my shoulder, even after I got into PwC, because I had this ego about my own 'talent' in business strategy and truth be told, I don't think I had the courage to really go for the specialized premier management consultant firms such as McKinsey or Bain. Management consultancy is very much a professional 'trade', in that, each firm has their own set of processes in how they approach a project. For PwC, as mainly an accountancy firm, there was much more of a conservative approach by focusing on benchmarking and bring a client company to the best practices of the industry. So basically trying to bring companies up to speed and reduced inefficiencies, whereas in the premier management firms, they would suggest strategies whereby the firm could gain market position or enter into new markets.
I think every management consultant will say that most of us were all hacks; sure everyone was very quick thinking with a high degree of analytic ability, but much of what we proposed was adapted from a previous proposal from a different client, which had been revised about 5 times over or more. But that didn't mean that there was a real need to adapt strategies to what was going on now.

“Business Strategy is Warfare”
I don't think many people who do business even understand what is 'business strategy', people think they do, but really have no clue. I would think this is one of the first points that differentiate someone who is professionally train or not. The easiest analogy that I've always given to interns to illustrate the difference is the conflict you always see in Vietnam war movies: the conflict between the battle harden Sergeant (operations) who is one his 4th tour of duty and the newbie Lieutenant (Strategy) who just graduated from West Point and doesn't have enough sense to keep his helmet on all the time. Yes, the Sergeant knows how to survive, win the fight, shoot better, keep morale up, without the Sergeant, the entire platoon wouldn't last a week. But even if the Sergeant’s platoon wins every fight, they may never come any closer to winning the war.
For most businesses, having a great Sergeant (operations) is 95% of the time enough, but when the situation is very complex, then you need a strategy. Thus the Lieutenant is able to coordinate (in theory) his platoon to strike at key points that have an overall affect on enemy communications, momentum and choke points, he has not only the big picture view, but definite plan which still is in place even if the platoon loses battles or position. The strategy is something that occurs on multiple levels and is not just about the enemy in front of the platoon, but targets the enemy's ability to fight (operate) which is never affected by simply just winning a battle, but winning the key battles that further the strategic objective (of course these things both happen in conjunction and strategy is also necessary to increase own's operational efficiency).

“Time in Stars”
When I took on the senior business development role in Stars back in 2007, we had the objective to enter into and create the market in Asia. At that time Stars had zero brand recognition among local markets, when I mean zero I mean zero, because poker itself wasn't big at all back then. The first year of the APPT saw most players come from overseas or expats who lived in Asia participating. In the first 2 years at working at Stars I took a total of 3 days off where I didn't do any work whatsoever. The strategic objective of what we wanted to do was close to impossible in its scope and I knew this when I was brought on to the team. Of course I didn't say so.

It is a funny thing that only Asians who live outside of Asia refer to themselves as Asian. You never hear the Japanese, Korean or Chinese person say, in Asia, that they are Asian. No we are Japanese, Korean and Chinese. There really is no 'Asian' market, because the markets really are completely separate from one another. I won't get into the strategy of what we did at Stars other than we did accomplish the goal/scope and in these markets. In these markets, there is no try, either you succeed or you fail, there is no surviving in these markets and we did succeed and I did make ultimately make the winning strategy. Working for Stars and with the people was 100% the highlight of my professional career in terms of achievement at that point, no matter the hours or effort or travel. I really have only positives to say about Stars and it was great working for them and having the executive support and opportunity to really do something at that level.

I don't think most people can fathom the achievement of what Stars did in Asia with such diverse markets such as Macau, Taiwan & Japan and like I said, foreign companies in these markets either succeed or fail, and the percentage for failure obviously is very high with even companies such as Ebay or Walmart exiting some of these markets. So here I was, 2010, top of the food chain in Asia and among a lot of local industry insiders, they gave me the nickname, 'the golden goose', i.e. the fat Korean guy who came out of nowhere and set up poker in East Asia as if it were a walk in the park. Of course it wasn't a walk in the park as hard as I had worked, so did the staff and Stars did give a lot of unfaltering support and faith in the project as a whole. But, it had taken a toll on my marriage as I hadn't seen my wife for months at a time and my overall health, but I had basically achieved what I personally thought was impossible to begin with, establishing poker in East Asia. When I took stock of all this, I still felt as though I didn't really hit my potential. I didn't feel as though this was my last destination.

