How viable is this idea?

[Squizzel]

So i have been thinking about recently how to best use my current skillset to make some money from poker affiliating. Incase you didnt know, ive been playing poker (mostly 6max cash games) professionally for 2 and a bit years now and have done ok ($200k+ from playing low/midstakes)

I currently run a blog badvariance.com and am thinking about the idea of turning the site into a free poker training site. The idea around it is this:

- Create a free resource of cash game strategy articles. I want to create a "bible" of free content that i believe will turn anyone inexperienced into a winner at low/mid stakes if they follow all my advice.

- Create free training videos of me playing, doing lectures on poker strategy and theroy discussions.

My goal will be to target the site to players who want to improve at poker and are currently loosing, or micro limit players who want to become winners at mid stakes. My goal will be to offer such great content that it will attract links, publicity and traffic.

After i have built up a community, my plan will be to monetize it by offering my community rakeback deals.

What are your thoughts on this as a business model? Odds of success given full commitment by me? Potential income earned from this?

Ive alrady talked to a few people about it, 1 or 2 people who are succesful in the industry and have had mixed opinions on such an idea.

Thanks,

- Andrew

[CorryC]

I think if you follow through with it - then it will work out well. Here is why...

#1 - you are truly helping people, so they will talk about it (links, publicity, word of mouth, traffic)

#2 - they will trust you = go to the rooms you recommend, and take advantage of the rakeback (especially if you include a lot of strategies on why it is so important to have rakeback)

#3 - If you do what your saying, then you could have one of the most useful poker sites on the Internet IMO - and if your honest, then it will show within all the crap that you find now (you might not even need search engines in order to get your traffic) I could see you really excelling with a site like this via social media.


Problems I see...

The only way it could work IMO - is if you did all of the work. You could not outsource anything. I think you would need your name on the site and, I think it would need to be a very personal approach. That would work. That makes it very difficult to scale it out for one. On top of that, it makes the site harder to sell. Then, you are going to have a difficult time when you want some freedom, and dont want to deal with your site.

Most affiliate sites, could be ran on autopilot. This one could not (at least not if you take the approach discussed above).

So I guess you have to ask yourself if thats where you want to spend your time. Sure it might sound good now, but think about a year deep into it. it just depends on your goals and all that. Then again, maybe you disagree with everything I just said and dont think of that as an issue?

So i have been thinking about recently how to best use my current skillset to make some money from poker affiliating. Incase you didnt know, ive been playing poker (mostly 6max cash games) professionally for 2 and a bit years now and have done ok ($200k+ from playing low/midstakes)

I currently run a blog badvariance.com and am thinking about the idea of turning the site into a free poker training site. The idea around it is this:

- Create a free resource of cash game strategy artciles. I want to create a "bible" of free content that i believe will turn anyone inexperienced into a winner at low/mid stakes if they follow all my advice.

- Create free training videos of me playing and doing lectures on poker strategy and theroy discussions.

My goal will be to target this to players who want to improve at poker and are currently loosing, or micro limit players who want to become winners at mid stakes. My goal will be to offer such great content that it will attract links, publicity and traffic. After i have built up a community, my plan will be to monetize it by offering my community rakeback deals.

What are your thoughts on this as a business model? odds of success given full commitment by me? Potential income earned from this?

Ive alrady talked to a few people about it, 1 or 2 people who are succesful in the industry and have had mixed opinions on such an idea.

Thanks,

- Andrew

[Squizzel]

yeah, i agree with everything you just said. Ive been considering doing it for a while, i mean, its something i actually WANT to do because it will be fun for me, not just about the money. Obviously, money is a big motivator though, i probably wouldnt do it for free, but its not something im gonna dislike doing 6 or 12 months down the road.

[Hazo]

Not trying to discourage you - just trying to get a better idea of what you mean. This will be a similar site to Jon's pokertrickz.com?

[CorryC]

yeah, i agree with everything you just said. Ive been considering doing it for a while, i mean, its something i actually WANT to do because it will be fun for me, not just about the money. Obviously, money is a big motivator though, i probably wouldnt do it for free, but its not something im gonna dislike doing 6 or 12 months down the road.

If you think about it - Which obviously you have, it is almost just like a very good personal blog. If you are playing poker seriously anyways, and you are going to blog about it - then why not take it to the next level? Let it evolve to whatever it does, and then adapt. Obviously it will be tons of extra additional time and work, which is something to think about - but if you are going to enjoy it then I think you should go for it. I do believe it will be a big earner if you do it properly.

[Squizzel]

Not trying to discourage you - just trying to get a better idea of what you mean. This will be a similar site to Jon's pokertrickz.com?

same business model yeh.

[MJ]

Tons of room for this business model, most will not work hard enough to take it off or get lazy once it does - so I think the key is in sticking with it.

There is TONS of money to be made off of credibility in this industry yet.

[addz123]

My favourite poker game is the six handed cash games for NL25 and NL50, so i think i'd be your perfect audiece. There was a guy on pokertube of a guy called "dabear" who got a massive following. He id strategy videos of himself playing, but the best thing was that he had such a comical personality that everyone just loved watching him (as well as being good at poker).

So in my opinion, I think if you developed a nice looking website practical for me the user; i would definately watch it. It would add a whole new niche however if you could bring your personality into the videos/make it funny! Obviously you don't need to put on a helium voice when you do it, but just give something extra to the users for watching.

Overall what I'm saying is, there are plenty of pokervideo training sites out there such as brokerstar's which are all good; but by offering me an additional reason to watch your videos (humour) you'll create a whole new market for yourself.

Just my 2 cents; but as i say I do like playing 6 max cash games and a site dedicated to that would be cool.

[Zujo]

Ya this is what I wanted to do with theplayr.com - turn it into a free version of CardRunners. I think a free poker-training site would do very well if the people actually came for training. Though I suspect a lot of the money the paid training site make is from people who pay for the training but don't actually use it all that often - how a lot of subscription based business' make most of their revenue. People who either forgot they signed up or who intend to use the service but never get around to it.

It is definitely worth a shot. Giving something away other people charge for can't be a bad strategy - even if the quality is not as good.

[NickM]

I wanted to do this, but then I realized how much work it would be and I bought some articles instead and paid someone to post them.