CalvinAyre.com

It’s a long way to the top if you wanna build a successful business. Staying at the top can be even harder, because your competition will be only too eager to capitalize on your inertia. Bodog was a trailblazer in many areas but we were late in recognizing the 2004 online poker boom, leaving us playing catch-up in a market already dominated by a handful of major players. To claim our piece of this pie, we needed to do what other sites weren’t. To shorten our time to market, we bought an existing poker software firm, added our logo and off we went. It wasn’t exceptional, but our short-term goal wasn’t world domination, just keeping our customers from having to leave our ecosystem to play poker. Our ‘Poker 2.0’ added bells-and-whistles not yet in wide use. We beta-tested for months, watching players through one-way mirrors, seeing what worked and what didn’t. Our planning was great, our execution not so great. We spent months fixing bugs, and it was pretty humbling. But it didn’t stop Bodog from continually trying to innovate to give players a better experience. And they needed a better experience. ‘Heads-up displays’ (HUDs) that relied on scraped hand-histories to predict what other players would do in any given situation were becoming rampant. This phenomenon became known as ‘bum hunting’ because sharps would use these histories not only for advantage in game play, but also to avoid players with documented poker skills. For the market as a whole, this was like farmers eating their seed corn. Poker needed fresh supplies of new players, but new players’ experience was becoming so poor they gave it up after a few sessions. Even some pro players said the technology was killing the game. Around 2012, Bodog introduced ‘anonymous poker,’ which gave players new identities with zero history, robbing HUDs of their insights into gameplay. Bodog always catered to recreational sports bettors, not sharps, so this ‘recreational poker model’ was definitely on-brand. I’d long since given up any operational role in Bodog, but I supported the licensees who wanted to adopt this feature because it was player-focused, intended to bring fun back to the game, and to grow the market. Not everyone loved anonymous tables but it gave new players a better shot at sticking around longer. It also helped Bodog Poker stand out from the herd as a site willing to go against the grain, innovate and offer options other sites refused to implement. What advice would you give (or take) for staying ahead of your competition?

Breaking down problems to their elemental level can help avoid inefficient methods that others accept as fixed and unalterable simply because ‘it’s always been done that way.’ Just like compounds can be broken down into individual elements and recombined into different products, breaking down problems into individual functions/components can help you discard unnecessary aspects and point you towards new approaches.

Don’t delay your response to an unexpected crisis or opportunity because your solution isn’t perfect or elegant. Windows can close before you’ve crafted a more streamlined approach, so if you think your kludge will do the job for now, crack on.

Advances in robotics have workers in many fields fearing the future, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the benefits that will come from no longer asking humans to risk life and limb to perform tasks necessary for economic growth. Last week’s ‘robot Olympics’ in China was an eye-opener given the capabilities on display. The pace of tech growth can be exponential and we’re in a far different world from what this tech was capable of just a few years ago and will be even more so a few years from now. Robots will take on many roles currently performed by humans, with significant impact on the number of people employed in certain sectors. Governments around the world will need to launch retraining programs to ensure these workers aren’t left behind. But there are obvious advantages in assigning dangerous/hazardous tasks to non-humans. How many lives could have been saved had robots been capable of retrieving lethally radioactive graphite from Chernobyl’s roof rather than those poor reservists in ineffective lead aprons? There are any number of manufacturing processes involving toxic substances that could be done far more efficiently and safely by eliminating humans from the equation. Robots mining in small underground spaces wouldn’t be susceptible to the sudden release of toxic gases. How many wildfires might have been contained early on by parachuting in robots in situations deemed to be overly risky for human smoke jumpers? Robots could also be tasked with on-the-ground patrolling in remote areas to spot and extinguish fires before they got out of control. As demonstrated by some of the robots participating in last week’s events, the tech still has its limitations. But there’s no putting this genie back in its bottle, and we need to embrace the new possibilities robotics can offer as much as we prepare for its negative impact. Where will robotics have the biggest impact, and what’s the most underappreciated example currently flying under the radar?

If I was just starting out as an entrepreneur today, I’d be all over integrating AI and Enterprise-scaling blockchain and applications that leverage this paradigm shift. Also Metanet, the integration of all of the above with the internet. But since I’m not 20, I’m currently focused on buying a place on the Mediterranean shore near a traditional village with good restaurants.