Posts Tagged oaks
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 5th, 2011
When my first daughter was born I planted an acorn. Since then it has grown to the proverbial Oak Tree. This year it is 14 years old and yielded its first crop of Acorns.
My point?
When I was in a ‘normal’ job I was always planting metaphoric acorns. My hope was that some would grow to Oaks, and so they did. So I suggest you always keep planting Acorns. Not just in the context of building for the long term future, but also in the short term context of looking for new ideas. Each day, week and month I am trying new things. Prodding and probing looking for any new information I can find. Interestingly, a lot of the time, I discover stuff completely by accident while looking for other things.
One of the reasons we have multi market tools and spreadsheet integration in Bet Angel is because this allows you to experiment and test many markets while you carry on doing something else. This is a really useful way to widen your capabilities and search for new opportunities. Once you come up with an idea you can test and expand it and see how far away from break even you are before you then start to think about ways to bridge the gap. You will immediately know when something has taken root and is likely to grow. From there it just needs a bit of tending.
I’ll aim to put an example of this up on the Academy site which you can view when we are ready to launch. To get an email for when the happens, sign up to the newsletter.
Keep planting those acorns!
Fab Friday
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on June 3rd, 2011
Today, we have a decent looking day ahead of us on the sporting front.
The Epsom derby meeting kicks off today and the Oaks is always a reminder of the first race that Betfair took bets on back in June 2000. To be honest I haven’t really ripped through this Friday for a few years. So I’ll be taking things careful until I get a feel for the day.
At the French Open the top four men in the world battle it out in the semi finals and it’s such a tantalising prospect. All of them have excellent reasons to want to win their respective matches. Djokovic hasn’t played for four days but will highly motivated to win against Federer who has been playing well recently. Murray has been looking the most complete he ever has, but is still ‘injured’. It’s all set up for two great matches. It could end up a bit distracting for me but I’ve already done the maths and know my possible entry and exit points in the matches and will have two TV’s running today in an attempt to keep up with the action.
Should be a great day.
Oaks
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on June 4th, 2010
If you would have asked me what the Oaks were ten years ago, I would have talked to you about what the Victorians planted en masse on the green in the next village on from where I live. Now, my first thought turns to Epsom. How things have changed in ten years.
It was the Oaks that was Betfair’s first market ten years ago, but it was on the 11th June that year, not the 4th. So Betfair are just a week away from celebrating their tenth birthday. Ten years ago I was probably worried about a different sort of fill rate. I was probably parked in some retailers head office talking to them about product selection and how quickly certain items were selling. I remember sitting in a Cafe in Chantilly debating with a colleague what we would be doing in ten years time. I told him that it almost certainly wouldn’t be what I was doing then. He is still doing the same thing, but as somebody who is ever restless, its no real surprise that I am not. What will I be doing in ten years time now? I’d probably be tempted to give the same answer as I did ten years ago.
Oaks Double
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on July 18th, 2008
A few weeks later and we move onto the Irish Oaks. A bit of a problem for me as it was on a Sunday and I try to make sure I get at least one day off during the week. However on this occasion I made space for the Irish Oaks. To my surprise I beat my Epsom total, the first time I have ever managed that.
