I'm always amazed by the people I've met on the internet. As I'm thinking about this, the majority of the best people I've worked with (and some of my best friends), I've met through non-traditional means. Whether it's the poker community, a referral, social media, I'm constantly surprised at how the internet is able to bring great people together.

I decided to try to formalize this process a little bit. Consider this an experiment. I've created a mailing list that I'm calling "Taylor's Contact List" because I can't think of a better name for it. What this list is is a way for you to add yourself to a database that gives me some information about you.

I don't know exactly how I am going to use it. I will probably post job listings for my companies or info about new businesses or ideas that I'm working on. Maybe it will evolve into something else. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that:

-I will periodically look through the database to see if anyone's CV, website, twitter, etc. is particularly interesting.
-I will not give or sell your information to anyone else without your permission

That's it for now. If you have friends that might be interested in staying in contact with me, feel free to pass this along.

Taylor

Click here to sign up for my contact list: http://bit.ly/TaylorsList

I'm not exactly sure why this blog is turning into a self-help blog. Sorry about that. Feel free to respond in the comments here or tweet at me (@taylorcaby) if you want to discuss.

People like to complain about difficult problems. We all do, it's natural and I guess healthy. I spent some time thinking about some problems I am trying to solve and it dawned on me that difficult problems are a great thing. Of course there are some difficult problems like sickness, poverty, and death that are pretty hard to put a positive spin on, but even those problems motivate people to find improvements which makes the world a better place for many other people.

I've dealt with a lot of difficult problems and the range of emotions is almost always the same. It starts out being being extremely frustrating. I hate not being able to "win" and it drives me crazy when I can't figure something out. Sometimes things get overwhelming and I always think to myself "I need to stop doing this to myself, I could take it easy and just live a simple life without too much stress or hassle." Inevitably, I either solve the problem or it resolves itself in some relatively satisfactory way. At some point in the future I look back and think "that wasn't so bad, I feel like I'm a stronger person for having made it through that."

The reason difficult problems are so great is that they come with huge rewards. If something in life is easy, it's generally pretty boring. I know of few exceptions. You don't get any sort of reward out just coasting through something without difficulty. Whether the reward is financial or emotional or some combination of the two, attaining it is an awesome feeling that keeps any competitive person coming back for more. I think we all need to focus more on embracing and accepting challenges rather than looking at them as a roadblock or as a reason to not challenge themselves.

This really started to hit me as I have been thinking about some problems we have been trying to solve at DraftDay. I think the big ones are among the hardest I have ever faced in my life. How do you get people to look at an entire industry a different way? How do you get people to look at fantasy games as short term contests as opposed to season-long games? It took me a few years to really believe that this change will happen. I'm generally a very early adopter, so I know it's going to be a fight to bring the masses in.

We are working on some improvements that will hopefully help speed up this process. During some meetings yesterday we kept saying "wow, this is really hard." It is hard, it's really fucking hard to figure out the best way to solve this stuff. That is a beautiful thing though, I want some of these problems to be as difficult as possible because the reward will be that much greater. This makes it harder for other people to compete with us and makes it more likely that the shift in people's tastes hasn't happened yet because the right formula hasn't been found to shift the tastes -- not because I'm wrong and this fantasy sports format isn't superior.

As an entrepreneur, if the problems you are facing aren't difficult (and I mean really difficult) then you might as well do something else. If it's easy, the reward won't be large enough or someone more sophisticated will come in and crush you. You have to be looking where other people aren't at problems that are really difficult to solve. You might not succeed, but when you do the rewards will be massive and you don't have to be right every time, you just have to be right once.

Cliffs: If a problem is difficult, embrace it, you're on the right path. If you fail, try again.

During the holidays I always try to reflect on the year that was. I usually do a recap of the past year and some analysis on whatever happened. This post is going to be a little different. 2011 was such a clusterfuck of a year that I am just going to talk about the most important thing I learned and the reason I was able to learn it.

In the past, I used to read just about everything I could possibly read about the poker industry. As a result of this, I am sure that I know more about the online poker industry than all but a handful of people in the world. From 2007 to early 2011, when I wasn't working on something specific for CardRunners or Hold'em Manager, I was reading a poker forum, news site, blog, or playing poker. I was also of course totally consumed with playing poker from 2003-2007. If you spend more time than anyone else doing something, you're going to become knowledgeable about it.

