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Why I took on this role as 'CEO' |
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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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patti United States. Sep 12 2011 03:54. Posts 550 | | |
inspirational and truly moving.
i love reading your blog |
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Zep United States. Sep 12 2011 14:12. Posts 2292 | | |
Great write up. You are truly the best at what you do and i wish you future success no matter what happens in the American market. |
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| NeillyJQ: I really wanted to prove to myself I could beat NL200, I did over a small sample, and believe Ill be crushing there in the future. | |
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thanks for blogging. i'm a korean business major myself so i'm finding a lot of your entries relevant
also:
this blog: 2 comments
tutz's asinine gf prank blog: 33 comments
wtf lp |
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@patti @Zep @collegesucks,
Cheers guys, appreciate the comments - it's a rough time for everyone on both sides.
No doubt this is a pivotal point in our industry. |
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Stim_Abuser United States. Sep 14 2011 00:59. Posts 7499 | | | |
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| Hey Im slinging mad volume and fat stackin benjies I dont got time for spellin n shit - skinny pete | |
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Klogon United States. Sep 15 2011 02:47. Posts 158 | | |
Always love your honesty and transparency, man. Great post. |
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