felt/docs/felt_grand_vision.md

Felt — Grand Vision

The Operating System for Poker Venues

Version: 1.0 Date: 2026-02-28

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Table of Contents

1. The World We're Building
2. Why This Doesn't Exist Yet
3. The Felt Platform
4. The Three Phases
5. The Ecosystem
6. Architecture Philosophy
7. Business Model
8. Competitive Moats
9. Market Landscape
10. Long-Term Value & Natural Exits
11. Risks & Mitigations

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1. The World We're Building

Imagine you own a poker room. Maybe it's a corner of a Copenhagen bar with three tables. Maybe it's a 40-table casino floor in Vegas. Either way, you run tournaments, cash games, leagues, and events — and you want every aspect of your operation managed by one system.

Today, you can't have that. You run tournaments on a 15-year-old Windows desktop app. You manage your cash game waitlist on a whiteboard. You track league points in a spreadsheet. Your dealers text you when they can't make a shift. Your players have no idea what their tournament history looks like, and your TVs show tournament clocks via HDMI cables that fail every other week.

Felt replaces all of it.

One small device behind the bar. Wireless displays on every TV. Every player on their phone. Every dealer scheduled. Every dollar tracked. Every screen under your control — tournaments during play, drink specials during breaks, event promos after hours. Cloud-synced when online, fully autonomous when offline.

The venue plugs in a box, connects to any internet, and they're live. No IT department. No Windows PC. No cables. No configuration. Just poker.

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2. Why This Doesn't Exist Yet

Three things had to happen before Felt could exist:

Cheap, powerful ARM hardware. A €100 single-board computer now outperforms the Windows PCs that venues currently use. A €20 display device replaces a €50+ HDMI cable run. This hardware price point didn't exist five years ago. It makes the "device per venue" model economically viable at scale.

Mature zero-trust mesh networking. WireGuard-based overlay networks (specifically Netbird) now allow encrypted, NAT-traversed, plug-and-play networking. Every byte of Felt traffic flows through WireGuard tunnels — no firewall rules, no port forwarding, no static IPs, no IT involvement. A venue's network is irrelevant. This was impossible three years ago.

Live poker's post-pandemic boom. Global live poker is expanding. New venues opening, existing venues upgrading, amateur leagues growing. The market is bigger than it's been in a decade, and the tools haven't kept up. TDD (The Tournament Director) last had a meaningful update around 2018. Blind Valet is shallow. Poker Atlas is discovery-only. No one is building a modern, integrated venue platform.

The window is open. The technology is ready. The competition is asleep.

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3. The Felt Platform

Felt is three things:

3.1 A Hardware Platform

Leaf Node — A small ARM64 SBC (~€100) that runs the entire venue. NVMe storage for reliability. Runs Go backend + lightweight frontend. Works completely offline during a tournament. This is the venue's brain.

Display Nodes — €20 devices (Pi Zero or similar) that plug into any TV via HDMI. They connect wirelessly to the Leaf over local WiFi. They show tournament clocks, player rankings, seating charts, event promos, drink specials, sponsor ads, league standings — whatever the venue needs. No cables between Leaf and displays. One system for all screens.

Player Devices — Players' own phones. They scan a QR code and get live tournament info, their personal stats, league standings, and mobile access to everything the venue shows on the big screens. No app to install — it's a PWA.

3.2 A Software Platform

The software spans three phases (see Section 4), but the architecture is unified from day one:

• Leaf software — Go backend, embedded SQLite, lightweight web UI. Runs tournaments, cash games, displays, signage, and local operations. The single source of truth while the venue is operating.
• Core software — Go backend, PostgreSQL, SvelteKit admin dashboard. Handles cross-venue leagues, player profiles, analytics, remote management, public venue pages, and the API that ties everything together.
• Player PWA — SvelteKit progressive web app. Mobile-first. Real-time WebSocket updates. Works at the venue (local-first) or remotely (via cloud proxy).
• WYSIWYG Content Editor — Visual drag-and-drop editor with AI assistance for creating info screen content. Templates, venue branding auto-applied, AI-generated promo cards from text prompts. The venue owner doesn't need a graphic designer.

3.3 A Network Platform

All Felt traffic flows through a self-hosted Netbird mesh network:

• WireGuard encryption — Every connection between every Felt device is encrypted. The venue's local network never sees Felt data.
• NAT traversal — Works on any internet connection. Coffee shop WiFi, hotel LAN, 4G hotspot, corporate firewall — doesn't matter. Netbird punches through.
• Zero configuration — The Leaf boots, connects to Netbird, and it's on the mesh. Display nodes discover the Leaf via mDNS locally. Players access via HTTPS through Netbird's reverse proxy. No ports, no IPs, no firewall rules.
• Identity-aware SSH — Admins access Leaf nodes remotely via Netbird SSH, authenticated through Authentik (OIDC). No SSH keys to manage. Onboarding/offboarding is instant.
• Reverse proxy — Player and operator access to Leaf nodes routes through Netbird's built-in reverse proxy with automatic TLS. Each venue gets play.venue-name.felt.io and admin.venue-name.felt.io.

This makes Felt network agnostic. A Copenhagen bar, a Las Vegas ballroom, and a rural community center all work identically. We never have to ask a venue about their network. We never have to troubleshoot their firewall. We never have to send someone on-site to fix a cable.