This time last year, we were working pretty hard getting DraftDay off the ground. I came to the conclusion that in order to give DD it's best chance at success, I needed to grow the audience of people listening to me. I reasoned that if a lot of people were listening to what I said, I could sell them on the concept of DraftDay when we got to launch. It wasn't practical to pump out blog posts daily, so I decided that I needed to get active on Twitter. I found last year's New Year's Resolution thread on 2p2, you can read my post in January of last year that highlighted this as one of my goals for 2011.

An interesting thing happened next. I got on Twitter to achieve the aforementioned goal, but I got a whole lot more out of it than I could have imagined. I quickly moved on from following poker celebs and started following entrepreneurs, investors, news sites, and tech types. Over the course of the last year, I grew much more interested in learning about business than the poker industry. While I still spend time reading about poker, the vast majority of my time is spent reading other things. I spend about 3-4 hours per day, 7 days a week, reading things on the internet.

A whole different post could be dedicated to the idea that I made a major change in my life almost completely by chance due to a new year's resolution (poker industry study -> general business study). I find that fascinating but that is not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that thanks to the time spent on Twitter, sometime during the course of the year, I came across this 45 second video of Steve Jobs' vision of the world.


You should quickly watch that. If not, the most important quote is "...Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it.."

I think I had an intuitive understanding of this concept before I listened to this video, but watching this drove it home for me. I definitely didn't understand this when I was younger. It's really a brilliant piece of advice from Jobs. Here are some stream of consciousness thoughts about this video:

Go out there and take what you want from the world. Apply yourself, work hard, work smart, have fun, and enjoy the ride. If there is something out there you want, fight for it. Don't sit around and complain about not having money, a good job, a girlfriend, whatever is bothering you. Have confidence in yourself, believe that you can succeed at whatever it is you want to achieve. Don't be lazy, don't waste your time sulking or being unhappy. Life is short, don't waste it, and for the love of god, don't give up.

This is a powerful concept to grasp. I'm going to put it into action. I've made an impact on the poker industry but I am not going to stop there. I want to change the fantasy sports industry. We are going to do that with DraftDay. After that, I don't know what is next but there will be something else, hopefully something bigger and better. I am going to bust my ass to carve out the life that I want to lead. Sure, I'm going to fail along the way, but I'm not afraid of failure. I'm ready for the challenges that lie ahead and I'm looking forward to beginning to change the fantasy sports world in 2012.

There's been some movement lately in the online gaming industry, with various 'powers that be' planning for a government regulated industry. Most recently, Donald Trump and Marc Lasry announced a joint venture to eventually enter the industry together. It was nice to see Mr. Lasry supporting the case for internet gambling regulation, he's well-connected and respected, smart, and in my few interactions with him, a genuine guy. In short, he's a guy you want on your side of the fight.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2011/10/31/the-billionaires-betting-on-internet-gambling/

I saw this article posted to Forbes.com today and for whatever reason, the first sentence got me to thinking about business success and staying ahead of the curve. It reads "Two years ago Richard Bronson, a former Mirage Resorts executive, came to the conclusion that the Internet would be the next big thing in the casino Industry."

While the sentence is partially stating the obvious so the uninformed know what's going on, it reinforced something in my mind. Apparently "two years ago" Richard Bronson realized that the internet was the next big thing in online gaming. Let me tell you something, I realized that the internet was the next big thing in gaming in roughly 2003. I am no genius, I just happened to love poker and be young and tech savvy enough to naturally turn to the internet to play. It was pretty obvious to me and many in my generation of players that this was going to be "a thing." The evolution of the poker industry is representative of what happens across many industries, and there is something everyone can learn from it.

It goes like this. A group of people find business success. These people often get wildly rich. They tend to see things "their way," after all, they are the ones who were smart enough to become rich, their worldview (industry view) must be correct. For awhile, they are probably right. They have the money, infrastructure, and influence to beat down competitors and reap large economic gains. Then, something changes. Typically these are new technologies or changing tastes (demand) in consumers. The problem for the powers that be are that it usually starts on a small scale.

