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How to make $60k/mo from a podcast: When I was 19 there was a month when I played poorly and lost ~$250k. I quit shortly after that. It took me awhile to recov

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• Spivak 9y ago
  Are you really surprised that starting a business requires upfront capital and an environment where financial risk can be absorbed? Does this sentiment have to be echoed every time someone who comes from money talks about their business. There is a class system in the US, you're only wasting your breath trying to be snarky about it. Business is a mix of talent and chance and people with money can buy more chances where others might not even get one. It doesn't diminish this person's accomplishment.
  • jiggunjer 9y ago
    It is mentioned because it is important to remember. Those successful privileged tend to think it was all their own mental acumen and hard work, so everyone could have done it.
• kristianp 9y ago
  $250k isn't a huge amount of money for a professional poker player. I few successful and/or lucky years and you can build up quite an operating fund.
  • bastawhiz 9y ago
    As a 19 year old, at least in the US, he'd have had less than two years to win a quarter million dollars. I doubt that happened.
    • mark_element 9y ago
      During the online poker boom there were many such stories. The amount of money moving around online poker in 2005-2009 was just insane. Lots and lots of people went from 1k or less invested to moderately wealthy. I knew multiple people personally in college then who went from ~0 to > 100k.
    • dahdum 9y ago
      Absolutely could have happened even if he played the lowest variance games available with good bankroll management. All it would take is good streak (maybe luckbox some SnGs), move up the stakes, and have a good run in something like PLO to do the same in-a-day. I played extensively and still have friends that play professionally, this type of story is not uncommon at all.
    • jbdubwub 9y ago
      It happened to me and many people in my poker circle. If you played well, had good bankroll management, game selected and studied hard it wasn't nearly as hard as you think.
    • georgiecasey 9y ago
      If the timeframe was right, around the middle to the end of the last decade, it was reasonably possible. I was the kinda guy handing them the money :-(
• nardi 9y ago
  I do feel a little bad about this comment--it's probably overly snarky. Maybe he won that 250 grand playing poker from a small nest egg that he earned at a minimum wage job. And he isn't claiming to be sharing the secret of success--he's just sharing his experience, which is valuable regardless of his beginnings. I don't know. Something about this rubbed me the wrong way, but it probably says something more about me than about him or life in general.
  • crablar 9y ago
    I started with $100 and built it up, then lost most of it But also started with a roof over my head, great parents, an internet connection, etc. I would consider myself a trust fund baby in that sense.
    • nardi 9y ago
      See, I knew this was going to happen and then I was going to feel real bad. One question I do have for you: How did you get Stephen Wolfram, Seth Godin, etc. to come on your early pods?
      • crablar 9y ago
        Emails!
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • wwalser 9y ago
    I know someone who did this during college. I had a friend in college — let's call him Sam — with whom I paired on most CS projects. It was useful to find a partner who was as studious as yourself to avoid having to deal with anyone else's potential BS and end up doing all the work yourself. Sam seemed like a completely normal guy where normal is… we share some of the same interests. Sam wasn't from money, worked hard on assignments, we shot pool and worked on projects together. I knew Sam was "into" poker but I didn't understand the extent. I was "into" lots of things too. We're hanging out one day and Sam tells me the "funny story" that happened last week where his parents and girlfriend staged an intervention to demand that he stop playing online poker after he had gone on tilt and lost $200k in a single night. I about lost my marbles. He then goes on to explain that while he had agreed to quit playing online poker because he valued his relationships, he was of the opinion that an intervention was a bit much since he was still up over $600k and wasn't on tilt so much as trying out higher stakes tables in an effort to make money more quickly than on the low stakes tables he had already found success grinding.
• coldtea 9y ago
  Yeah, because only "super rich" people start successful podcasts, blogs, etc. Like that Neistat guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Y-ahQFQDA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Y-ahQFQDA
  • BLanen 9y ago
    Exception to the rule and dismissal of the enormous advantage money gives.
    • coldtea 9y ago
      I haven't found any "enormous advantage money gives" when it comes to podcasts, and other such works. Starting some regular business, yes, but writers, podcasters, and artists in general, have always come from all kinds of backgrounds, especially troubles ones.
      • jjeaff 9y ago
        The advantage is simply being in a place where you can focus on creating something like a podcast that will not make you (actually will cost you) money for a good long while. Most people without money or support don't have the time and resources to devote to creating something like that.
        • coldtea 9y ago
          Are we talking the homeless or third world poor here? Because the average american squanders 2-3 hours on tv and social media every day -- more than enough to start a podcast, even if they also work.