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4. The Three Phases

Phase 1: Live Tournament Management (In Development)

Replaces: The Tournament Director, Blind Valet

This is the cornerstone. If we don't nail tournaments, nothing else matters. Phase 1 delivers a tournament engine that matches TDD's depth while feeling like a modern product.

Core capabilities:

• Full tournament clock with blinds, antes, levels, breaks, chip-ups
• Financial engine: buy-ins, rebuys, add-ons, bounties (including progressive/mystery), payouts, prize pool calculation
• Player management: database, tournament registration, bust-out tracking, chip counts
• Table management: configurable layouts, random seating, automatic rebalancing, final table merge
• Multi-tournament: run multiple simultaneous tournaments
• League and season management: configurable point formulas, season standings, league prizes
• Wireless display system: tournament clocks, rankings, seating charts — no HDMI cables
• Digital signage: event promos, drink specials, sponsor ads, league standings — WYSIWYG editor with AI assist
• Player mobile access: QR code → live clock, personal stats, rankings
• Export: CSV, JSON, HTML — tournament results, financial reports, player records
• Events engine: triggers (level change, final table, break), sounds, screen messages
• Offline-first: entire tournament runs without internet. Syncs when connected.

What makes this better than TDD:

• Runs on a €100 device, not a Windows PC
• Wireless displays, not HDMI cables
• Players on their phones, not staring at one screen
• Works on any network, not tied to a venue's infrastructure
• Cloud-synced for remote access and cross-venue features
• Modern, clean UI — not a 2002 Windows interface
• Digital signage built in — the screens work for the venue 24/7, not just during tournaments

Detailed specification: See felt_phase1_spec_v05.md (2,000+ lines)

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Phase 2: Cash Game Operations (Planned)

Replaces: Whiteboards, spreadsheets, manual waitlist management

Cash games are the daily bread of most poker rooms. Tournaments are events; cash games are the constant. Phase 2 brings cash game management into the same system.

Core capabilities:

• Waitlist management: Players join waitlists by game type and stakes. List displayed on screens and accessible via mobile. Automated "your seat is ready" notifications via SMS/push.
• Table management: Open/close tables, assign game type and stakes, track seat availability in real-time. Visual table map showing which seats are occupied.
• Game type registry: Define all games the venue offers — No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha, Limit Hold'em, Mixed games, etc. Each game type has configurable stakes, min/max buy-in, rake structure.
• Session tracking: Log player sessions — when they sat, when they left, duration, buy-in amounts, cash-out amounts (optional, privacy-respecting). Used for loyalty, analytics, and player history.
• Table transfers: Move players between tables for balancing, game changes, or seat preferences. Track the transfer in the player's session.
• Player alerts: Notify players when their preferred game opens, when a seat is available, or when their waitlist position is reached. Via mobile PWA push notification or SMS.
• Rake tracking: Configure rake structures per game type (percentage, cap, time rake). Track house revenue per table per session. Financial reporting for venue owners.
• Table stakes display: Display nodes show current games running, stakes, seat availability, and waitlist depth — updated in real-time. Players walking in can see what's available without asking.
• Must-move tables: When a main game is full and a must-move table is running, automate the progression. When a seat opens at the main game, the longest-waiting must-move player gets notified.
• Seat change requests: Players can request a seat change within the same game. System tracks the queue and notifies when the requested seat opens.

Integration with Phase 1:

• Same Leaf device, same display nodes, same player database
• Tournament and cash game can run simultaneously — display nodes assigned to different views
• Player profiles show both tournament results and cash game session history
• Loyalty points accrue from both tournament and cash play
• Dealers assigned to cash tables use the same scheduling system (Phase 3)

Why this matters for venues: Cash games are where the rake comes from. Efficient waitlist management directly impacts revenue — a player who walks in, sees a full room, and leaves is lost revenue. A player who gets a text saying "your seat is ready in 5 minutes" stays for a drink and sits down. Felt turns that whiteboard into a system that actively keeps players in the building.

Detailed specification: See felt_phase2_spec.md

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Phase 3: Complete Venue Platform (Vision)

Replaces: Separate scheduling tools, manual comp tracking, no loyalty system, Poker Atlas (operational side)

Phase 3 turns Felt from a poker management system into a complete venue operating platform. This is the endgame — the reason a venue would never leave Felt.

Core capabilities:

Dealer Management

• Scheduling & shift planning: Weekly/monthly schedules. Shift templates (morning, afternoon, evening, tournament). Drag-and-drop scheduling interface.
• Skill profiles: Each dealer has tagged skills — game types they can deal (Hold'em, Omaha, PLO, Stud, Mixed, Short Deck, etc.), cash vs. tournament specialization, experience level. The system matches dealer skills to table needs.
• Shift trading: Dealers can post shifts for trade. Other qualified dealers (matching skill requirements) can pick them up. Manager approval optional. All logged and auditable.
• Work hours tracking: Clock-in/clock-out (via mobile or Leaf UI). Automatic calculation of hours worked, overtime, break compliance. Export for payroll integration.
• Availability management: Dealers set their availability windows. Scheduling respects these. Conflict detection when a shift is assigned to an unavailable dealer.
• Performance & preferences: Track which dealers are requested by players or preferred for high-stakes games. Optional player feedback integration.
• Dealer rotation: Automated dealer rotation for cash games (push after X minutes). Ensures fairness and prevents fatigue. Configurable per table/game type.

