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Taylor Crane

Co-Founder at Clubs Poker

Taylor Crane

Taylor Crane is an entrepreneur and product leader based in New York City. He is known for being the founder and CEO of Clubs Poker, a social online poker platform that he launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.12

Clubs Poker

Under Taylor's leadership, Clubs Poker grew to over 7,000 monthly active users playing 4,000 poker games per month, with an average 20% month-over-month growth rate.1 The company raised over $500,000 from investors including Village Global and several professional poker players.12

In September 2023, Clubs Poker was acquired by KHK Games, giving the platform a new life under new ownership.35 Taylor has described the acquisition process as "bananas-level hard" but was ultimately satisfied with the outcome.3

Product Leadership Experience

Prior to founding Clubs Poker, Taylor had over 10 years of experience as a product manager, launching 9 new products across industries including real estate, consumer, gaming, insurance, and ad-tech.1 He held product roles at companies like Hello Alfred, Originate, and Suzy.1

Since the Clubs Poker acquisition, Taylor has been working as a fractional head of product for early-stage startups through platforms like Fractional Jobs.45 His LinkedIn profile username is @taylorcrane.6

Highlights

Apr 9 · twitter

I've been waiting to make this post for so long now. In March, @fractionaljobs finally, finally crossed the $50,000 / month revenue mark. This is a Bootstrapped Biz Update™ paired with a "WTF do I do now?" crisis.

OK first, the state of the business. • $50K/mo revenue • 40K fractional execs in the network (and adding 3K / mo) • 100+ companies successfully hired fractional talent so far • 1 full-time team member (the rest part-time), + myself

We launched 2.2 years ago for context.

Funny side story, before I built Fractional Jobs I wrote a memo with my plan for the project. I just pulled it up. Literally the first line: "My current professional goal is to bootstrap a project that reaches $5K monthly revenue." 😂

I kept moving the goal posts, though. $5K didn't feel like an accomplishment when I hit it. And at $10K, I remember saying to myself "it needs to be $50K".

It took 18 more months of building to do it. I won't be simply moving the goal posts again though.

First, I'm taking the moment as a win. I'm genuinely very, very happy about this one. It kinda feels like a resting point, a chance to take a breath.

And second, this leads me to my "WTF do I do now?" crisis.

I am transparently, honestly, admitting to myself that what took me from $0 --> $50K will NOT be what gets me to $100K/mo. Something needs to be different.

So... WTF do I do now? I don't know yet. This is the next chapter for me. Figuring out what needs to be true for the business to get to $100K+, and then making it true. On the bright side, the business is making like actual profit now, more than I need for living expenses. So re-investing makes sense. I've never had to do that, so that'll be new. I'll probably mess it up at first :)

Anyway, that's the update, that's where things are at. Hope this is either helpful or entertaining!

Day-to-day stress and extremely unsexy work aside, what a fun puzzle this all is. I feel very lucky. If you're reading this sentence all the way down here, thank you for following along. You're one of 4 people who read my tweets, a very exclusive club (I'm relegated to being a Linkedin influencer it seems)

Mar 12 · twitter

All these CEOs coding again are mostly scratching a personal itch I think, their time is still higher leverage elsewhere

Clubs Poker Launches, Aims to Upend US Sweepstakes Poker
May 27 · fractionaljobs.io
Interview: The Fractional Job Search | Taylor Crane
Interview: The Fractional Job Search | Taylor Crane
Clubs Poker with Taylor Crane - Software Engineering Daily
Clubs Poker with Taylor Crane - Software Engineering Daily

Related Questions

What inspired Taylor Crane to start Clubs Poker?
How did Taylor Crane manage to raise $500K from Village Global?
What are the key features of Clubs Poker that contributed to its growth?
What challenges did Taylor Crane face while scaling Clubs Poker?
How does Clubs Poker differentiate itself from other online poker platforms?
Taylor Crane
Taylor Crane, photo 1
Taylor Crane, photo 2
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Location

New York, New York, United States