Here's how it played out in the poker industry. There were a few random online poker websites in the late 1990's that attracted mostly computer/tech enthusiast types. I doubt any casino executives were even aware of these sites until the early 2000's as there were literally only hundreds of regular users at this time. By 2003, there were a handful of sites including PartyPoker, PokerStars, and Ultimate Bet that were doing collectively probably a few hundred million in revenue. Then, thanks in part to Chris Moneymaker and the WPT, internet poker exploded and was a multi-billion dollar industry only a few years later. While no one could have predicted the success of Moneymaker or the WPT, a reasonable person could have predicted that broadband internet and a computer savvy generation of children coming of age would have an impact on many "brick and mortar" only businesses. The 'powers that be' in the gaming industry totally dropped the ball here.

By the time 2005 rolled around it was arguably too late for the casinos to do anything. They were not companies that knew the least bit about running an online gaming business, much less an online business of any type. In order to seriously compete at this point, they would have needed to come up with a ton of money (and take big risk at this point) to acquire one of the big private companies that was having success. They all decided to spend their time and money lobbying against internet gaming in order to try to shut out the companies that now had billion dollar valuations and the means to compete for gambling dollars. Had they decided to enter the industry in 2002, they probably could have beaten down the competitors and also made sure the laws were on their side through their powerful lobbies.

Many of you have heard this story before so I'm not expecting to be telling people something they don't know. What I am hoping people can learn from this blog post is that as an entrepreneur it important to recognize this phenomenon. You almost have to develop a paranoia about "what could disrupt" your business or industry. You must spend time and money investigating seemingly unimportant, small innovations. You must think about what is coming years ahead as opposed to what exists now, or god forbid, what existed a few years ago. You must be relentless in thinking about these things, it can't be something that feels like a job otherwise you are going to get your ass kicked by people who truly enjoy spending all day thinking about what could someday be.

I believe the phenomenon discussed above applies to my new venture, DraftDay. You are going to see short-term contests like the daily fantasy sports games at DraftDay prevail as the most popular type of fantasy sports game. It's going to take a long time for it to go mainstream, but it will happen eventually. When compared to traditional fantasy sports, these games provide an unbeatable combination: they provide instant gratification AND more simplicity, while remaining deceptively complex for the hardcore fantasy sports types. This is a winning combination.

The evolution of the fantasy sports industry will likely have some of the same elements of that of the online poker industry. Most of the 'powers that be' will dismiss these games as niche and unimportant until one day they wake up and realize that they are more important (and profitable) than the traditional games. This is one of those "I might be wrong, but I'm willing to bet a lot of my time and money that I'm not" feelings. As an aside, if you part of the current "powers that be" (note to self: come up with a better term for this) and would like to get in touch regarding DraftDay, please feel free to email me at taylor@draftday.

That's it for now. I continue to urge you to check out DraftDay if you like fantasy sports or even just like getting involved an in industry that is in its infancy. I hope the article I posted and my thoughts on the phenomenon described above will help you think along these lines to find more success in whatever it is that you do. Good luck.

Hey guys, I hope fall is going well for everyone.

Today I'd like to talk about my new venture, DraftDay. DraftDay is a daily fantasy sports site. I'll briefly explain daily fantasy sports and then give some general thoughts on why I've become involved in this industry.

Most people play season long fantasy sports leagues where you draft a team, set your lineup each day/week, and compete over the course of an entire season. Daily fantasy sports games differ in that you draft a team for one day/week only -- you are not tied to that team for a season.

Ironically, certain fantasy sports contests were exempted from the same UIGEA that has made life very difficult on poker players in the USA. DraftDay of course follows these rules and as such most USA and Canadian residents can play for real money on the site.

I really hope you give DraftDay a look, I think the site is going to be big someday and I've worked really hard on it. I'm so proud of the product our team has created, I truly love the site.

There's a few main points I want to address so I'm just going to list them off in no order of importance.