“One Life to Live”
I love business and specifically business strategy and with much soul searching I wanted to take one more step up and go for it. I've always felt, you have one life and you might as well live without regret. I wanted to explore a path that would still push me to my limits in this area. I could have stayed at Stars, but my value was really in Asia and to take a different role in the organization would have been a step down, so after a lot of thought, I resigned. I resigned without securing a new position, but I did have a nearly confirmed position in totally different field of private equity. But in retrospect, I was quite naive in that the field of private equity wasn't anything to do with my skill set of strategic management and I was basically told to take an investment banking role for at least 1 year then I'd be reconsidered. To which I'm sure a lot of people would still jump at the chance of it.
Well, the last thing I wanted to do was be an entry level investment banker for a year and I realized that it wasn't going to be a good fit any way. I wanted to really put myself to the ultimate test and that is to start a company in a highly competitive market. Obviously that was going to be poker, because of my background and because I had investors wanting me to do that as well when they found out I was 'out on the market'. That being said, I did also do research on an MMA promotion, but obviously this was the strongest field for me.

“I Live for this Job”
My job as head of Hero Poker is about 5 times harder than it was at Stars and I'm sure it is 5 times harder than if I had taken any other VP or senior director or even CEO position at another established gaming company. And I absolutely love it because it is stressful and complex. Some days I'm up for 24 hours straight, other days it’s an effort to get up because there is something I haven't quite figured out yet and I know it will be another full day of banging my head against a wall to sort out a solution. But every day I work is a day that I have no regrets.
I'm sure at this point I know nearly everything one needs to know about the poker industry from branding to set-up to promotions and I could go head to head with anyone on the subject and come out on top. But that really is besides the point. I love my job, I love the fact that we were not just the underdog but we weren't even worth considering by most of the industry when we launched. I appreciate each and every player that we have and I'm proud that Hero is even an option for them to play on.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have all the answers, and I work hard at preparing and figuring things out. I have my share of constant sleepless nights and waiting to see if my strategy holds firm, then reassessing, forcing myself not to react, but keep focused and on point. But I know that I'm doing something that nearly almost anyone else in my position would have not done and that is go for it and continue to live my life as a challenge. In much the same way, that is the Hero brand.

“Hero…”
Hero is the Hero in poker who makes the right call (even if the results don't always play out in the short term) who learns and doesn't play above their bankroll, but also doesn't shy away to move up limits. A hero who goes in guns blazing isn't the hero, that is the dead bankrupt fish, and the hero isn't the nit that only knows how to play abc poker and doesn't take the game as a challenge, but rather as a chore. A Hero in poker is one that makes decisive and deliberate choices, they know why they made that choice and make the move with authority. In much the same way, a brand as just an image or cool idea, is just that, superficial, but I think what makes Hero stand out is that I am very much managing the company in the way of what we hope to represent as a company.

“Not the Easy Path Here”
We aren't taking the easiest or most obvious path but are taking the right path in our estimation of capabilities and resources, and yes, we are pushing it to the limits here. No doubt that being on these types of forums is a double edged sword, no doubt the obvious paths are the simplest and no doubt the time for launching a new poker site was over 5 years ago. But that doesn't mean it can't be done and done with heart by being out there.

“If I were a professional poker pro”
In much the same way a professional poker player is stating on their blog what makes them tick, what is their mentality and insight into why they have made the decisions they have made, this blog entry is very much in line with that.
I was quite deliberate with my wording and I'm not going to embarrass about using the word 'heart' as I am passionate about business, about this industry, our players and our future. In as much as you the player goes for it, I want our players to know that this 'CEO' is going for it as hard as you the player goes for every win, but on the business side.

We're not going to be the biggest site, but for our players, we will strive to be the best and one day being the 'premier boutique online poker site' will be more than just a marketing tag line. We're not there yet and there is so much left to do, but this blog post is just letting you know the 'why' and I think that it does matter.

Regards,
David Jung


Cliffs:
-Just wanted to share a personal insight on how I got to be the Hero Poker CEO, much like the same way a player would share how they became a poker player
-Lots of unnecessary side information on what I find important, namely business strategy, apologies if it is very basic obvious info.
-Again, written more of a personal blog entry but of course coming from the view of an poker industry exec


"There is nothing impossible to him who will try"
Alexander the Great

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Comments (6)

1. EXISTING PROMOTIONAL UPDATES
Triumvirate Hero $100 Daily – US & CANADA ONLY
“To the victor goes the spoils”
The point of this tournament is that it is only top 3 that pay out and this will not change. It is a daily shot of getting back in the game. Not for the feeble hearted.

-Triumvirate Hero $100 Daily has been modified to include Canada
-Blinds have been reduced to 8mins from 10mins
-Break is now synchronized at 55min on the hour

Tournament Details:
-Client Location: Tournaments: Scheduled: Special
-7pm PST, 10pm EST (21:00 Game Server Time)
-6 handed, 8min blinds (antes), 3,000 starting chips
-Top 3: $50, $30, $20
-Registration: 1 hour before, no late registration
-300 Max Players


2. NEW DAILY PROMOTION
MTT Hero $99 Daily – US & CANADA ONLY
“Heroes make their own Destiny: Go MTT or Cash”
This tournament provides $11 in cash for each of the top 9 finishers.
This $11 can be used for cash games or for a tournament buy-in for many of the daily guaranteed tournaments or as a satellite for the $109 entry 100k Sunday Guarantee. This is meant to be just a stepping stop for an MTT Hero. Players can opt just to use it as cash as is.

