Mark Twain believed that finding a job you love meant you’d never have to work a day in your life. Czech poker pro and streamer Karlen ‘Karlencho’ Aladzjan clearly agrees, except he’s actually found two things that he loves doing.

Aladzjan got his start playing poker in his early teens and by the time he was in high school, he knew that he wanted to play the game professionally. Rather than finish up high school, Aladzjan told his parents he was putting that on hold.

“I was supposed to go to high school, but I decided to take some time off and try to play online poker for a living, try to build my bankroll and I was lucky enough to build my first bankroll after going broke a couple of times,” Aladzjan said. “It took me probably three years to build a bankroll, which I later used to basically pay for my living expenses, and try to pursue a career as a poker streamer.”

When Aladzjan first started playing poker, he admired the poker pros who had endorsement deals with online poker rooms and he set that as a goal for himself. In between then and now, the landscape changed and it just happened to better align with another one of his interests.

“Today, it’s not really about necessarily being the best poker player as you can be to get sponsored,” Aladzjan said. “So, I just decided that the best way to get that done is by creating content and I’ve also always had a passion for creating videos and doing some graphic designs and stuff. So, I decided to combine those two passions of mine and do both at the same time.”

Aladzjan took to Twitch, and much like a lot of streamers have done over the years, he decided to run a bankroll building challenge. His mission was to turn $10 into $1,000. Everything was going perfectly and he was just $48 from hitting the goal. Rather than just grind away at some low stakes sit-n-gos or MTTs, Aladzjan decided to challenge a streamer who had been a strong influence on him, Felix ‘xflixx’ Schneiders.

“I was basically challenging the final boss in the game, the original guy that made this challenge. I was going to take over the throne, and then I shoved ten-four offsuit and he had ace-king,” Aladzjan remembers.

Unable to take out the ‘final boss’, Aladzjan went on a terrible downswing that showed no signs of ending. Over the six months that followed, the $952 that he had built up kept falling, but it was while he was struggling to finish this challenge that representatives from GGPoker.com first reached out about having him join the GGPoker Stream Team.

Down to just six dollars, Aladzjan signed with GGPoker and decided it was probably best to put the challenge on the back burner and get started on some other streaming projects built around GGPoker.

“I just couldn’t see a way of me being able to promote GGPoker, and at the same time bounce back from the six bucks,” Aladzjan said. “So, we decided to not go down to zero totally, but at the same time not cancel the challenge and maybe renew the challenge in the future.”

Even though he didn’t get to that $1,000, he looks back at the challenge and considers it a success. He had just 15 followers when he started streaming and built that up to over 5,000 during the time he was doing the challenge. He hit 1,000,000 YouTube views and grew his Instagram audience by nearly 4,000 followers. And he also completed one of his bigger goals of signing a contract with an online poker room.

“We signed a deal and I took a one week break. Then I came back to Twitch and I was exclusively streaming on GGPoker, just random games, random tournaments for about four or five months,” Aladzjan said. “I just decided to take a couple of months to enjoy the sponsorship and enjoy some time with my audience playing on GGPoker.”

That’s when he decided to start a new challenge, hoping to turn $1,000 into the $10,000. He’s still working towards that goal now but recently took some time off to get his content production business, Karlencho Productions, off the ground.

“I was working on this business, and website while I was doing this challenge, and it was just overwhelming. It doesn’t really matter if the challenge is going well or not. I am just doing everything by myself, so, at one point it was just too much for me to handle streaming and working on the website and run the business at the same time. So, it just felt like a good step to take some time off.”

The production company gives Aladzjan the chance to work with other Twitch streamers on some of the technical elements of streaming while also helping them build their audience.

“I edit my own videos. I made my own Twitch layout. I made all my banners for social media, all the intros, outros, logos, basically everything content-wise, I did by myself and it is something that I enjoy doing,” Aladzjan said. “While I was streaming and playing poker, I had other poker streamers reaching out to me. If someone wanted an Instagram clip for something that they had going on, I created that for them. If someone wanted a layout, I took some time to create a layout for them.”

That gave Aladzjan a perfect way to combine his passion for poker streaming and content creation. Now that the business is up and running, he’s returned to the Twitch streets for the GGPoker GG Series 3 tournaments. The

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a number that I want to reach. It was never about that. It was more about, doing what I love and just enjoying the progress and seeing the brand grow,” Aladzjan said. “It doesn’t matter if it was 100 followers or 5,000 followers. It was never about the numbers for me, and it still isn’t to this day.”

The production business, which allows Aladzjan to serve as a guide and a mentor to any streamers looking for guidance, is anything but a distraction for the 25-year-old’s own streaming plans. In fact, it’s a perfect match that gives him ample opportunities to spend his energy on all of the things that drive him.

“I have two passions and I am trying to be the best in both of them. I am just enjoying it. It doesn’t feel overwhelming for me at all. I just love it.”