As many of you know, I recently made the decision to get back to being a 100% entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is something I have always had a passion for and one of the virtues in my life that I am most proud of. Although being your own boss is fun, it also comes with the responsibility of ensuring success in your chosen businesses. Although I have several new projects in the que, my recent soft launch of PokerAffiliateListings.com has proven thus far to be a success.
I wanted to share from a personal standpoint on why I believe this “soft launch” has been so successful, as well as exactly what I have done to make it successful . Hopefully other entrepreneurs reading this article can take some good advice and information from my experience.
For starters, the site is only about 10% launched. The forums are essentially the only part of PAL that is live right now. So as you can imagine, my main focus behind the scenes is on getting the main site prepared. The private / invite only forums are a concept that is completely new to the poker affiliate industry, and one that I have been thinking about for several years. This concept allows a small group of top producing and ethical affiliates to come together in a private community where we can share great dialogue and conversations. The only way new members can join is by being invited by other quality affiliates.
This new concept to the poker affiliate industry will ensure the integrity of my personal site and community, which is paramount to me. Whenever I put my name on something, I will settle for nothing less than excellence.
Since getting started in the poker affiliate industry almost six years ago (I know, that makes me a dinosaur), I have worked hard to surround myself and learn from others more successful than me. And at the same time, I have shared my knowledge and spent countless hours helping people less successful than me. Some of these guys I have mentored are now making 10X what I make each month!!! Where do I send the consulting invoices to??? And you ballers know who you are!
But the point is, and I don’t think it’s a big secret, I have busted my ass over the last five years to build my personal brand, guide others to success, and to nurture hundreds of relationships with poker affiliates. Whether it was selling an Ebook in 2005 while corresponding with affiliates on an InvisionBoard forum, or founding what is now the worlds largest poker affiliate network at PAW, I have always made myself available free of charge to help my fellow affiliates.
Can having 300+ contacts on Skype, 100+ on Linked In, 350+ on Facebook, 400+ daily blog readers, and of course 10 different email accounts be cumbersome and time consuming, YES!!! Trust me, my wife won’t even use my laptop because of all the orange skype boxes that pop up every few seconds.
Nonetheless, I attribute this commitment I have had to affiliates over the last half a decade to much of the success I am seeing right now at PAL. I guess it’s like a pay it forward thing, and why I have gotten such good support from my friends in the industry.
It’s crazy, last Thursday when I decided to “soft launch” this new concept of a private invite only forum, I really didn’t know what to expect. Being a viral marketer though, I always realized the concept of “invites” and how sick it can be. In retrospect had I known how successful it would be, I would have waited til Mike was done with the main site, oh well, that’s a good problem to have.
I hit up a few of my closest friends in the industry on Skype, maybe 10 or so and invited them to come over. Every single one of them did, and saw the value in what I was trying to accomplish. And now, a good majority of the growth at PAL has been from you guys inviting other rock star poker affiliates. This is purely a community building itself from within. It’s been a truly amazing thing to witness so far.
I feel after spending some time with both Poker News and PAP over the last couple years, whom by the way I have the utmost respect for both these organizations, that it’s just time for me to get back to being an Entrepreneur / CEO and running my own business, as well as consulting company. Nothing more, nothing less.
Thank-you guys for the continued support in this industry. If you need an invite to the forums at PokerAffiliateListings.com and we know each other, feel free to drop me an email. Although I’d rather you ask one of the other members so our community can further grow from within!
I suppose an “About Me” page is where you would expect to read a third person professional write up on myself. Hmmm…. well that’s not really my style, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you “about me” in my own words. 
