Well, between the poker industry updates, strategy article updates, promotions and Planet Corp updates there rarely seems to be any room for a more personal post – a Planet Mark business update if you like! Sure, I am happy to be the facilitator, the explainer, the enthusiast beavering away to bring you the latest and greatest in the realm of online poker… though I have far bigger goals and ambitions too – this post explains…

My key mid-term goal is set for 2014 / 2015, when I will be moving into an Art Deco style mansion built to my own specification and design. This is a big goal, requires several million bucks in the bank – and there is a lot to go in the meantime… well, I guess ‘making the money’ sums it up… though I’d like to be traveling and enjoying myself at the same time.

At the moment I live in Budapest, Hungary (I’m an Englishman cruelly stranded abroad, though I almost escaped at the end of last year!) So the default would be to build it here on the Buda hills overlooking the city – not convinced by this to be fair, a large part of me would be very happy to escape Hungary. There are so many fantastic places in the world, and while Budapest is a wonderful city, I feel kind of stuck here and restless to move…. That is another (complicated) story though.

Now, how do I get from being a humble webmaster / affiliate who focuses on Poker to being a millionaire businessman able to have his own Art Deco mansion built?

Well, it is a nice challenge to have.

It is all in my 5 year plan. Nope I’m not going to reveal all the gory details, the plan is as personal as my finances are, as far as anyone but my nearest and dearest are concerned. I’ll be happy to outline the ideas / concepts though!

The idea is that being an affiliate will provide me the capital to do 5 things:

- Invest in a killer app (I already have a couple of great candidates, this is for 2012 will need programmers and I’m really excited about it!)
- Enter JVs in various industries / geos, gambling included here, especially if I can outsource the day-to-day work (hope to get started with this in ’11)
- Invest in other people’s businesses and make my capital work for me without my direct day-to-day involvement. (2012 / 2013)
- Set up more and diverse ‘in house’ income streams which I can pay someone to manage for me. (ongoing, 2 more this year, 1 a quarter after that)
- Invest more in the markets / VC funds, (12 / 13 onwards, I’ll keep on muddling through and trying to ride the various bubbles myself in the meantime!).

Now, all that is not going to happen overnight… in fact it is not going to happen in 1 or 2 years. There is a ton of work this year and the old ‘unknown unknowns’ are always out there waiting to knock you back!

What I am ready to do right now is diversify and start to look for new challenges / joint ventures. I’m focused on writing a new Poker product at the moment (this will be sold rather than given away), have plans for another when that is finished and then plan using the experience gained through these to make 3 more in a completely different market before the end of the year… writing is the one task I love, so this will not be too much of a challenge.

As an aside, there is plenty more for me to do in the gambling space, so I’m not abandoning this side – in fact we are working on a redesign of my casino site http://www.coolcasinosclub.com right now, this is already 100+ pages and will be a contender with the other mid-sized portals by the end of the year at 300+ quality pages minimum…. I’d like to enter the sport betting niche too (marked as a 2nd half 2011 project, with one sport already identified). Also working on some Hungarian casino / bingo (plenty more languages out there) and of course my huge international network of poker sites.

Aside for Affiliates: If any webmasters reading want to get in touch about expanding their English sites / ideas into new languages and geos I’d be happy to talk… I have excellent colleagues native to growing markets who could well be willing to get involved in any partnerships.

I’m also working with some physical products, these are newish sites – so traffic is slow at the moment, though sales are starting to come through. With a little age this should be a nice income stream. My concept was to make an end-to-end process which is replicable… so once we get it going smoothly, the whole thing could be sent to the Philipines. We will have to see.

Opps, meant to keep this high level, personal and forward looking – and ended up with too many current of the details…

Let me sum it up like this – poker affiliating is a fantasic job, I love the writing side and the independence (from corporate life) it brings and of course the money! That is not all though, this chapter in my life is a means to an end and not and end in itself… the near-term goal is my Art Deco mansion, and with it big and interesting business deals, exotic travel and experiencing all that life has to offer… When I get there 4 and a half years from now, I will be able to focus on my next goal – my many unwritten novels!

GL at the tables, Mark