Player Loyalty System

• Points engine: Configurable point accrual — per tournament entry, per cash game hour, per buy-in amount, per league participation. Different multipliers for different game types or time slots (e.g., 2x points on slow nights).
• Tier system: Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum (or custom names). Tier thresholds based on point accumulation. Each tier unlocks benefits.
• Rewards catalog: Venue-defined rewards — free tournament entries, food/drink comps, merchandise, seat upgrades, priority waitlist. Redeemable via mobile or at the bar.
• Automated promotions: Time-based promos (happy hour double points, birthday bonuses, seasonal events). Triggered automatically, no manual intervention.
• Cross-venue loyalty (multi-venue operators): A player's loyalty status carries across all venues under the same operator. Play at venue A, redeem at venue B.
• Display integration: Loyalty tier and points balance shown in player's mobile profile. Leaderboards on venue displays showing top loyalty earners.

Private Venues & Memberships

• Venue privacy modes: Public (anyone can see schedule and join), Semi-private (schedule visible, registration requires approval), Private (invite-only, invisible to non-members).
• Membership management: Invite codes, application process, member approval workflows. Annual/monthly membership fees tracked through Felt.
• Member tiers: Different membership levels with different access — e.g., "Standard" members can play tournaments, "VIP" members get cash game priority and higher-stakes access.
• Guest system: Members can invite guests for specific events. Guest passes tracked and limited.
• Member communications: In-app messaging, event announcements, schedule changes pushed to members via mobile notification.

Venue Analytics & Reporting

• Revenue dashboards: Real-time revenue by source (tournament fees, cash game rake, membership fees, food/beverage). Daily/weekly/monthly/yearly views.
• Player analytics: Player lifetime value, visit frequency, game preferences, spending patterns (privacy-respecting, aggregated where appropriate).
• Operational analytics: Table utilization rates, peak hours, waitlist conversion rates, dealer efficiency, tournament fill rates.
• Benchmarking (multi-venue): Compare performance across venues. Identify which venues are underperforming and why.
• Export & integration: CSV/PDF export for accounting. API for integration with existing POS, accounting, or casino management systems.

Public Venue Presence

• Venue profile page: Public page at venue-name.felt.io showing schedule, upcoming events, game offerings, location, hours. SEO-optimized.
• Event registration: Players can register for upcoming tournaments online. Pre-paid or reserve-only options.
• Schedule publishing: Auto-publish weekly schedule to venue page, social media (API integration), and Poker Atlas/Hendon Mob (export formats).
• Player reviews & ratings: Optional. Public-facing venue reputation.

Integration with Phases 1 & 2:

• All features share the same Leaf, displays, player database, and network
• Dealer scheduling integrates with tournament and cash game table assignments
• Loyalty points accrue from all activities — tournaments, cash games, memberships
• Analytics aggregate across all venue operations
• Displays cycle between tournament info, cash game status, loyalty leaderboards, and venue promos

Why this is the endgame: At Phase 3, a venue's entire operational history is in Felt. Years of player records, financial data, dealer schedules, loyalty balances, membership lists, league standings. This data is the moat. Switching costs are enormous — not because we make it hard to leave, but because there's nowhere to go that has all of this in one system.

Detailed specification: See felt_phase3_spec.md

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Phase 4: Native Apps & Platform Maturity (Post-Revenue)

Depends on: Phases 1-3 complete, sustainable Pro subscription revenue

Phase 4 is the polish layer. Everything in Phases 1-3 runs as responsive web apps and PWAs. Phase 4 adds native mobile apps for both players and venue managers, taking advantage of platform APIs that browsers can't fully access.

Player App (Native iOS + Android):

• Everything from the PWA player experience, plus:
• Rich push notifications (tournament starting, your waitlist position, friend results)
• Apple/Google Wallet integration (loyalty cards, event tickets)
• Share Sheet integration (share results, invite friends)
• Biometric quick-login (Face ID, fingerprint)
• Offline stat caching (view your history without connectivity)
• Social features: private groups, group chat, activity feed, achievements

Venue Management App (Native iOS + Android):

• Everything from the PWA operator UI, plus:
• Push notifications for operational alerts (display offline, dealer no-show, tournament level change)
• Biometric auth for quick unlock (manager grabs iPad, Face ID, they're in)
• Native haptic feedback on critical actions
• Background sync (Leaf status updates even when app is backgrounded)
• Siri/Google Assistant shortcuts ("Hey Siri, pause the tournament")

PWA-first strategy: All Phase 1-3 apps are already installable PWAs via SvelteKit. Phase 4 native apps are additive — they don't replace the web experience, they enhance it. Venues and players who don't want to install an app lose nothing. The PWA remains the primary onboarding path (scan QR → instant access, no App Store friction).

Investment required:

• Apple Developer Program: €99/yr
• Google Play Developer: $25 one-time
• App Store review process and compliance
• Native codebase (likely React Native or Kotlin/Swift, wrapping the existing SvelteKit frontend for shared logic)
• By Phase 4, Pro subscription revenue should comfortably cover these costs

Why this is Phase 4, not earlier: App Store presence is expensive in time, not just money. Review cycles, compliance requirements, update cadence expectations. Doing this before the product is stable and revenue-generating risks burning resources on App Store maintenance instead of core features. PWAs give us 90% of the mobile experience for 10% of the cost. Phase 4 is the last 10%.

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5. The Ecosystem

Felt isn't just a product — it's a platform connecting four distinct user groups. Critically, users belong to Felt, not to venues.