The future of the fantasy sports industry (particularly non-NFL games):

I am confident this industry is going to grow massively. It just makes sense. Fantasy sports are insanely popular as it is. The biggest problem with the games is the commitment required. It's a large commitment for a casual fan to join a league and manage a team for a year. You've got to deal with trades, injuries, poorly performing players, the list goes on. I believe that's the biggest reason why fantasy football is so popular -- you spend 10 minutes per week on your lineup and that's all you have to worry about. Fantasy baseball and basketball require a much larger dedication to the game as the seasons literally have games every day.

The NFL has completely and totally embraced fantasy football. This has made it even more comfortable for casual fans to get involved in the game. As the daily games grow in popularity, the amount of MLB and NBA fans playing fantasy games is going to skyrocket. I believe that the NBA and MLB will eventually embrace fantasy in a similar way and the next generation of sports fans will play these games for life.

You'll hear conversations like:

Guy 1: "Hey, want to play an NBA fantasy game tonight?"
Guy 2: "Sure, I'll be watching the [team] game anyway, let's do it."
Guy 1: "Alright, get on DraftDay and message me the game name."

:::this leads to Guy 1 and Guy 2 watching more NBA that night:::
:::which leads to the NBA and MLB realizing this and and promoting fantasy stats to their fans, developing more fantasy based programming, etc.:::

Which is all really good for this industry.

This is going to happen, try out a game on DraftDay and tell me that it's not fun and easy. The key really is that casual sports fans will find it a good mix of fun and challenging, while serious fantasy sports enthusiasts can drill down deeply into the stats and spend hours trying to find the best lineup.

Non-poker success:

I've been telling people for years that I didn't plan to stay in the poker industry forever. I can remember first saying that to regulars at the UB tables back in 2005 and throughout the years as CardRunners became more well known. I don't think very many people believed me, at least that was my perception when I'd have those conversations.

Part of my motivation for trying a non-poker venture is that I've always felt like I am a product of being in the right place at the right time. Things totally fell into place almost perfectly as far as timing, skill set, etc. Nevermind the fact that if I got unlucky at the tables during the beginning of my career things could have worked out totally differently. For years I've had a sometimes lingering feeling that this was super lucky and that if my life played out a million times I literally hit the top end of my financial success range. I'm not complaining, but I can't shake the desire to be successful in some other industry. I feel that beyond the money it could bring it would be so personally satisfying. I'll still be around CR and the poker community, but for now this is important to me.

Opportunity and Timing:

You don't get a lot of opportunities in life to be in "on the ground floor" of something. I had that opportunity with online poker and I feel like I very much have it again with daily fantasy sports. If you're reading this blog, you've got that same opportunity as well. As the industry grows, there will be big time money making opportunities. One of the most important things I have learned in my 20's is how important it is to be ahead of the curve. I believe there will be major money making opportunities here for successful players and businesses. People that joined CR in 2005 got a huge advantage by getting good information ahead of the curve, I believe it's going to happen again in this industry.

What you can do to help:

A lot of people have told me over the years that my CR videos have really helped them grow as a poker player. Many have said they'd be happy to return a favor to me if they ever could. If you're interested in helping me out, please tell your friends who play fantasy sports about DraftDay. You can follow us on twitter at @DraftDay or become a fan on Facebook. Every little bit helps, thanks for your consideration.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to get in touch via the comments section or follow me @taylorcaby on Twitter.

I'm back in Chicago after a really interesting World Series of Poker. The 2011 WSOP will always be memorable to me because there was NO FREAKING ONLINE POKER IN THE USA. This one fact had such a gigantic impact on the entire WSOP that it really made for a unique experience. Per usual, I shared a home with ~6 other poker players as we attempted to make money playing poker while acting like children. I sincerely wish I could post some examples of our childish escapades, but I'd lose what little dignity I managed to bring back home to Chicago. Sorry, I'd probably hate me too if I read a tease like that.

I had a pretty meh summer at the tables. I played some cash games at the Bellagio and a few tournaments in the WSOP. My best performance was in the 10k Main Event, where I made Day 4 and finished agonizingly close to the money (top 690) by finishing ~770th out of 6900. I felt really great about my play for this tournament so while I am frustrated that I didn't cash, there's nothing else I can do. Maybe next life.

