Life After Amsterdam

April 9, 2009 – 7:06 pm

Amsterdam has come and gone, and I survived. For those of you who have never ventured to the land of marijuana and prostitution, I highly recommend going there as it truly is a great place. There are plenty of things to do there besides the obvious btw.

With that being said I had a great time at CAC2009. I really can’t say much about the actual conference speaker sessions themselves as I didn’t attend any, but from what I heard they were lackluster. I’m not really sure what affiliates expect they are going to get out of these. Does anyone really think some guy is gonna stand up in front of 200 people and tell “money making secrets”? And as if that’s not bad enough, do they think this guy is going to speak at EVERY SINGLE CONFERENCE and tell awesome tips in every speech? The speaker sessions are for newbies in my opinion, but can also be a great place to network get harassed by affiliate managers.

Anyone who goes to these events knows that it’s all about the networking and hanging out with other affiliates. Some may say they go to work deals with their affiliate managers, but I usually do this over IM prior to the show. If you are thinking about going to a conference, do it. Just don’t expect to learn anything at the sessions that you couldn’t learn from browsing forums.

With that being said…

I am finally back in Denver, CO. I “live” here. Really though, I just pay rent here, travel elsewhere, and make up as many excuses to go back to Atlanta as possible. I am hardly ever in Denver. Why? Mainly because the people I know that live here are always working, and we all know that there is only so much time you can spend on the computer “working” until you get bored.

I’ll probably move back to Atlanta at the end of the summer midway through the summer if anyone wants to rent a room in downtown Denver with a roommate that is only home for about 3 hours per day. It’s the perfect place to get work done if you are into that sort of thing. :-)

Also check out this thread if you are in need of free web design. Check out this thread if you want to go to Vegas for the $1k WSOP event at the end of May. I will be there as well as some other affiliates…hopefully.

By JohnH | Posted in Personal | Comments (3)

Words of Wisdom - CAC Amsterdam - CAL NCAA Bracket

March 16, 2009 – 9:54 pm

First off… I’d like to lie and say that I’m sorry for not posting lately.

The past month or so has been one of leisure with a few stints of work. Due mostly to spending the past few months with minimal human interaction, I worked myself into a state of depression. Nothing is worse than being confined to your own thoughts for weeks at a time. At first I thought I was just bored, but after many hours/days of snowboarding, mountain biking, and dirtbiking all over the rocky mountains I came to the conclusion that boredom had nothing to do with it.

In a moment of clarity, I realized that doing all the fun stuff in the world is pretty lame if you do it by yourself all the time. If you’ve ever seen the movie Into the Wild you know what I am saying. Pretty much it’s about a guy who goes and lives in the woods in Alaska(which was his lifelong dream). (Spoiler alert) After he dies, his diary is discovered and it read “Happiness is nothing unless shared”  or something along those lines. You can surround yourself with the coolest toys, the best scenery, the most amazing whatever, and eventually you realize that none of that shit matters whatsoever. It’s all about people.

On another note… I remember Tim Ferris talking about how bored he was when he would do a “mini-retirement” and how disappointing it must be for people who work their whole life only to be bored as hell when they retire. I might be starting to sound like a broken record, but how could anyone ever work 9-5 every day for 40 years just to “do whatever the fuck you want to do” when you are old. I say do what you want now. You only live once. When you are laying on your death bed you are gonna wish you weren’t such a suit your entire life.

I dunno. Maybe it’s just me. I’m an entrepreneur. I can’t work for someone else. My brain is wired differently than most peoples. In fact, I am willing to bet that there is someone reading this right now that thinks I’m a total dumbass. I hope so, because that’s one less person I have to compete against.

About a month ago I was in San Francisco for Elite Retreat. I met a ton of great people at this conference. So much so that I had to go back and question what the hell I am doing on a daily basis. Gary Vaynerchuk gave us a keynote that was pretty motivating. Pretty much he talked about how if you are doing something that you don’t love, then you are fucked (exact words from his mouth). Someone is out there working harder than you because they love it more than you.

