Three Friends, $5,000 Each, Nine Years in the Black

🃏 R2F Spotlight

A poker player who built a business.

Doug Polk and two friends put $5,000 each into a poker school. After month two, it never lost money again.

Doug won three WSOP bracelets, including the 2017 $111,111 One Drop High Roller for $3,686,865. In 2015 he and two friends started Upswing Poker, a training site. They each wrote a $5,000 check, and in month two each had to add another $5,000.

That was the last unprofitable month. The business made money every month for more than nine years, and Doug built the audience himself, one YouTube video at a time. In August 2025 they sold it to ClubWPT Gold for an undisclosed amount.

"It was a great company, and I felt like we took it as far as we could."

Steal this: split the seats by skill. One founder per job, and say out loud who owns what.

Read Doug's story

Know a poker player who built something? Tell us who in the discussion thread.

— Art

PS: New here? Rounders to Founders is a community for poker players building businesses. Post what you're building and get honest feedback from people who've been there. Post yours, free.