Being a businessman and, at the same time, a dedicated card player is a combination that might sound alarming, to say the least – and not only because it seems a perilous kind of business. There are actually many problems. For instance, entrepreneurial risks are a lot different from the risks a gambler normally takes. Cash flows in gambling and in business obey totally different rules.
However, both cards and business involve risk assessment, strategy and tactics, planning and self-discipline, sound ambition and a good deal of luck. All this could well make a good card player potentially a good businessman – provided he learns the difference and manages his business as an entrepreneur and not as a gambler. Indeed, some successful poker players do invest and own some businesses, which is normal practice. But only outstanding players like Fedor Holz are able to do something very different.
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Approach to Business
Business requires a lot of focus which means time and dedication – things a poker pro is well enough acquainted with! But nobody can run a business while still on the treadmill of constant poker playing; jumping from one tournament to another and having practically no time for anything except the table. That is why Fedor Holz has announced his retirement from live and online poker. Even though he kept on playing poker, just a little, one might say, winning a moderate sum of $2,000,000, playing high-stakes tournaments here and there after this declaration, his attention since then was concentrated on his startup. That is what he also declared: that he would be on start-up grind instead of poker grind now.
This decision was more than reasonable. In general, switching career and life goals when you just have reached the top of your current occupation is something that not many people can do. But Fedor Holz did it. Probably the best timing ever! And when you think about the outstanding success story of Fedor Holz, or CrownUpGuy, as a poker player, this guy was certainly expected to generate equally outstanding business ideas. Ideas which do have the potential to bring some changes to the world, and not only to generate some cash for investors.
But everybody knows that coming up with a brilliant business idea is something not every businessman is capable of doing. In fact, only a few of them are. The power of a brilliant business idea is that it can turn a person into a businessman – even if he or she has not been one before. And that is what happened to Fedor Holz. His ideas made him a successful startupper.
What Kind of a Business Is Fedor Holz Developing
His idea was based on his personal life experience. He had a personal mindset coach who helped him a lot, having taught him mainly to relax, and to focus and to manage his ability to think. Those “mind-setting techniques,” as Holz has admitted many times, were very important for him as ways to help him gain success. And he decided that this kind of training was going to be useful for many people – but not necessarily card players, of course! His startup is called Primed Mind. It offers special audio courses recorded by Elliot Roe, a poker mind coach, who helped CrowUpGuy become one of the best poker players in the world.
The idea to launch Primed Mind came to Holz soon after he moved to Vienna. Together with his closest friends, who are also successful Vienna-based poker players who he had networked with, Fedor Holz formed up an investment group in 2017. It happened soon after he had announced his retirement from a grinding poker career – imagine some being retired at just 23 years old… However, as mentioned above, he never fully retired; he actually kept on playing poker and winning, probably just to stay sharp! But his investments clearly demonstrate the fact that he does keep his money interests separate from his poker pursuits.
And not only this: as he has confessed himself, he wants to keep on growing and developing – well, Primed Mind was a good idea to move ahead with. Now, this startup has more than 50,000 customers, and this young man wearing the jeans here is the CEO. However, he hasn’t changed his personal style a lot. He is still very communicative and actively networking; and this, by the way, does help him to develop and promote his business ideas.
Investments to Change the World
His general approach to business development is that he wants to help people develop. There is no need to argue that such investments could change the world. But what to start with if you have such an ambitious perspective? Not an easy question. But Holz seems to know the answer. He recently acquired a share in Envy Gaming, Inc., which is one of the most important e-sports organizations in the United States. Certainly, it was a shrewd investment: with his passion for bringing the best techniques to broad masses of people, this could well be the first step towards something really very interesting.