I asked myself, “Do you love Poker? Do you love Casinos?” the answer is not really. But what I do love is developing websites, building their traffic, testing different things and determining what makes the most money. It’s a game, and it’s one that I love to play all day long, everyday.

What’s Next

I plan to continue to develop websites in a wide variety of niches. It’s something I really enjoy doing from start to finish. I’ll be at the CAC event in Amsterdam at the end of this month working deals with affiliate managers smoking marijuana and networking drinking with other affiliates. Hopefully I come back alive, although there is a solid chance we all get robbed and raped since our method of finding a room seems like we are asking for it http://amsterdam.craigslist.org/hou/1077921851.html LMAO

Also, I plan on dominating the CasinoAffiliateListings.com NCAA Tournament bracket this month. Jeremy is giving away dual monitors and $250 in cash. Although I am not a college basketball fan at all, I feel that this is something that requires no logical thought process at all. The biggest basketball fans will get burned while an amateur, such as me, will win the whole thing.

That’s all for now. Next up will be a recap of the CAC trip complete with videos, interviews, and tales of debauchery.

By JohnH | Posted in Motivation | Comments (3)

Welcome New Readers

January 8, 2009 – 3:54 pm

It seems there has been a lot of googling of my name after I explained my business to some friends this past week. Welcome creepers!

By JohnH | Posted in Personal | Comments (1)

Ballin Out of Control With Sub Affiliates

January 8, 2009 – 12:55 pm

Check out this super baller screenshot of what my sub affiliates did in 2008. Truly amazing.

Click here to be amazed.

If I could only get 1,000 sub affiliates that were this awesome.

By JohnH | Posted in Funny | Comments (1)

2009 Officially Starts Now

January 7, 2009 – 2:02 am

After a stint back home for the holidays and a weekend in Breckenridge celbrating the new year, it is finally time to get back to work. The last few weeks of the year and the first week of the new year are probably my most unproductive times work wise. Everyone is slacking at this time of year. It’s finally time to get back on the grind. I have a lot to do in 2009. Did that rhyme?

A brief little recap of my goals for 08:

Grow current network’s traffic - CHECK
Sell ads on my sites to boost income and make it more consistent. - DUMB IDEA
Diversify into a non-poker related industry - CHECK (helped my dad launch a guitar lesson membership site, and yes it makes money)
Move downtown - CHECK (moved to downtown Denver, right next to Coors Field)
Buy a new car - CHECK (Bought a 07 F-150 Lariat , not my exact truck but pretty much identical)
Enjoy life - CHIZECKKKKK

In 2008 I went from parking cars until 4AM to working from home whenever I please. I moved to Denver which has allowed me to skateboard all the time, snowboard whenever, and mountain bike every now and then. Life is good. Best of all, I don’t have to slave for some dipshit anymore. I do it for myself.

LOL at those weak goals! Seriously. The goals for 2009 are much harder to accomplish. I must have been up late or something when I wrote those 08′ goals because they remind me of my homework in highschool when I would half ass it as the teacher was collecting it.

Anwyays, here are the goals for 2009:

Hmmmmm…

  1. Make $100,000 in one month. Definitely possible with as much Casino affiliate action on the horizon.
  2. Make over $1,000,000 in 2009… Anything is possible.
  3. Buy a house/condo and hopefully get a great deal on it thanks to the current economic state of the US.
  4. Rank #1 for the term slots OR online slots. :-)
  5. Buy into a few sites as a partner. (If you want a partner on a project email me)
  6. Take the Fingerstyle Guitar Lessons site to 2,000+ members. (Possible/guaranteed if one of the videos goes viral). I’ll probably end up doing it via PPC ads.
  7. Climb 10 14′ers.
  8. Get on this level. I’m gettin there.
  9. Get into the PPC game and have a few successful campaigns.
  10. Leave the US for 30 days.

I think those should keep me busy for the next 12 months. Right?