          • krageon 9y ago
            Human beings need a little bit of downtime for general decompression and whatnot in my experience (unless you want to go for that coveted 35yo burnout status). I'm not saying that that 2-3 hours of tv/social media can't be more efficiently spent on a different form of relaxation plus some kind of after-work job/hobby, but I do think it's oversimplifying a bit to say that leisure activities = waste.
• skadamat 9y ago
  It's quite common for people to start with just $1k and do well and get to that kind of money. I'd recommend doing some research before just jumping to conclusions: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-meyerson-05275716/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-meyerson-05275716/ - "Parlayed a single small investment into a large bankroll." under Online Poker Player
• hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Hey just want to note that although that sentence makes him look like just some rich kid with infinite resources, I went to college with Jeff and I actually have personally talked to him when he was starting this project. Regardless of what affluence he had in the past/present, he started this idea from near-zero -- the site looked like shit, he worked on it slowly, and from reading the article it looks like he got the right people on his ship at the right time, and kept doing what he was good at. Also, he's not tone-deaf -- I'm sure it took some consideration to let that sentence fly (I'd be very surprised if he didn't wonder something along the lines of "are people going to think I'm just some rich kid"), I like to think he leaned to the side of honesty. I can say at least personally that he did NOT have the silver spoon rich kid vibe. Not at all, he was lost just like the rest of us sometimes are, I'm super jealous and happy for him :)
  • sooheon 9y ago
    Step 1. Be super rich Step 2. Still be likable :)
  • themagician 9y ago
    It's disingenuous to say, "…regardless of what affluence he had." The thing about being wealthy isn't that you don't have to work as hard to succeed at something (well, sometimes it is). The thing about being wealthy is that you don't have to do anything, so you have all this time to focus on what you want to do—and you can fail while doing it without any major consequences. Most people can't do that. Hell, half of the people in the US are scared to take a day off of work for fear of getting fired.
    • jonathanyc 9y ago
      Yes. If you are wealthy (i.e. don’t depend on income) you can take big risks. 99% of the US couldn’t afford to spend $250k for a learning experience and a cute blog post.
      • bartread 9y ago
        To me that's almost the exact definition of wealth: not the amount of money that you have, but the fact that you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do - and fail hard at it - with no (or little) negative consequence. When people talk about "living the dream", that's what it means to me: not the life of the idle rich, but the freedom to try and fail - and hopefully succeed eventually - without ending up destitute or dependent on a salary to live (as most of us are).
• jdietrich 9y ago
  After a bit of digging, I think his story is plausible. He got into the game in 2004; At that time, it was very much possible for a smart, determined teenager to grind a hundred bucks into a quarter mil. Before Black Friday[1] chased all the soft money out of the game, pretty much anyone with an ounce of sense could play profitable poker and some people made a lot of money very quickly. He claims to have blown most of his winnings in that one-month losing streak, which is very much a thing that cocky 18-year-old poker players do. I think it's fairly clear that Meyerson came from a relatively privileged background and had a lot of advantages - he attended one of the best high schools in the US - but I don't think it's necessarily fair to dismiss him as a trust fund kid who lucked his way through life. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg
  • crablar 9y ago
    Accurate
  • joeblow9999 9y ago
    Sorry but you have to get lucky, too. No way you can turn 100 into 250k no way no how unless you are coming out on the good side of the luck factor. It's nice, and I'm sure you're a good player, but you definitely got lucky. " Before Black Friday[1] chased all the soft money out of the game, pretty much anyone with an ounce of sense could play profitable poker and some people made a lot of money very quickly. " You're best edge in the softest game of all time is not as big as you think it is.
• paulcole 9y ago
  It sounds like that was a bankroll he built up through play, not his initial stake.
• coconutrandom 9y ago
  In the past we would poke holes in the start-up idea or the weekend hacking project, but in good fun and there would be solid feedback generally. Having someone execute their idea, and then go out of their way to explain the process to the rest of us should be a source of encouragement. It makes me sad just how personal the dismissiveness on HN has become.
  • debt 9y ago
    I don’t see how it’s dismissive. It’s concise. Here let me waste my time telling you how I hacked advertising to make xyz product with a gazillion users OR I can just tell you I started out with many hundreds of thousands of dollars and just spent way into success. Would’ve saved me some time idk
    • coconutrandom 9y ago
      Money can influence but won't guarantee success. They still need to execute on something. And surely at some point in describing process for us, there could be is a nugget of knowledge that triggers some insight in someone else.
    • csallen 9y ago
      That's only accurate if the person in question did, indeed, spend their way into success.
• shard972 9y ago
  Or more specifically, be born by rich parents.
• quickthrower2 9y ago
  Not super rich. Just rich enough not to need a job for a while. Which if you don't have kids, means save $5k and live on a mate's sofa or something similar.