This post isn't really about poker, though. It's frustrating, but I just don't have a lot to say about poker right now. I'm sitting here wondering when the hell our government is going to let me play online poker and I'm wondering what is going to happen with the money that is locked up online at FTP (and to a lesser extent, UB). I wish I had some answers but I know just as much as everyone else. This whole situation has decimated the online poker economy and it's really hurt the businesses I've built. Not much left to say about that besides I'll be doing my best to wait this out like everyone else.

For the foreseeable future, I just don't have that much poker related stuff to blog about. I'll keep whatever poker thoughts I have on this blog but I am likely going to start a new blog for general business related stuff. I'll keep you guys updated on that and may just crosspost everything here. The main reason for a move is that I want to build out a section of my blog to keep people updated about the different projects I am working on, a bio for me, and contact information so that people can get in touch with me. The thinking is that I need to do everything I can to foster new opportunities through serendipitous encounters with people who find my blog. Over the past few years I have spent so much time learning about things outside of poker, I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can do outside of the poker industry.

The rest of this blog post will be dedicated to a new venture I'm a part of, Terran Marketing. Recently I've joined this company as an investor. My partners are Mike Jackness (successful former poker affiliate, his blog is a great read for people learning about affiliate marketing), Jim Varnon (founder of Stoxpoker and CEO of Hold'em Manager) and Cole South (general badass). Mike has been working outside of the poker industry and on this project for over a year now. Recently, he started working with Jim on this project and then asked Cole and me to join as investors.

Terran Marketing specializes in buying high value, keyword domains (eg "RedApples.com" for a "Red Apples" search) that are under-developed/monetized and turning them into profitable websites. In laymen's terms, our goal is to buy low-ranking (in google) domains that are likely to attract valuable search traffic but are not currently realizing their potential.

We will consider buying a domain if it is all of the below:

1) Underpriced - There are too many deals out there to buy something that is an "Okay" deal. Plus, internet search is changing so fast that we need to achieve a healthy ROI within 12-24 months. We don't want to be left hanging if ranking highly in google isn't as valuable in a few years as it is now or if google changes their algorithms in a way that makes it harder for us to get high rankings.

2) Not difficult to monetize - There are examples of search terms out there that get tons of traffic but it may be logistically difficult to monetize once you get the traffic. Dealing directly with customers, for example, makes for a much more logistically difficult business to manage. So basically we are looking for niches that are relatively easy to manage once we get the traffic. A good example of this is our site where you can buy WordPress Themes.

3) Relatively uncompetitive - There are lots of industries that pay amazing rates for clicks and signups. These industries can be extremely competitive. If there's not a good chance for us to rank in the top 3 on google for a term, we're likely not going to get involved.

Some of the domains we have purchased so far are: WordpressThemes.com, GraphicDesign.com, OnlineStorage.com, and OnlineDegree.com. It's not too hard to figure out what we are doing with all of these domains, but only WordPressThemes is actually developed at the moment. If you'd like to read about some of the press our purchases have received, you can read articles here and here, and here is a post by Mike about OnlineStorage.com. If you are interested in more reading, I highly recommend checking out Mike's blog here or following him on twitter @MJackness.

Anybody that knows me understands I'm an extremely forward thinking person. I try to spot trends and get into things before they get popular. I live my day to day life this way because I enjoy it, and try to get involved in industries that are relatively uncompetitive and have high growth potential. I have a good track record at doing this with Online Poker (got lucky), CardRunners (lucky), and Hold'em Manager (Smart).

Considering what I normally look for in an investment, this type of company is something that I would stay very far away from because of my opinion about the "domaining" industry is that it's a bit bubbly right now and in for a bumpy ride going forward. There is so much speculating, buying and holding with no revenue, that the prices are a little out of whack IMO. Furthermore, there is a lot of uncertainty about how things like social media and new domain extensions will have an impact on domain name values. What changed my mind about this investment is that we are buying only on the basis of expected future cash flows and then building turnkey businesses that are most definitely exitable. Mike and Jim have built some extremely useful models that are surprisingly accurate at predicting the cashflows of an affiliate business based on their projected google rank, number of google searches, CPC (cost per click) & CPA (cost per acquisition). If you have those numbers accurately pegged, it's just a matter of getting yourself ranked highly in google, and Mike is just fantastic at search engine optimization so that is the least of my concerns. Finally, I'm forcing myself to learn a lot about this industry just to try to keep up with everything Mike and Jim are doing. The things I am learning about Search Engine Optimization and affiliate marketing should help me in future endeavors.