By JohnH | Posted in Motivation | Comments (5)

Rotate the Work Load

December 18, 2008 – 12:42 am

Never Forget

I was chatting with the Poker Affiliate Extraordinaire the other day, and our conversation turned to what the best way was to manage your time between projects. If you only have one project it’s simple, but if you have 10, 20, or 100 it can be pretty tough.Some affiliates like to work on a ton of things at once, dividing their day up like a day of classes. Each hour is a different subject. This isn’t the best way to do things IMO.

I have come to the conclusion that working on several different projects at once sucks because you usually end up half-assing all of them. What I have found to work the best has been to focus 100% of your efforts on one project for a week or so and then rotate you to the next thing. This way you don’t feel like you are in ten different places at once.

It just makes sense. Give one project your 100% attention. I am a big fan of grinding it out on a project for a week or two and then moving on to the next thing. While I am working on the next thing, Google is crawling links and indexing pages and sorting things out. Once a little time has passed I’ll usually go back and work on the site for round two. It’s like a second wind.

Working on the same site continuously is frustrating because it takes time for the bots to crawl pages and backlinks and get the rankings sorted. Why not just get some good content written, point a few good links at it, and move on to the next? In a week or two things will be sorted out with crawling and whatnot, and you’ll be pumped up to work on that site again.

Also, it is important every few months to go back to older sites and make some changes. It sucks to let established sites get outdated, and all it takes is a solid days work to go back and update some pages and tweak a few things to keep it so fresh and so clean. I like to go back and switch up title and h1 tags on old pages to see if I can’t get them to jump up in the rankings. Usually it’s some strategy page that gets decent traffic, but doesn’t do much else. If this is the case I try to throw in a few calls to action in the page that could get some clicks. After all, that’s what that page is there for. It’s not there for people to actually read and enjoy. ;-)

By JohnH | Posted in Affiliate Tips | Comments (2)

Why Doesn’t Anyone Say This?

December 16, 2008 – 4:05 pm

With the recent catastrophe that the US economy has become, I am starting to wonder if my money will be worth anything in the coming years. Hopefully these bailouts will work, if not then I guess we’re all fucked thanks to a few idiots at the reigns. I know that the people will be paying for these bailouts for years and years to come. This has me a little pissed off.

The reason I am pissed off is because the US Government refuses to allow a multi-billion dollar industry to operate and be taxed in the United States. Yes I am talking about online gambling. The government earmarked the Safe Port act to pass the UIGEA, which tried to block gambling related transactions from US banks. Thousands of people continue to play poker and gamble online daily, and all that money goes in and out untaxed.

Why not allow online gambling and regulate/tax it? Doesn’t that make sense? It would also create new jobs, as the Las Vegas casinos would expand their operations to the web.

Some argue that many Americans would lose their house to gambling, like that slogan says, “You click your mouse you lose your house”. I say half the country is already losing their house anyways, so what difference does it make? Might as well have a little fun while you lose your house. Not to mention that we are still allowed to fly to Vegas for $200 and extend a line of credit all the while guzzling free drinks. No one seems to give a shit about that.

Oh well, I guess I’ll go smoke cigarettes, drink wild turkey, go to Vegas, get a credit line, lose all that money, get an abortion, become addicted to prescription pills, and play $50 scratch off lotto tickets until they do something about the fucked up situation with the billions and billions of dollars being spent on bailouts. Hey, at least no one is playing online poker right?

Play Poker at Aced.com
:-)

/rant

By JohnH | Posted in News | Comments (5)

Vegas Meet Up. That’s a Wrap

December 15, 2008 – 7:31 pm

Fresh off of my first trip to Vegas, I can safely say that it is one of the funnest places on earth. The consultants at Aced are the coolest guys to hang with, and are treated like royalty there. It’s really a top notch operation. Aside from all the debauchery I will talk about below, we actually did have a very productive meeting where a ton of great suggestions were brought up for the up and coming poker site. If you don’t promote this site, you should.

These guys treated us to the best weekend I could have hoped for. Dinner at Nobu was absolutely amazing. What was even more amazing was the baller status we had everywhere we went.

