Harsh Jain says he’s an “open secret” that he doesn’t use his own fantasy sports app, at least for fantasy football.
“I’m still committed to fantasy football in the Fantasy Premier League, which is why we created Dream11.”
Fantasy sports are online games in which players create virtual teams of representatives who track real sports players. They can earn points and win cash prizes based on how these players perform in the real world.
Fantasy football was already hugely popular in the UK in the early 2000s and Jain caught the bug while attending secondary school there.
After introducing him to his childhood friend Bhavit Sheth, they set out to find a fantasy cricket platform in India. Not finding what they were looking for, they created their own in 2008.
What happens if you get hit by the bus? Are you building scale and systems in a way… not dependent on [a single person] and… make a person make a decision?
hard jainism
Co-founder and CEO, Dream Sports
According to Jain, it’s the “first mover advantage” that took his company Dream Sports, the parent company of Dream11, to great heights.
“Once you and your friends are … connected through a network in fantasy sports, for an opponent to take you to play there, you have to move all your friends with you,” said Jain, who is also a director. Dream Sports executive.
“Because you have your leagues set up, all your friends are playing against each other.”
Dream Sports is not only India’s first sports tech unicorn: the company also has “nearly 90% market share” in the country’s fantasy sports industry.
The 36-year-old men share three tips on how to run a successful business.
1. Unplug
If there’s one “fundamental principle” Jain and Sheth live by as leaders of their company, it’s making sure your business doesn’t depend on either one of them, they told CNBC Make It.
Jain said, “What happens if you get hit by the bus? Are you building scale and systems in a way that … does not depend on [a single person] and… make a person make a decision?”
That’s why the co-founders imposed a week of “off” for all Dream Sports employees, including themselves.
Harsh Jain (left) and Bhavit Sheth are the co-founders of Dream Sports, an Indian sports technology company that owns Dream11, the country’s largest fantasy gaming platform.
dream sports
“Once a year, for a week, they throw you out of the [company] system… you don’t have Slack, emails and calls,” Jain added.
“Because it helps you a lot to have that week of uninterrupted time and it helps the company to know if we depend on someone.”
Anyone who approaches another employee during “disconnect” time has to pay a fine of around $1,200, Jain added. That has been effective so far, the co-founders said.
“Nobody wants to be that idiot who called someone who was offline,” said Sheth, who is also the director of operations, with a smile.
2. Learn from rejection
Jain and Sheth said they heard “no” at least 150 times from venture capital firms when they were trying to secure seed funding 10 years ago.
“We went to all the Indian venture capitalists and they said, ‘This is an American concept. Fantasy sports are not prevalent in India… Why aren’t they raising money in America?'”
But it was just as difficult when Jain tried to raise money in New York and San Francisco.
“All the venture capitalists there told me to go back to India. ‘It’s an Indian company, raise money in India!'” Jain recalled. “Then I realized it was just a polite way of saying no.”
Instead of feeling discouraged, Jain and Sheth got fuel from the rejections.
Early-stage investors are actually looking for deeply passionate founders, [and products] with a big market.
hard jainism
Co-founder and CEO, Dream Sports
“The lesson was that from every meeting, you can find out why they said no, you can ask them, ‘What’s your biggest area of concern?'”
Jain and Sheth said it took almost two years before they finally hit the nail on the head.
“Early-stage investors are actually looking for deeply passionate founders, [and products] with a big market,” Jain said.
“Early traction, high user retention… and founders [who] it will stay there and will not give up. I think that’s what helped us finally figure out the pitch.”
Since then, Dream Sports’ vision of connecting with millions of sports fans in India has attracted big investors including Chinese tech giant Tencent, US investment firm Tiger Global and Hong Kong-based Steadview Capital.
Its latest fundraising round in 2021 raised $840 million, giving the company its valuation of $8 billion.
3. Shut out the noise
The life of an entrepreneur is “always sexier from the outside,” Jain said.
That’s something the childhood friends know all too well: They lost “a couple of million bucks” in start-up capital when they were just 26 years old.
“Every founder, when you start something, you really think this is going to explode, you’re going to change the world… and ours crashed and burned.”
However, even after a successful switch from a free to a “freemium” model in 2012, the challenges did not abate.
“From 2008 to 2012 it was difficult to find the right business model. From 2012 to 2014 it was difficult to raise money. And from 2015 to now it is difficult to meet investor expectations,” Jain said.
You are always fighting against something.
hard jainism
CEO and Co-Founder of Dream Sports
Source: news.google.com