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The Saas (Sports as a Service!) Pioneer | Saumil Majmudar @ Sportz Village
118 Plays4 years ago
It may sound weird for a sports enthusiast to be in IIT. Right?
Well, Saumil Majmudar, our guest today, says that it's possible, and that it's an excuse kids make, there are a lot of people who balance academics and sports. They can coexist!
Sports have always been a part of his life and it's something he assumes should be in life always.
Saumil Majmudar is the Co-founder, CEO and Managing Director of Sportz Village, which aims to get 100 million children to play. Prior to starting Sportz Village, Saumil was the Founder-CEO of QSupport (one of India's first remote tech support businesses) and worked with Wipro (Global R&D) in the International marketing team.
Saumil holds a B-Tech degree & is a Distinguished Service Alumnus from IIT-Bombay, a PGDM from IIM-Bangalore, a Basic Mountaineering Degree from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (Uttarkashi) & a Black belt in Karate.
Doesn't it sound incredible? Well that has not been the case from the beginning.
Tune in to find out how this sports lover had an academic bent to have a science background and finally become an entrepreneur.
Key takeaways from the show:
*How can Sports & academics co-exist.
*Tips to prepare a business model.
*How to do customer acquisition.
*What mistakes one must avoid.
For more such inspiring & intriguing leadership stories visit our website at www.thepodium.in
We are also on Instagram at @thepodium.in and have a Whats app community of fellow entrepreneurs & startup enthusiasts at www.podm.in/growwithpodium
Join us there to stay updated on the latest from The Podium.in
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Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
HD Smartcast You are listening to an HD Smartcast original
00:00:24
Speaker
Hi, I'm Akshay. Hi, this is Aurob. And you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast. We meet some of the most celebrated charter founders in the country. And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
Lazy Success and Serendipitous Ideas with Somil Masmoudar
00:00:46
Speaker
How do you raise great kids? Well, many times it is by doing something as simple as making kids play outdoors. This was the thesis with which our guest today started and built up a company over a decade and a half. In this episode of Founder Thesis Podcast, Akshay Dutt is in conversation with Somil Masmoudar, founder and CEO of Sports Village.
00:01:10
Speaker
and we discussed some amazing concepts like Lazy Success and how to scale up a serendipitous idea. You are a sawmill talking about His Time at IIT Mumbai. But otherwise I think one of the two things that I felt since you asked about the IIT experience is that something is relevant across.
00:01:35
Speaker
One is on the sports side, you know, let me give you a data point. I was in the March, I was selected for a March appointment team, 9th and standard, and then 12th after 12th, I got an IIT. And I must say, actually, I thought I was the cool dude, right? And I could not get into the IIT Bombay. Okay. It was very competitive.
00:01:56
Speaker
I could not get into it. That's how good people were. And I thought that I am one of the few cool dudes who's doing accads and sports. And what I already told me was, not really. There are a lot of other people who are able to balance academics and sports and do better than you. And to me, that was a very interesting insight. That this, the rhetoric around sport has been, if you do sport, you should have offered it. That's not true. That is, in my mind, an excuse that kids are making and parents will give them make.
00:02:23
Speaker
Because if you really want to do it, think about it. You can. You have enough time to pick up on academics. That's a pretty good insight. And people are doing it. So I mean, whenever people tell me, here are academics, sports that are academic, I'm like, why?
00:02:38
Speaker
I mean, I've seen the best of best minds, you know, play the best of best sports and still find a balance. Of course, they sacrifice other things, right? Of course, they don't do everything else, but they just pick these two and they are like, well, as good as they can be. So it's possible. What we want to do is also hang out with friends, also watch movies, also, also, also, and then say, well, actually my sports are not the one I can do. I don't, I don't buy because the same athlete, same athlete,
00:03:03
Speaker
I'll come to that. The same actually. Who is able to work so hard at getting a short ride, getting the run ride, getting the technique right. It cannot be that he or she will not apply to this problem of correcting a bad spot. It's an application issue. It's not an ability issue. So there isn't one which is that sports and academics are not mutually exclusive. They can both coexist.
Somil's Educational and Early Career Journey
00:03:25
Speaker
The second one was really I got exposed to this notion of lazy success. What do you mean by that? So lazy success is you achieve a success but do it with the least effort possible.
00:03:41
Speaker
Are you saying this as something to be aspired for or are you being critical of lazy success? I mean, to you lazy success is... No, I think it's a fantastic thing that you just think so much and so much and so much and find the easiest way to do the least and achieve the most. Okay, which also I think is called path of least effort. Yeah, I mean, sorry, I don't know those words, but yeah, to me it was just lazy success because I could see people around me.
