GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 43 - February 2019

wrong in the early days. Many conferences have seminars on topics like this, and the forum itself has larger affiliates who are quite honest about what they look for in a po- tential purchase. Former employees and affiliates who have previously sold their businesses are also excellent sources of knowledge. Conferences and forums are also effective tools themselves. Here you can meet and exchange ideas with peers, operators, game providers and industry specialists. Be brave when doing so and look for critique: Many people look for confirmation bias and find themselves in what I call the “complaints club.” This won’t help any business owner. What helps is new ideas, new strategies, additional knowl- edge and skillsets that you didn’t have before. TARGET EFFECTIVELY AND REALISTICALLY If your goal is to grow a business and one day scale it, you can, and will probably need to, take more risks to gain initial market share. If you are targeting all the high-volume traffic in the most competitive SEO markets against firms with many hundred times your resources, and doing so by the same means – is this a viable strategy? If you are working toward and trackingmeasurable results, you will know if your targets are realistic and achievable. If not, you will work extremely hard, andmore often than not be frustrated at your lack of results. Working hard on the wrong thing will not lead to success, but will take exactly the same effort. Your initial hiring will be crucial. The step between a suc- cessful “business” and a great “company” is often down to your first round of recruitment. That first intake will be the ones to push your company culture across every subsequent hire. Many businesses once regarded as market leaders, both within the gambling space and outside it, have stagnated by poor hiring in the scaling process. Does your prospective hire care, is their skillset of a really high standard, is their expe- rience market-specific, and are they a culture fit? DO YOU HAVE TO BE THE NEXT BIG THING? Last of the start-up models, but in my eyes not the least important, is the affiliate sim- ply looking to build a sustainable personal income running their business. The free- dom, flexibility and satisfaction from your own micro-business is often the greatest set of rewards for the small independent businessperson, and gambling affilia- If you are targeting all the high-volume traffic in the most competitive SEO markets against firms with many hundred times your resources , and are doing so by the same means – is this a viable strategy ? Independent Affiliates: The End, or a New Beginning? G P W A t i m e s . o r g 31