Felt Profiles: Platform-Level Identity

This is the most important strategic decision in the entire product: players and dealers have Felt profiles, not venue profiles.

A player's profile is their poker identity across the entire platform. Their tournament results, cash game sessions, league standings, loyalty points, achievements — all of this belongs to their Felt profile, not to any single venue. If a venue switches to a competitor (or shuts down), the player keeps everything. Their data travels with them.

Why this matters:

• Player lock-in is to Felt, not to the venue. A venue can leave Felt, but they can't take the players' profiles with them. Players will pressure venues to stay on (or join) Felt because their history is here.
• Network effects compound. A player with results across 10 venues has more reason to stay than a player at 1 venue. Cross-venue visibility creates stickiness.
• Competitor defense. If a competitor shows up, a venue switching doesn't mean players lose their data or leave the platform. The player's profile, history, and relationships survive. The venue that switches loses access to the network — the player doesn't lose anything.
• Dealer portability. A dealer's work history, skills, hours, and shift records belong to their Felt profile. If they move to a different venue, their history comes with them. This makes Felt valuable for dealers personally, not just for venues.

Profile visibility:

• Public venues: tournament results visible on profile (unless player opts out)
• Private venues: results only visible to venue members
• Players control what's publicly visible on their profile
• Aggregate stats (total tournaments, total hours, venues played) always available to the player

Player App (Phase 3/4): Gamification & Social

The ultimate demand-generation tool. A dedicated mobile app that makes poker social and gamified — and puts pressure on venues from below.

Core features:

• Personal stats dashboard: Lifetime results, win rate trends, ROI per game type, ranking among friends
• Private groups: Players create groups with friends. See each other's recent tournament results, league standings, upcoming events. Built-in group chat. "Hey, Friday's €50 tournament at Bar Poker — who's in?"
• Achievements & badges: "First final table," "5 in-the-money finishes in a row," "Played at 10 different venues," "100 tournaments played." Visible on profile, shareable.
• Activity feed: See what your friends have been doing — recent results, new venues visited, achievements unlocked. Light, non-intrusive, opt-in.
• Venue discovery: Find Felt venues near you. See what's running tonight. Join a waitlist from home.
• Event notifications: Get notified about upcoming tournaments at your regular venues, or at new venues your friends are playing at.

Why this creates venue pressure: Imagine a player group of 15 friends who all play regularly. They use the Felt app to coordinate, track results, and banter. One of their regular venues doesn't use Felt — so results from those tournaments don't appear in the app, don't count toward their stats, and their friends can't see them. That venue starts hearing "hey, when are you getting on Felt?" from their regulars. Player demand drives venue adoption.

Revenue model for the app: Free for players. Always. The app is a demand generator, not a revenue source. Revenue comes from venues subscribing to Pro.

Venue Management App (Phase 4): No PC Required

The other half of Phase 4. A venue owner or floor manager runs their entire operation from an iPad or tablet. No PC. No laptop. Just a tablet at the host stand or behind the bar.

Core features:

• Full tournament control: Start, pause, advance levels, manage buy-ins, bust players — everything the operator UI does, but native touch-optimized
• Cash game management: Open/close tables, seat players, manage waitlists, track sessions — tap and swipe
• Dealer scheduling: Assign dealers, approve shift trades, view the week's schedule — all from the tablet
• Display management: See what every screen is showing. Reassign views. Push signage content.
• Live dashboard: Revenue today, tables running, players in the building, upcoming events — glanceable from across the room
• Notifications: Tournament level about to change, waitlist player not responding, dealer called in sick, display node offline — push alerts to the manager's device

Why this matters: The current operator UI is a responsive web app that works on tablets. But a dedicated app with native gestures, haptic feedback, push notifications, and offline-capable local caching is a different level of polish. The venue owner managing a busy Friday night from a tablet clipped to their belt — that's the image.

PWA first, native later: Phase 1-3 operator UI is already PWA-capable (SvelteKit, mobile-first). For Phase 4, the dedicated management app starts as an enhanced PWA with full offline capability and installable home screen experience. Native iOS/Android apps come once revenue justifies the Apple Developer Program (€99/yr) and Google Play Developer ($25 one-time) accounts, plus the ongoing App Store review process. The native apps add push notifications without browser permission prompts, biometric auth (Face ID / fingerprint for quick unlock), and smoother animations.

Same story for the player app: PWA first (players scan QR → instant access, no install friction). Native apps in the store once we have the volume and revenue to justify the investment. Native adds rich push notifications, Apple/Google Wallet integration for loyalty cards, and Share Sheet integration for sharing results.

Revenue model: The management app is included with Pro. It's the premium operator experience — another reason to subscribe.

Venue Operators

The primary customer. Free-tier venues run tournaments on our cloud — no hardware, no cost, full tournament engine. When they outgrow the free tier (need offline, cash games, or displays), they buy hardware from us and subscribe to Pro. They get a system that replaces 5+ separate tools with one. Their screens work 24/7 — tournaments during play, promos during breaks, ads after hours.

Players

Free users with platform-level profiles. They scan a QR code and they're in. No app required for basic access (view clock, view rankings). Optional account unlocks personal stats, cross-venue history, loyalty, and league standings. The dedicated app (Phase 3/4) adds social features, gamification, and friend groups. Over time, their Felt profile becomes their poker identity.