To be clear, my role is VERY part time in this business, but I'm trying to stay on top of the domain / affiliate industry as best I can. I'm particularly interested in how search is changing with the rise in popularity of Facebook and Twitter. If I was a betting man, my guess is that Terran Marketing will be one of the more progressive affiliate marketing companies when it comes to incorporating social media into its overall strategy.

Another point I should mention is that since Terran has received some great press in the domain industry, some people who hold high-value but under monetized domains have approached us looking to partner on developing these domains. This is extremely encouraging and we have some pretty big deals in the works that should be posted to Terran's website over the coming weeks. It's always nice to get access to good deals that don't require much or any cash out of pocket, or the business equivalent to a freeroll.

Last thing, I read a book last night that I thought was fantastic, it's only 80 pages long and I think you guys should all read it: 'A Gift to My Children' by Jim Rogers. Jim Rogers is an extremely successful investor who wrote this book giving life and investing advice to his young daughters. Read it if you like good information. http://www.amazon.com/Gift-My-Children-Fathers-Investing/dp/1400067545/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Hope everyone's summer is going well. As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments, I will try to respond. You can also follow me on twitter @taylorcaby.

Taylor

PS - Update from my last blog. My favorite Twitter guy, @jonbischke, sent me an email and is now following me on Twitter! I told you guys I am a persistent m'fer and that I would get him to follow me. I got the email from him at like 2am while I was out a bar and was super freaking pumped up about it...ahh, life.

First I should make it clear that I'm pretty amped up on coffee and Lady Gaga's new single. Sometimes I get a little worked up and start writing and interesting things happen. So let's go.

It's two-thousand freaking eleven. If you aren't utilizing social networking you are making a big time mistake. I'd guess the vast majority of people reading this are on facebook and that is a start but it's just a start. I'm not going to go into too much generic social networking advice although you should just listen to me and start using it as much as you can, rather I'll talk about Twitter and how I use it.

For the longest time I hated Twitter. I created an account in 2008 because I heard it was hot and I thought it would be an easy way to post status updates to my blog. I had one of our developers write a script to auto post my Tweets to my CR blog. I hardly ever used it for various reasons, mostly because I didn't really understand the value of it and was annoyed with what I knew about Twitter. What I knew about Twitter was that arrogant celebs and pseudo poker celebs were constantly posting inane shit that I had no interest in reading. I don't care if you think you are sweet because you are popping bottles in the club, every once in awhile it's fine but the people I followed on Twitter were mostly these types.

ANYWAY, I was "down on Twitter." A common misconception is that Twitter is all about telling people what you are doing. Basically like giving status updates on the reg. Many people do use Twitter this way but those people are usually not worth following unless they lead extraordinarily fascinating lives. What improved Twitter for me was realizing I didn't have to follow who I am "supposed to follow." I follow people that have common interests, seem cool, seem smart, or know more about some subject that I want to learn about. If I find someone who seems sharp I will look through their list and see who they are following and add some of those people. Yeah, there are a few people I follow because they are funny or I'm a fanboy or whatever, but mostly it's just interesting people who post things that help me learn stuff or that are entertaining.

It's interesting how you can really develop a respect for someone through Twitter. For example, there's a lot of poker industry people who through one person or another I have heard is smart or fun or whatever. It's hard to really feel too strongly about that without ever having interacted with someone. With Twitter, there are a handful of people who I would likely have never have really payed much attention to but I now realize they are "people to know." I have no doubt I'll eventually meet some friends and/or future business partners through Twitter.

I'll list a few here in hopes you guys might get some value from following them. Some of these people are poker industry related and some are just randoms that I think are worth following.

