CoffeeHUD Becomes First PokerTracker 4 Add-On Partner

Breaking news!  PokerTracker's Steven McLoughlin recently informed us that HUSNG's CoffeeHUD has become the first approved partner to join the new PokerTracker 4 Add-On Partner program.  The PokerTracker store plans to support the support the sale of Premium Add-ons in December.   We caught up with HUSNG's Ryan "RyPac13" Pachmayer to understand how this came about and learn what is next for the site.

PokerSoftware:  Give us the history of HUSNG.

Ryan Pachmayer:  When we launched in February 2009, there were four partners: myself as the creator, Croixdawg, xSCWx, and Skates.  We each would make videos, up to four per month, and that was basically the first subscription package.  We added PrimordialAA when SNG Academy, the site he worked at, closed up, and Cog Dissonance shortly after and our roster was quickly at six.  In total, we've had around 50 players make videos with around two-dozen available at any given time.

PokerSoftware:  Why did HUSNG change its pricing model for any videos after October 2012 from a subscription format to a video pack format?

Ryan Pachmayer:  Hyper-Turbo sit and gos have become more profitable; unlike many other games, they've actually grown just about every year.  2012 was the best year, with 2013 currently at #2.   Therefore, players need more incentive to make top-quality videos.  Moving to a video pack format allows us to share revenue with our coaches and reward them directly for their value.

This format also helps users, as coaches have a full incentive with every pack they produce.  Switching formats has allowed us to make more free videos.  We now release anywhere from seven to 15 free videos per month, which helps low- and no-budget users and helps promote our paid content to other users.

PokerSoftware:  What future developments should we expect from HUSNG?

Ryan Pachmayer:  More video packs with a specific focus, software, and at some point we'll probably revamp the community aspect of the website.  We haven't focused on the forums like we could, for example, because we sponsor Two Plus Two's Heads-Up SNG forum, which is a pure forum.  So, there's been no sense in putting resources into the one thing that is really good out there already for heads-up sit and gos.

PokerSoftware:  How did HUSNG’s CoffeeHUD become the first PT4 Premium Add-On?

Ryan Pachmayer:  We're a little different from most training sites in that we don't exactly have a "roster."   What we have is sort of a community of video makers.  One of the coaches on the site I work with the most, Coffeeyay, developed a HUD with another programmer and came to me to help promote it to the HUSNG community.

PT4 was newer, had a lot of powerful features, and was easy to use, without a lot of annoying bugs for the creators.  It allowed them to create a very powerful HUD for HUSNG players.  Nothing like this was out there at all before this.  I have known Steven McLoughlin since he was the head of advertising on Two Plus Two and before HUSNG launched, so the relationship was really natural.

Steven provided support for us every step of the way, whether it was explanations of certain features in PT4 or even the occasional "Hey, this stat could be reworked a little bit."  It has been great to see the HUD users and PT4 users grow in the HUSNG market.

PokerSoftware:  What are the advantages of providing a Premium Add-On versus the Download Warehouse?

Ryan Pachmayer:  We do both.  The Download Warehouse is for our free CoffeeHUD Lite product, whereas the Premium Add-On allows us to sell more advanced products.  PokerTracker's upcoming store launch should really bring even more Premium Add-Ons to the forefront of the community.  It will be easy for us to reach more users who might not be aware of our software and give them a chance to see if this is something that is right for them.

PokerSoftware:  How much time is involved in developing a PT4 Premium Add-On?

Ryan Pachmayer:  It can vary, but for example, our upcoming CoffeeNotes (NoteTracker PT4) probably took 30 to 40 hours of work from Coffeeyay and myself designing stats and organizing into free and one to two premium packages.  From there, several programmers translate our written-out words (such as calls pre-flop raise OOP, check-calls flop, check-raises turn) into actual technical notes you can use in the PT4 system.  This is anywhere from another 50 to 100 hours for this project.

We'll then test it, probably make some changes until we're happy, and then we will launch.  I would say it will approach 200 hours when all of the marketing, product pages, and testing are complete, and it'll be about two months of work on this project.

PokerSoftware:  Do you plan to develop any more Premium Add-Ons for PT4?

Ryan Pachmayer:  We're working on a big update to CoffeeHUD, the biggest update yet.   As for new products, it's possible we'll do a heads-up cash NoteTracker package and at some point we'll likely build another HUSNG HUD.  I expect either we'll have a big enough breakthrough in ideas or the users will demand something too large and different to make sense for a CoffeeHUD update.

Some of the people involved in various aspects of CoffeeHUD are working on advanced HUDs for other games though such as MTTs and cash games.  Kristjan (CoffeeHUD Programmer) and Spacegravy (HS HUSNG Pro) have teamed up to create ProPokerHUDs.com.  Once the PT4 store launches, I'm sure you'll start to see some nice new products popping up that cover areas not just limited to heads-up sit and gos

PokerSoftware:  Can you tell us when the big update to CoffeeHUD will be released and what it will contain?

Ryan Pachmayer:  We're looking at two to three weeks for this update to be ready to go.  We will be improving the design by providing better stat groupings, two new pre-flop stats, over a dozen new post-flop stats, and some tweaking of a few existing stats.

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