GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 42 - October 2018

GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES about A little bit more Juan David Vargas Quiceno He is 29 years old Caldas photo by ostill/Shutt e rstock; Valle del Cauca photo by oscar garces/Shutterstock; Ribs photo by stockcreations/Shutterstock His site is worldpokerdeals.com His favorite book is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez He is living in Bugalagrande, Valle del Cauca, Colombia i His hometown is Chinchiná, Caldas, Colombia His favorite food is homemade grilled ribs with beans their business model and the people be- hind the sites. Also, our team always tests the rooms first. Make a deposit, test the software, the field, the bonus program; try to identify what inconveniences there are for the player so we can solve questions when they reach us. Are you a full-time or part-time affil- iate? Right now I’m a full-time affiliate, but this is recent. Last year, I had a day job as an engineer and an extra job as an affiliate. I had to make a decision, and I chose the affiliate market. If you asked me why, I would tell you because of the freedom and new challenges every day that make me feel alive. Tell us more about Worldpok- erdeals and your co-workers. Worldpokerdeals is a family. We are all friends, although most of us don’t know each other face to face. We have 10 managers to work with the players, plus content writers, translators and de- signers. Our team is composed of more than 25 people from all over the world (Canada, Ukraine, Thailand, Russia, Colombia, China). Worldpokerdeals is a multilingual company — we have Russian, English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese versions, and each version has a team behind it. Do you gamble online? What about in brick-and-mortar casinos? To be honest, I gamble very little now. I used to gamble a lot. I remember in 2012, I used to play 16 tables. It was very crazy at that time, indeed! For some time, I worked as a croupier in a small poker room in my hometown, and after the last tournament, we spent all night playing against friends. Today, I only play for testing the poker rooms we add and, of course, some hands to chill out. How often do you get to see and interact with other people in the industry? Have you attended any conferences? I have not attended conferences recently, but some World- pokerdeals team members have. I have regular contact with other companies (software, affiliates, poker rooms). I in- teract with other people in this industry every day because keeping good rela- tionships with your partners is the key to success. What traits do you look for in an affiliate manager? Transparency. Trust. If you can trust your affiliate manager, you can build a long-term relationship which for sure will be prof- itable for both sides, no matter if the share is low, or if the poker room closes. If there is honesty in the atmosphere, success will come. What’s your preferred method of communication with affiliate man- agers? Skype works best — you can keep the complete chat history, phone and video calls. It may be old school, but is just perfect. What prompted you to join the GPWA? Again, the trust. One of our goals for 2018 was to build trust in the community, so our players will trust more in our brand. I understand the internet as the new wild west, and it is entirely reasonable for a new player to have doubts about a new website they found. Joining the GPWA has helped a lot, ac- tually; we are delighted with it. When some of our players ask us “Why should I trust you?” we just say, “Take a look at our website — it says ‘GPWA approved.’” What do you like about the indus- try? I do enjoy working with the players! After a long day, there is nothing better than reading a message saying “Thanks for your help!” or “Your recommendations were great!” If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be and why? I feel this industry is over-competitive sometimes. Close to my place, there is a small street with maybe 15 small shops all selling the same thing. Everyone is friendly with everyone. Every time I travel, I see the same little shops and ask my wife, “How do these businesses work? They are side by side, selling the same thing!” With time, I learned some customers choose one site because of the salesperson, oth- G P W A t i m e s . o r g 50