Tournament Details:
-Client Location: Tournaments: Scheduled: Special
-4pm PST, 7pm EST (18:00 Game Server Time)
-9 handed, 5 min blinds (antes), 5,000 starting chips
-Top 9: $11 each
-Registration: 2 hours before, no late registration
-300 Max Players

3. GENERAL CEO THOUGHTS
Moving forward, I’ve decided to write these monthly updates as the CEO. While I have no need to do monthly revenue calls or issue public investor updates and take calls with analysts, I do feel that as a young company that each and everyone of our players is like a shareholder for the future of this company. In many respects I think that analogy does hold true simply because the way poker is set up as a communal game as well as the direct issues of player balances and liquidity. That being said, the main focus of these monthly updates will be to give clarification on promotions and market activity as well as my own rational for doing so. Of course I welcome all feedback from our players, but the object of this Player’s Update is more for reporting purposes than an open discussion as there will be areas where due to the competitive nature of the industry I will not be able to comment or invite further analysis on.

Tournament FreeRoll Promotions:
Apologies for the late update and due to feed back, these tournaments are now all synchronized at 55min past the hour. There are a few criteria that I have when making these promotions:
For Freeroll type promotions I want to engage players who enjoy player poker more than anything else. Also, I want the prize to also be worth something. Now for the most part, these types of promotions will make freeroll scavengers quite annoyed, but I feel for the poker enthusiast, it gives them an additional option to practice and enjoy during their regular game play.
So, what I’d like to do is, every couple of months, introduce a new daily promotion and tweak the existing ones. Why I like daily regular promotions is that I want our players to know that any day they feel like it, these online events will be there for them.
To that end you’ll find that in order to achieve this I’ve:
1. capped max player numbers, limited registration period
2. increased normal starting chip size, and
3. created unique payout structures

Engaging Canada:
We will gently being promoting to Canada throughout the summer. In some ways with Stars and FTP focusing internationally and specifically on Europe, our tournament schedule becomes the biggest advantage we have. That being said, bringing value to Canadian players is very difficult because it is very much a pre-Black Friday situation where Hero compared to Stars/FTP is quite mismatched on a client side. But Hero does benefit from all the payment solution options in Canada and as the Sunday 100k continues to overlay each week, we feel that that is obvious EV. Also the two daily promotions are now open to Canadian players.

VIP System:
I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the VIP system structure is fine, but I will be more exact in the ranges of return. Meaning that I’m going to tweak the rake back equivalent percentages and be as transparent as I can about why and where. There are basically 3 aspects that create the total value of the system: a. each tournament ticket per level, b. divisional class instant cash and c. divisional class play through bonus. Essentially I have guidelines from the new Merge standard VIP system to work with and I think it is very generous at the top level, so I will adjust accordingly over the week. Keep in mind that many of these things could be instantly done, if, I wasn’t also constrained by internal network policies, of course, Merge has been more than reasonable and flexible etc, and I in turn wish to respect the policies in place; so some further creative thinking needs to be put in place. But this has been long overdue, my hesitation was in considering to re do the entire system, but I feel the initial founding principles are still valid, except that they need to be scaled up for more of a mature market.

Concluding Thoughts:
The players on Hero probably represent the highest degree of diversity of player types as we were not focused on attracting grinders. While we do have some high volume players, these players are more attracted to the fact they can email the CEO for mental reassurance that things are fine rather than being in a situation where they are locked out from support with no communication. I think at any time we could run a rake race, but at this point, I’d rather allocate that monthly capital to looking at new markets. Again, players may fundamentally question, why should Hero do this, of course it is good for the network, but why Hero. And I say, for us our value/equity is in the long term and what name we make for ourselves now. As with any network effect business model, once a certain level of growth or development is established, it creates its own ongoing value (virtuous circle: basically good will, will in turn, breed good will). June-August are traditionally the slower months of our industry, but it is also a good chance for Hero to really set the framework for the last quarter of 2011 and for the entirety of 2012. Unfortunately, there are no plans in place to re-enter into the American market.

On behalf of Hero Poker and our Pros: Gavin, Terrence, James, Daniel, David & Julian. We wish you the best of luck at WSOP and an enjoyable start to the summer.

Best Regards,
David Jung
Hero Poker CEO

Cliffs:
-daily promotion breaks synchronized
-new one added: MTT Hero, top 9 get $11 each
-Open to now Canadian players
-CEO general thoughts: just approaching things as if players were shareholders and will do monthly reporting on that end to keep players in the loop from a promotional stand point

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