Jon Bischke This is my favorite Twitter guy right now, my proverbial flavor of the month. I don't know too much about him besides he is an entrepreneur who wrote one of the best posts I've ever read about advice for young entrepreneurs (and anyone, really). Click here for that post.. I retweet this guy like a maniac because I find myself nodding my head in approval with his thoughts and ideas. I even went as far as to send him an email and introduce myself because I just really like what he posts (no response but I am a persistent m'fer and I'm eventually going to talk with this guy). He posts a lot about education, social/reputation graph, and tech stuff. I'll probably be talking more about all of this stuff in future blog posts.

Bill Rini, who blogs at http://www.billrini.com/. I don't know him personally although I have seen his name in the industry over the years. He just seems like a knowledgeable and straight shooting dude. I particularly like that when he doesn't know something or is speculating he seems to be very clear about that. His post-black Friday thoughts have been consistent with my own in many cases. I went back and read a bunch of his insights and have found them helpful in learning more about the industry.

Brian Balsbaugh - This is the founder of the poker agency "Poker Royalty." Poker agents get a bad name in the industry because there are some that in my opinion are less than competent. Just from following this guy on Twitter and a short phone call I can tell that he is a smart and reputable guy. He is the reason I recommend Poker Royalty to any poker player who asks me what agency they should use.

Kate Upton This is another great part about Twitter, where else can I follow the daily exploits of a random 18 year old swimsuit model with a willingness to do the dougie on camera? She doesn't tweet that much (a good thing probably) but it's been pretty entertaining to get a look behind the scenes at the life of an up and coming model.

These are just four random people I enjoy following. It's interesting to note that pre-twitter I had never even heard of two of them and the other two I wouldn't have been able to say more than a sentence or two about what I knew about them. I'm trying to build a diverse group of people to follow and I hope I can build a similarly diverse network of people following me.

I feel strongly that social media is only going to become more important in our lives. There is too much great data available for it not to be utilized better for marketing, job recruiting, actual networking, etc. I'm not sure how it's going to evolve but I'm going to try to stay on top of that progression. This is one of those "I might be wrong but I doubt it" feelings, I think this is going to be important and as such I'll be prioritizing it in my life.

I am REALLY making a point to branch out more and find good resources on Twitter. Twitter will act as my personal RSS feed to news, information, humor, and maybe a little bit of voyeurism if Kate Upton's TwitPic account ever gets hacked. When I find someone is doing good stuff I try to tell them as much and I appreciate when people do the same for me. The hope is that I can develop a strong network of people and continue to branch out into "bigger and better" things. The current lack of poker in the USA sucks, but I'm not going to sit around and wait for something to happen. To that end, it's time to check my Twitter feed.

PS - If you DO like twitter then please join me in my quest to get all the interesting people that are not currently on Twitter to sign up for Twitter. Shameless plug, this is me on twitter.

PPS - A lot of people that are new to Twitter tell me how hard it is to understand what the heck is going on. Suck it up, it takes a few weeks of regular use and you'll get it.

I've had a little bit of time to sit down and think after the shitstorm that was the past 10 days. I can't tell you how many people have asked me the very simple question, "what are you going to do?" My answer has always been "I don't know, make the best of it? I really hope that eventually this leads to some positive change but I am not optimistic that it will happen any time soon." After having this conversation a million times, I figured I better actually spend some time thinking about this question and after some reflection, strangely enough, I feel like I have a better grasp on what I want out of life than I did before "Black Friday."

What I want more than anything else out of life is to be able to live it on my terms. I would love nothing more than when reflecting on the life I lived to have felt like I lived life the way I wanted to, through and through. That's really simple and while no one can or should be able to get everything they want in life, I'd feel fantastic if I could get through it feeling like overall I was pretty close to hitting that target. What is important to me continues to evolve as I *gasp* age so I think it'd be silly too many specific long term goals and rather focus on living and enjoying the moment while trying not to lose sight of big picture stuff. Over the coming months and years I will continue to write about what is important to me and hopefully this blog will serve as the story of my journey of trying to achieve my life goal. Or maybe I'll stop blogging completely.

For now I will continue to stay plugged into the poker, business, and tech world looking for new opportunities and areas of interest. Who knows what is going to happen, but I'm actually pretty excited about it. Stay tuned, I guess?