Dealers

Free users with platform-level profiles. Their skills, work history, schedule, and shift records belong to them. They manage their schedule, trade shifts, track hours, and see assignments via mobile. If they move to a different venue, their verified skills and work history travel with them.

Multi-Venue Operators / Networks

Enterprise customers. They manage multiple venues from a single dashboard. Cross-venue leagues, shared player databases, centralized analytics, fleet management of Leaf nodes. They push content to all venue screens at once.

Regional Tournament Organizers

Free users who create cross-venue tournaments and leagues. They organize regional championships with qualifying rounds at independent venues. Automatic result aggregation, unified leaderboards, finals management. This hooks new venues into the Felt ecosystem for free.

The Flywheel

Free tier hooks venues → Players create Felt profiles
Players build cross-venue history → More valuable to stay on Felt
Player app creates social groups → Friends pressure non-Felt venues
Regional organizers create cross-venue events → More venues join for free
More venues on platform → Cross-venue features become more valuable
More players with history → Venues can't leave without losing the network

The flywheel has three engines: the free tier (venue acquisition), the player app (demand generation from below), and regional organizers (network creation from above). All three drive adoption. None of them cost us subscription revenue.

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6. Architecture Philosophy

Principle 1: Leaf Sovereignty

The Leaf node is the single source of truth during operation. The cloud is a backup, a sync target, and a distribution layer — never a dependency. A venue must be able to run a complete tournament, cash game, and dealer schedule without touching the internet.

Principle 2: Network Agnosticism

Felt works on any network. All traffic flows through WireGuard tunnels via Netbird. No firewall rules, no port forwarding, no static IPs, no IT involvement. A venue needs power and any internet connection. That's it.

Principle 3: Screens Are a Platform

Display nodes aren't just tournament clocks. They're the venue's entire digital signage system. Tournaments during play, promos during breaks, ads after hours. A WYSIWYG editor with AI assist makes content creation trivial. The venue gets a screen management system for free with their poker management system.

Principle 4: Data Gravity as Moat

Every tournament, every cash game session, every player registration, every financial transaction deepens the venue's dependency on Felt. After 12 months, a venue has thousands of records they can't take elsewhere. This is organic lock-in through value, not artificial barriers.

Principle 5: Scale by Adding Instances

The Leaf runs everything for one venue. The Core aggregates across venues. Scaling means more Leaf instances behind Netbird's mesh, not bigger servers. Each venue is operationally independent.

Principle 6: No Third-Party MITM

Self-hosted Netbird. Self-hosted Authentik. Self-hosted Core. No Cloudflare, no third-party auth, no vendor dependency that could change terms, raise prices, or compromise data. We own the full stack.

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7. Business Model

The Free Tier Philosophy

The free tier is not a crippled demo. It's a genuinely useful product that runs a poker venue's tournaments — for free, forever.

How it works: A venue signs up at felt.io. We spin up a virtual Leaf node on our cloud infrastructure. The venue gets the full tournament engine — clock, blinds, buy-ins, payouts, seating, multi-table balancing, leagues, seasons. Players scan a QR code and get full mobile access — live clock, rankings, their personal stats. The venue gets the WYSIWYG signage editor with AI assist — they can create event promos, drink specials, sponsor ads and display them on any browser-connected screen.

What the free tier includes:

• Full tournament engine (unlimited tournaments, unlimited players)
• Player mobile access (scan QR, view clock, rankings, personal stats)
• Player database and history
• League and season management
• Digital signage editor with AI assist
• Multi-tournament support
• Financial tracking (buy-ins, payouts, prize pools)
• Regional tournament participation

What the free tier does NOT include:

• Offline operation (requires internet — runs on our cloud)
• Dedicated hardware (no Leaf node, no display nodes)
• Cash game management (Pro feature)
• Dealer scheduling (Pro feature)
• Player loyalty system (Pro feature)
• Membership management (Pro feature)
• Advanced analytics
• Remote admin access
• Priority support

Why this works: The Copenhagen enthusiast club running 3 tournaments a week on 5 tables gets a world-class tournament system for free. Their players get hooked on checking standings from their phone. The venue starts creating event promos in the signage editor. After 6 months, they have hundreds of player records, league standings, and tournament history in Felt.

Then one night the internet goes down during a tournament. Or they want to run cash games on Fridays. Or they want proper displays on their TVs instead of a browser tab. That's when they call us.

Making TDD Obsolete on Day 1

The single biggest barrier to adoption is migration. TDD venues have years of data — blind structures, tournament templates, player databases, league histories. If switching to Felt means starting from scratch, they won't switch.

TDD Data Import Tool:

• Import blind structures and tournament templates from TDD's XML export
• Import player databases (names, contact info, tournament history)
• Import league standings and season data
• Conversion runs in minutes, preserves all historical data
• Venues keep their entire history — from day one on Felt, it looks like they've been on Felt forever

This removes the last excuse. The tournament engine is better, the displays are wireless, the players get mobile access, the signage is built in — and they don't lose a single record.

Regional Tournament Organizer (Free Tier)

Independent venues in the same region often want to collaborate — regional championships, multi-venue league seasons, grand tournaments with qualifying rounds at individual venues. Today this requires spreadsheets, emails, and someone manually aggregating results.

