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Affiliate Interview Series - Joćo N.
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(This interview was originally published in the March 2022 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)
On your GPWA profile page you explain that you began your career as a designer and launched your first business at the age of 25. Please tell us more.
I always had the ambition to start my own business. I began selling computer games by catalog at school and created a partnership with my neighborhood computer store. Since I was 12, I had ideas and dreamed of building a franchise.
Later, I abandoned these small projects and chose to pursue graphic design as it allowed me to work with a computer, which I always had since I was very young, and at the same time gave me a chance to apply my creativity.
I always had some concern that if I didn't have a typical work experience with other colleagues, I would be limited and have a diminished vision that would hinder me in managing my own business. I think that this perspective was correct.
The work experiences were fundamental to create my first business in the web hosting area. This company, where I was involved as CEO for 15 years until it was acquired by one of the world's largest web hosting groups, was where I learned and put into practice most of the knowledge I have today. In this company, I had the most remarkable successes and I had my biggest failures. These stages were fundamental in the way I currently manage Betarena.
What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were 25 and launching a business?
In fact, nothing. Looking back, the Joćo of today would consider the 25-year-old Joćo to be an arrogant young man who thought he knew everything.
Still, this attitude allowed me to move forward without fear and experience many good and bad things. But they were all necessary experiences to shape my current personality, more humble, aware, relaxed and astute. So anything I could say to my past self could spoil everything that came to pass.
What other jobs have you held or what other businesses have your owned over the years?
After creating my first web hosting business, all the initiatives originated within the same company, including two attempts at internationalization to the U.K. and France, launching a game server business, and later, a marketing agency.
In those 15 years, while managing the company, the various business areas and initiatives allowed me to practice various forms of management that I currently apply in the management of Betarena.
When did you launch Betarena?
I launched Betarena in 2016 and after two years, it failed. Despite the initial failure, it was a business area that I knew for sure had potential. I put the project on hold around March 2018, and the following summer, I reviewed everything that had failed and recreated the project without raising outside capital.
Betarena is currently a fast-growing project where its investment depends on its return, guaranteeing solid sustainability and independence from investors that would otherwise not be possible. Between the full-time team and its collaborators, we are about 20 people. That's where I dedicate the most time, shared in part with the time I devote to investments in cryptocurrencies, financial markets and blockchain projects.
Betarena has a robust amount of content and you use artificial intelligence to produce the content. Please tell us about this procedure, how it works, how long youve been using it and if you think its the wave of the future.
Betarena has a strong technology component, and creating content through AI was a natural evolution. The reality is that if we want to produce large volumes of content, it is either humanly impossible to do so or a costly management nightmare. That's why we have a team dedicated to creating and enhancing narratives on various topics based on our available thousands of data.
The future is a combination of content creation by humans and AI. There may be projects that will use only AI in the future, but currently, the best results is the complement between the two.
In a GPWA Forum post, you discussed how your site publishes 500 betting tips per day, but realized that having that much content penalized the site in the positions and indexing of Google. What are some of the other positives and negatives about using AI for content?
I believe the problem is not related to how the content is produced, but to the current dimension of Betarena in the search engines. Google still does not consider us large enough to create so much content and therefore does not highlight some of it as it should. Google has substantial limitations in this field.
It is not the best platforms that get indexed in the best places, but the ones that use the best SEO tricks. I find platforms much inferior to Betarena, occupying positions above ours, affecting the quality of the content that users have access to.
You also have an opt-in box for a newsletter. How often do you email to your list and how effective have the newsletter been with attracting traffic and converting players?
Our platform is growing, and increasing our mailing list serves that purpose. We have changed the newsletter format, sending only to inform the platform updates on Medium. It is not serving the purpose of direct player conversion, but to show the evolution of our platform and keep users interested in our project.
Have you ever thought of trying to create another sports betting site, or try to get into another vertical like online casinos?
No, the focus is on Betarena with high ambitions that include continuing to improve the content platform so that we are ranked as the best content platform in the segment where we operate, with content created by journalists and artificial intelligence.
The other area of improvement is to release a platform for scores and statistics capable of rivaling with the largest world platforms of its kind. We will also launch a new space dedicated to competitions using blockchain technology with its token that players will be able to accumulate.
What's your approach to SEO and drawing traffic to your site?
SEO has been a constant focus at Betarena, but it required some progress on the platform to have the conditions in place to apply some of the strategies defined. Starting in the last quarter of 2021, the improvements in the SEO strategy will be evident and should bring great results for Betarena.
How has COVID-19 affected you personally and professionally? Have you made any changes in response to the pandemic?
I think it hit everyone, without exception. Since we work remotely, it didn't have much of an impact on the day-to-day tasks. I haven't had anyone seriously ill or anything like that, so it didnt affect us, other than the restrictions imposed by governments.
Fortunately, I can't say that the impact has been significant. Now, the world has been changing, which may be of more concern than COVID in our future as a society. Let's hope that balance and thoughtfulness will prevail in the end.
What are your hobbies? What do you do when you are not working?
Traveling and sports are my hobbies. The first has had some limitations because of the pandemic, but I have kept up a regular practice of tennis, rowing, and strength training, that cannot be missed.
If someone were visiting you for 24 hours and had never been to Portugal, where would you bring them and why?
I would show them the wonders of living on the opposite shore of Lisbon. We have fabulous places where we can eat, walk, view Lisbon and have a good time.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what three items would you take with you and why?
A boat, gasoline and a map so I can get back to Portugal.
If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?
I think it would be interesting to have dinner with Jeff Goldblum, a great storyteller. Bruno Perini, a Brazilian investor who has grown a lot and seems an exciting person to exchange ideas about investments over dinner. Robb Wolf, who works in health and nutrition, would be interesting to have a conversation with. Dwayne Johnson for a super exciting talk about resilience and growth. A dinner with Freddie Mercury would undoubtedly be unforgettable.
Name three things that people reading this magazine don't know about you.
1. I'm gluten intolerant and that it's the best thing that ever happened to me
2. I play FIFA on PS
3. I love street art and I have a collection of photographs illustrating that passion.