Man, these are really tough times for the online poker industry. I really haven't had a lot of time to catch my breath but when I stop to think it's always about the people. This will cause hardship for so many in the poker industry, myself included. Even though this is difficult, I am without a doubt one of the lucky ones. I got into poker early. Our companies are not nearly as dependent on USA business as some others I am hearing about. I was smart/lucky enough to have some sort of fall back plan by getting a degree. Then again, is there really any fall back plan these days? Is my degree even worth anything five years out of school in an industry that has been just as badly ravaged as the online poker industry? No matter what happens to poker, the experiences I have had in this industry feel more valuable than anything I learned in college. That might be typical for someone a few years removed from school, I don't know.

I felt like I should give people an update because I am getting a ridiculous amount of email submissions from my last blog post. I have read about 150 emails so far, mostly from online poker players. The stories are eerily similar. So many players aged 23-28, kids like me who were in college during the peak of the online poker boom and now are wondering "what's next?" The crazy thing is that nobody knows. I could see scenarios playing out where things are back to "normal" in a matter of months, not years. I could see scenarios where what we thought was normal was actually not and we'll never see another time like that again. I personally don't think there will be a quick fix but I am pretty optimistic about positive change within a couple of years.

The motivation behind my last blog was that I want to make it known that I am going to do everything I possibly can to come out of this whole mess as best I can (CardRunners and myself personally, that is). In any catastrophe there are a ton of losers, a few huge winners, and everything else in between. I know which category I'd like to be in. I felt like the best attitude to have was one of open-mindedness and optimism. I still feel that way. I can be pissed off about what has happened or I can look at all of my options and try to pick the best ones. If along the way my attitude can rub off on a few people and help some others then that would be great too. Maybe I can also find some other people to work with on CardRunners or other projects too. In the short run, there will absolutely be a need for more instructional poker talent at CR. If you are interested in becoming an instructor the quickest way to do that is to PM nomo4life and talk to him about the application process. As for non poker jobs, I'll be contacting people soon if for no other reason than to make an introduction and see what comes next. Part of this was just to make some contacts and keep people in mind for stuff should something pop up down the road.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me an email so far. A lot of you have said very nice things about CardRunners and it means a lot to me. There's not a whole lot else to do or say right now besides it's time to get to work.

Taylor

Hey guys,

Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. For those that somehow didn't read about it, the FBI/DOJ indicted some online poker executives and payment processors on various charges. The best way to stay updated on this story is of course Twitter. I'm constantly amazed at how great Twitter is for real time news. You're doing yourself a huge disservice if you aren't on Twitter even if you are only following and not contributing yourself. Off the top of my head, the best people to follow for online poker updates are: @kevmath, @pkrgssp, and of course @taylorcaby.

I've been doing this a long time. I'm a dinosaur in the internet poker world as I have been playing online poker since May of 2003. I don't want to say I have seen it all because no one has ever "seen it all," but I've seen a lot. I was one of the youngest readers on RGP, a message board that pre dates TwoPlusTwo. In fact, I was a teenager lurking on that board back when all the name TV pros used to post there. I was there when the UIGEA was passed in 2006 and PartyPoker pulled out of the market. I was there when the Neteller founders got arrested and everyone freaked out.

Through it all, poker has not only survived, but it has thrived. I think that eventually that will continue to happen. I am hearing the "but this time it's different" opinion from a lot of people. Of course that is possible, but I don't think it's likely. I was going to go into some more thoughts as to why but honestly that really isn't important now. What's important to me is that I look forward to new opportunities and ideas.

That brings me to this: I'm hiring. I don't know who or what or how much, but I figure there are a lot of smart people out there who might be looking for new opportunities and challenges. Most of the people I work with today I have met randomly on the internet*, so let's see what happens here. If you think you've got some talent and would like to work with our team, get in touch. Tell me what skills you have, impress me. I will personally read all of these emails and respond to you if I think there could be a fit. I'm going to be purposefully vague about what I am looking for because I don't want to discourage anyone from applying.

careers@cardrunners.com

Taylor

*Andrew is the only person in our entire company that I knew in real life before we worked together. Literally everyone else were "strangers" from within the poker community before they joined our company. A majority of our employees I "knew" from IM or Forum conversations before we hired them. Pretty cool.