Also, big shout out to the Spearmint Rhino girls. One girl specifically (Candy) who is probably on some tropical island bathing in hundred dollar bills thanks to JE. I think I paid “Shorty’s” car payment, and it was fun as hell. Props to Jeremy for getting $100 in ones within the first five minutes at the club. Truly classic.

Also I have made my break through onto the pro Let It Ride circuit. My “Let It Ride mentor” Brandon has showed me what it takes to excel at this game. I can only hope to one day have as much poise as he does when he plays “The Game”.

I did manage to pull some blackjack winnings just before leaving the casino which made up for Friday night at the Spearmint Rhino. I also took a theoretical 2nd place in our private tourney which scored me a cool $500 courtesy of Aced.

I would also like to brag about this amazing model search party that we attended Friday and Saturday night in the penthouse at the hard rock. Here are a few pics, I think they pretty much sum it up.

Wardrobe Malfunciton?

Wardrobe Malfunction?

Graham get’s this photo credit.

It’s a good thing I am not a multi-millionaire yet, because if I had access to a suite like this I would probably be the biggest degen ever. What’s better than a hot tub in your suite? A hot tub right next to a stripper pole.

This Room has Potential.

This Room has Potential.

What is Missing Here?

What is Missing Here?

To top it all off I got to bust off some fully automatic shots from a M249 SAW and 9mm Uzi. Of course I did it in true ATL fashion, picking the target that no one else would pick. Good ol’ #6.

Break yo'self fool!

Break yo'self Fool

Graham get’s this photo credit as well.

Once again shout outs to Shorty, Desire, Star, Skyy, Phoenix, Serendipity, Precious, and of course CANDY!

I would also like to thank everyone at Aced.com for giving me my first trip to Vegas. It’s all downhill from here.

By JohnH | Posted in News | Comments (4)

New Site

December 11, 2008 – 2:02 am

As if I don’t have enough things going on at once, I have started a new site. This time it’s a real site. Brandable, and pretty bad ass so far.

Check it out at PokerSpoils.com

Give me some feedback as well. I will eventually post it for the sharks at PAL but until then comment on it here.

PS - Yea I haven’t posted in a while. That’s what happens when you work on new projects during the week and snowboard all weekend. ;-)

By JohnH | Posted in News | Comments (3)

How to Kill a Tribe

November 24, 2008 – 11:56 pm

I was reading the Tribes Q&A the other day and came across an interesting question that was relevant as to what is going on over at PokerAffiliatePrograms.com

Q:  What are the top mistakes leaders make that kill their tribes?
A:  Mistakes are not terrible and mistakes will not necessarily kill your tribe. The key is to recognize that you have made a mistake, learn from it, and not repeat it. When a leader focuses so much energy on not making a mistake to begin with, it creates stress for the leader and the tribe, which leads to hard feelings and lack of enthusiasm.  This emotional turbulence can kill a tribe sooner than any mistake could.
Characteristics and actions in a leader that can lead to the death of the tribe include:
• Inability to learn from a mistake
• Pitting members against one another
• Forgetting that a tribe has a life of its own rather than existing as an extension of the leader
• Not delegating (“I am the start and finish of all decisions.”)
• Making decisions based on personal agenda rather than on tribal agenda
• Thinking they cannot learn from their members and worse, thinking they know everything
• Taking a command-and-control approach by:
• Limiting or moderating communication within the tribe
• Exercising hierarchical authority
• Conversely, being too passive and standing by as factions form and turf wars take place
• Allowing drama to exist by:
• Listening to and responding to gossip
• Allowing rumors to circulate and grow
• Devoting time, energy, and resources to deal with personal issues or conflicts
• Passively allowing these activities to exist even if they don’t take part

This thread seems like a perfect example of what not to do. Not sure what the strategy behind that ordeal and how it was dealt with was, but it was pretty much a perfect way to get all of the original members of that community to leave and go elsewhere instead of coexist.

By JohnH | Posted in News | Comments (3)