Felt offers this for free. Anyone can create a regional tournament or league through Felt's cloud platform:

• Define qualifying events across participating venues
• Automatic point aggregation from each venue's qualifying tournaments
• Unified leaderboard across all venues
• Finals event management
• Player profiles carry across all participating venues

Why free? Because it hooks venues from the outside. A regional organizer approaches 12 venues about a championship series. 8 of them aren't on Felt yet. To participate, they sign up for the free tier. Now they're running their qualifiers on Felt. Their players create Felt profiles. Six months later, they're wondering why they're still running their regular tournaments on TDD.

This is viral adoption that costs us nothing beyond the virtual Leaf infrastructure we're already providing.

Hardware Model

No BYO. Felt hardware only.

Leaf nodes and display nodes are sold exclusively by Felt. They ship pre-configured, locked down, and secure.

Why no BYO:

• Security. The Leaf stores player data, financial records, and venue operations. A BYO device could be cloned, extracted, or tampered with. Our hardware ships with encrypted storage, secure boot, and tamper detection. We control the full chain.
• Reliability. We test on our exact hardware. No "works on my Raspberry Pi but not yours" support tickets.
• Support. When something breaks, we ship a replacement.
• Consistency. Every Felt installation worldwide runs identical hardware.

Hardware pricing (cost-recovery, no recurring fees on displays):

Device	Price	Notes
Leaf Node	~€120	Venue brain — runs everything offline
Display Node	~€30 each	Pi Zero W2 + case + power — no recurring fee
Display Node 4-pack	~€110	Slight discount on multi-buy

Leaf hardware options:

• Buy outright for €120
• Free with 12-month Offline or Pro annual plan
• Casino tiers: hardware included in contract

Display nodes: Priced at cost + shipping. No recurring fee — they're stateless render devices. Venues buy as many as they need (most want 2-6).

Custom Domains

Venues can point their own domain to Felt. They configure a CNAME to their Felt subdomain — Netbird handles TLS termination and routing automatically. The Felt subdomain (venue-name.felt.io) works as a fallback.

Example: poker.copenhagenbar.dk → copenhagenbar.felt.io → Netbird → Leaf

Zero complexity for the venue. Professional presence without IT involvement.

Subscription Tiers

Venue Tiers

Tier	Price	Target	Key Differentiator
Free	€0/mo	Enthusiast clubs, small bars, anyone starting	Full tournament engine on virtual Leaf in our cloud. Requires internet.
Offline	€25/mo	Venues that need reliability and displays	Dedicated Leaf hardware + wireless display nodes + offline operation + custom domain + remote admin
Pro	€100/mo	Serious venues wanting the full platform	Everything in Offline + cash games + dealer scheduling + loyalty + memberships + analytics + TDD import + priority support

Pro is €25 (Offline) + €75 (Pro features). A venue on the Offline tier can upgrade to Pro at any time by adding €75/mo — no hardware changes needed.

Casino & Enterprise Tiers

Tier	Price	Target
Casino Starter	€249/mo	Independent casino, 1 poker room, 5-15 tables. Adds multi-room support, floor manager roles, compliance audit trail, shift reporting, 8hr SLA.
Casino Pro	€499/mo per property	Small chain, 2-5 properties, 15-40 tables each. Adds multi-property dashboard, cross-property player tracking & loyalty, centralized dealer pool, API access for POS/CMS integration, white-label, 4hr SLA, dedicated onboarding.
Casino Enterprise	Custom (€999+/mo)	Large operators, 5+ properties, 40+ tables each. Adds unlimited properties, fleet management, regional analytics, casino CMS API integration (Bally's, IGT, L&W), custom feature development, white-label everything, 2hr SLA + dedicated account manager, on-site installation.

Casino tiers include Leaf hardware in the contract. Display nodes at cost.

The Casino Multiplier

One Casino Pro deal (5 properties × €499/mo) = €2,495/mo = €29,940/yr. That single deal is worth 100 Offline venues or 25 Pro venues. Two Casino Pro deals plus modest venue growth gets you to €100k+/yr revenue from under 100 total paying venues.

Casinos are where the margin is. Enthusiast venues build the platform, prove the product, and generate the player network. Casino contracts pay the bills.

Unit Economics

Infrastructure costs (from capacity analysis):

A single €100/mo Hetzner server (16c/32t, 64GB RAM, 2×1TB NVMe) handles ~1,300 Virtual Leafs or ~900 Pro venues on Core. For Year 1-2 with everything on one server, actual cost per free venue is ~€0.45/mo — far below the €4/mo we conservatively budget.

Tier	Revenue	Infra Cost	Net Margin
Free (virtual Leaf)	€0/mo	~€0.45/mo	-€0.45/mo (CAC)
Offline	€25/mo	~€0.15/mo	~€24.85/mo
Pro	€100/mo	~€0.15/mo	~€99.85/mo
Casino Starter	€249/mo	~€0.15/mo	~€248.85/mo
Casino Pro (per property)	€499/mo	~€0.15/mo	~€498.85/mo

Infrastructure margins are absurd because Pro/Casino Leafs run on the venue's hardware. We're essentially selling software licenses with near-zero marginal cost.

Conversion Strategy

The free → paid conversion is driven by natural needs, not artificial limitations:

Trigger	Conversion Path
Internet goes down during tournament	→ Offline (€25/mo)
Want proper TV displays (not browser tabs)	→ Offline (€25/mo) — need display node hardware
Want custom domain	→ Offline (€25/mo)
Start running cash games	→ Pro (€100/mo)
Want dealer scheduling	→ Pro (€100/mo)
Want player loyalty	→ Pro (€100/mo)
Growing player base needs analytics	→ Pro (€100/mo)
Multi-room or 15+ tables	→ Casino Starter (€249/mo)
Multiple properties	→ Casino Pro (€499/mo)

What Venues Pay Today (for comparison)

Current Tool	Cost	What Felt Replaces It With
TDD License	$130 one-time (Windows PC required)	Offline at €25/mo — plus wireless displays, mobile, signage
BravoPokerLive	$200-500/mo (US, waitlist-focused)	Pro at €100/mo — plus tournaments, displays, analytics
Casino CMS poker module	$2,000-10,000/mo	Casino Starter at €249/mo — 1/10th the price, better product
Digital signage software	€30-80/mo (separate sub)	Included in Offline and above
Generic waitlist app	€20-50/mo	Included in Pro
Spreadsheets for leagues/stats	Free but hours of manual work	Included in Free tier

Scaling Math

Milestone	Free	Offline	Pro	Casino	Monthly Revenue	Annual Net
Year 1 (Denmark)	80	8	5	0	€700	~€6.7k
Year 2 (Nordics + first casino)	250	20	15	2 CS	€2,498	~€27k
Year 3 (N. Europe + UK)	500	40	35	5 CS + 1 CP	€6,244	~€70k
Year 4 (International)	800	60	60	8 CS + 3 CP + 1 CE	€12,488	~€143k

CS = Casino Starter (€249/mo), CP = Casino Pro (€499/mo), CE = Casino Enterprise (€999+/mo)

Unit Economics

Free tier cost to us:

Item	Cost
Virtual Leaf (cloud compute per venue)	~€3/mo
Storage	~€0.50/mo
Bandwidth	~€0.50/mo
Total per free venue	~€4/mo

At 100 free venues, that's €400/mo in infrastructure cost. This is our customer acquisition cost — far cheaper than any ad campaign, and the venue is already locked in with data.

Pro tier economics:

Cost Side	Amount
Hardware (Leaf + 4 displays, at-cost)	~€200 one-time
Cloud infrastructure per venue	~€3/mo
Support & maintenance overhead	~€3/mo
Total ongoing cost per venue	~€6/mo

Revenue Side	Amount
Hardware margin (small)	~€30 one-time
Pro subscription	€49/mo
Net margin per venue	~€43/mo → €516/yr

Conversion Strategy

The free → Pro conversion is driven by natural needs, not artificial limitations:

Trigger	Why They Upgrade
Internet goes down during tournament	"We need offline operation" → need Leaf → need Pro
Want proper TV displays	"Browser tab on a laptop isn't cutting it" → need display nodes → need Pro
Start running cash games	Only available on Pro
Want dealer scheduling	Only available on Pro
Want player loyalty	Only available on Pro
Growing player base needs analytics	Only available on Pro
Want remote access for management	Only available on Pro

We estimate 20-30% conversion over 12 months based on the natural progression of a venue that starts taking poker seriously.

Scaling Math

Free Venues	Pro Venues	Hardware Revenue	Annual Recurring	Net Annual
50	5 (10%)	€1,000	€3k	~€2.5k (break-even approaching)
200	40 (20%)	€8,000	€24k	~€20k
500	125 (25%)	€25,000	€75k	~€65k
1,000	250 (25%)	€50,000	€150k	~€130k

Plus enterprise contracts on top. The free tier costs us ~€4/venue/mo but drives all adoption.

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8. Competitive Moats

What's Hard to Replicate

Platform-level player identity. Players and dealers belong to Felt, not to any venue. A player's tournament history, stats, achievements, and loyalty span every venue they've ever played at. This creates lock-in to the platform, not to individual venues — and it means a venue switching away from Felt loses access to the network without the players losing anything. No competitor can replicate this without first building the network.

The full-stack hardware+software+network integration. Anyone can build a tournament timer app. No one has built a system where the hardware, software, networking, display management, and player ecosystem all work together out of the box. This is years of engineering.

Player-driven demand. The dedicated player app with social groups, gamification, and cross-venue stats creates bottom-up pressure on venues to adopt Felt. Players asking "when are you getting on Felt?" is the most powerful sales force we could have — and it costs us nothing.

Network agnosticism. The Netbird-based zero-config networking is a deep technical advantage. Competitors would need to either build this themselves or depend on a third party. We self-host the entire stack.

Data gravity. After 12 months of operation, a venue has thousands of tournament records, player profiles, financial transactions, league standings, and loyalty data in Felt. There's nowhere to migrate this to because no competitor has the same data model.

Signage lock-in. Even free-tier venues use Felt's signage editor to create event promos and drink specials. Once they upgrade to Pro with physical display nodes managing all their screens, removing Felt means losing their entire screen management system.

TDD migration path. We're the only alternative that imports TDD data directly. A venue doesn't start from scratch — they bring their entire history. This removes the migration barrier that has kept TDD alive for 15 years.

The regional organizer network. Free cross-venue tournaments and leagues create organic adoption. A regional organizer brings 12 venues onto the platform at once — all for free — and every one of those venues' players now has a Felt profile.

What's Not Hard to Replicate

• The tournament clock engine itself (TDD already does this well)
• Basic cash game waitlist management
• Mobile-first UI (any competent frontend team can build this)

The moat isn't any single feature. It's the combination of platform-level identity, player-driven demand, free-tier adoption, and full-stack integration that creates a network no competitor can replicate by building better software alone.

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9. Market Landscape

Current Tools

Tool	What It Does	What It Doesn't Do
The Tournament Director (TDD)	Deep tournament management	Cash games, mobile, cloud, wireless displays, signage, modern UI
Blind Valet	Simple cloud timer	Offline, cash games, displays, player tracking, depth
Poker Atlas	Venue discovery, schedule	Any operational tooling
Hendon Mob	Player results database	Venue management, real-time
BravoPokerLive	Waitlist app (US-focused)	Tournament management, displays, full integration
Generic digital signage	Screen management	Poker-specific features

Market Segments

Small bars & clubs (1-5 tables): The biggest market by count. Usually one person runs everything. They need simplicity above all. Felt's free tier gets them started; the €100 hardware investment is trivial compared to a Windows PC + monitors + cables.

Dedicated poker rooms (5-20 tables): The sweet spot. These venues are serious enough to need proper tooling but small enough that enterprise casino management systems are overkill. They'll pay €49-79/mo happily if it replaces 3+ separate tools.

Casino poker rooms (20+ tables): Enterprise opportunity. These venues already have casino management systems (from companies like Bally's, Light & Wonder, IGT) but those systems have weak poker-specific features. Felt could integrate as a poker module within their ecosystem — or replace their poker tooling entirely.

Amateur leagues: Growing segment. League organizers run multi-venue seasons across bars and clubs. They need cross-venue league management, consistent player tracking, and a unified platform. Felt's multi-venue tier is built for this.

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10. Long-Term Value & Natural Exits

Felt is designed to be valuable whether it exits or not.

Scenario A: Cash Cow

200+ venues paying monthly subscriptions with minimal churn. Low infrastructure costs (self-hosted, no per-venue cloud resources beyond sync). Deep venue lock-in through years of data. Minimal support burden once the product is stable. This is a comfortable, profitable business that generates recurring revenue indefinitely.

Scenario B: Acquisition by Casino Management Platforms

Most likely acquirers: Companies like Bally's Corporation, Light & Wonder (formerly Scientific Games), IGT, or Aristocrat. These companies spend billions on casino floor technology — slot management, table game tracking, player loyalty (think "players club" cards), regulatory compliance. But their poker room software is uniformly poor. Poker is a small part of their business and gets minimal R&D attention.

What Felt gives them:

• Modern player tracking that actually works for poker (not adapted from slot machine logic)
• Cross-property poker analytics (how do poker players behave across multiple casino properties?)
• A mobile-first player experience their current systems can't provide
• Digital signage that integrates with their existing property management
• A ready-made platform they don't have to build

Why this makes sense for us:

• These companies have distribution. They're already in hundreds of casinos.
• They have the sales force to onboard venues. We don't.
• Felt's clean API boundaries and multi-tenant architecture make integration straightforward.
• The acquisition price reflects both the technology and the venue/player data.

Scenario C: Acquisition by Online Poker Operators

Potential acquirers: PokerStars (Flutter Entertainment), GGPoker, WPT (joining with Zynga Poker), 888poker.

Online poker operators are all investing in live poker experiences. They sponsor live tours, run branded events, and want to bridge their online player base with live venues. Felt gives them an instant physical-venue platform with player data that bridges online and live play — a gap no one has closed.

What Makes Us Attractive Regardless of Path

• Clean API boundaries (acquirer integrates, doesn't rebuild)
• Multi-tenant from day one (all venues in one platform)
• Data portability (full export — builds trust, reduces churn fear)
• Security posture that survives due diligence
• No technical debt from "we'll fix it later" shortcuts

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11. Risks & Mitigations

Product Risk: TDD Is Good Enough

Risk: Venue operators are used to TDD's quirks and don't want to switch. Mitigation: We don't need to replace TDD everywhere. We need to win new venues and venues that are upgrading. TDD doesn't do cash games, displays, signage, or mobile. Every venue that wants any of those features is our customer.

Market Risk: Small Market Size

Risk: Live poker venues are a niche market. Mitigation: The global live poker market is larger than it appears. US alone has 800+ poker rooms. Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America add thousands more. Amateur leagues (pub poker) are a massive undercounted segment. And Felt's complete-venue approach means higher revenue per customer than a single-feature tool.

Technical Risk: Hardware Reliability

Risk: SBCs fail, SD cards corrupt, displays disconnect. Mitigation: NVMe storage (not SD cards) on Leaf nodes. Display nodes are stateless and replaceable. Automatic cloud backup of all venue data. Remote diagnostics via Netbird SSH. Hardware is commodity — replace a failed Leaf in 30 minutes.

Competitive Risk: Someone Builds This

Risk: A well-funded competitor builds an integrated venue platform. Mitigation: First-mover advantage is real in B2B SaaS. Switching costs after 12 months of data accumulation are high. The full-stack integration (hardware + software + networking + signage) is 2+ years of engineering. And we're not waiting — we're shipping Phase 1 now.

Regulatory Risk: Gambling Regulations

Risk: Some jurisdictions have regulations around poker management software, player tracking, or financial reporting. Mitigation: Felt tracks buy-ins and payouts for venue operators — it doesn't process gambling transactions. We're a management tool, not a payment processor. Data export and audit trail features support compliance requirements. We'll engage legal counsel per jurisdiction as we expand.

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"Plug in. Power on. Deal."