00:04:10
Speaker
who lectured in Nikarega, who's Nikarega, suddenly you know, in the exams you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't think they're in Palais, you don't
00:04:36
Speaker
It's not like they are winging it. It's not like they are gaming the system. They really understand better than you, but they understood the code very well. And you are from time just figuring out the periphery. So lazy success was another very interesting thing. I think very often we over glamour. Did you master it yourself? Lazy success? No, I'm trying. Not yet.
00:04:58
Speaker
I mean, I try to do it, sometimes it works. But the interesting part only success is what is that you think so much about the problem that you try and do the least effort. So I do to my to be a bit immodest, I do think that I achieve the same same amount of success, same amount of outcome with maybe 30, 40% less effort than everybody else. Right.
00:05:20
Speaker
I'm not saying it's exclusive to IT, I just want it. The last part is the joy of solving the juicy problem. I think that man, he probably solved the problem. So the last part was, the third part was the joy of solving a real juicy problem. There is this notion called EP, ego problems, that we used to use the phrase in IT. There is an EP here, it's called solving problem.
00:05:44
Speaker
So then you stay up all night, you do all kinds of stuff, but solve the damn thing. And I
Entrepreneurial Beginnings and Lessons from Failure
00:05:51
Speaker
think that sense of, I don't know what to call it, the sense of, I will solve it. And the confidence that you will figure it out, it might take time, but you will figure it out. Just stay at it, just stay at it. You will figure it out.
00:06:06
Speaker
And that probably has been the reason I'm still in sports village, building sports for 17 years. Yet this problem of getting kids to play and building a good business is such a juicy problem to solve. It's such an important problem to solve. This is worth solving. Why can't I solve it?
00:06:21
Speaker
Let me come back to the business in a more chronological fashion. I'll come back to the same question again. For now, let's park this, but I want to reach there as a part of your journey. In IIT, you had a bunch of insights which you told me about. Why did you then decide to
00:06:48
Speaker
Again, as you said, it's not always a choice, but why did you pursue an MBA from IAM Bangalore? Why not look at working? This is more a career conversation, right? Because a lot of the career choices that at least we made were really about what we don't want. Like in 10th century, I didn't want to do biology in Hindi, so I took science.
00:07:16
Speaker
Well, it was really, if you can't do anything, you can't do anything. My belt ever went to IIT, so I was like, what the hell I can do with IIT. I didn't want to do medicine. So it was very clear to me that I had heard of something like IIT. I had gone and spent the summer with him there. I liked the idea of how to do it and I can't do it. So some of these things are not really, this is a really long term plan.
00:07:39
Speaker
In my first year at IIT, first year, second year, half way, I realized this is an ordinary law. And then it became tricky because you worked so hard to get into the institute and now you're like, you know how to do this, right? And like, okay, now what? And that's when I heard about something called management. Something called management, this may be basically start engineering or start core engineering career.
00:08:08
Speaker
and it's, you know, it's a little marketing, and you work with people, and, you know, that's not interesting. More, I don't want to do the engineering, so what else do I do? Because 95% or 98% of our batchmates gave GRE, as I did, and went abroad. I and a few other batchmates gave our can and stayed back. Because we are a very small percentage of people who stayed back. So it is really what I didn't want to do.
00:08:35
Speaker
of engineering and in CAD, manual became the next next thing that seemed to make sense. I guess you must have also discovered that you're good with people because being a sportsec, he means a lot of dealing with public, dealing with people kind of work. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know frankly, Ustemper, how much analysis of these kind of things, a lot of these are push factor analysis to be fair.
00:09:05
Speaker
As they say in hindsight, everything is starting to feel. But at that point, we were just trying to figure stuff out and say, let's go on this path. But yeah, it just made more sense. And in I Am Bangalore, you had the regular kind of an approach that most people look at an MBA as a placement institute that I'm joining this so that I get a good job. So was that your approach also?
00:09:35
Speaker
No, of course we wanted a good job, but I was really impressed with the kind of people that, like I was an IT, the kind of people who were around me. And now suddenly you're getting people who are from the arts background, commerce background, science background, not just engineering background, who are tremendously smart, but in a very different way.
00:09:59
Speaker
Beyond a point, there is an eye and there is a certain way of thinking beyond a point. There is a certain amount and suddenly you meet a very refreshing experience. So yeah, I mean, it was frankly, you know, I think that age when you're doing engineering MBA, I think you're figuring yourself out as to what you want to do. And you're just going down the path of what, like I said, what you don't want to do, you're avoiding and then trying to maximize from what you are willing to do.
00:10:27
Speaker
and I don't think I had any grand strategy.
00:10:33
Speaker
And as I remember one of my conversations with one very senior industry leader that I had between my two startups, I thought I'll go and do a job for some time. And I looked at my resume, and he looked at my resume and said, sort of, you seem to be getting into these right places, but once you're inside those places, it's not like much, because my grades were not very good.
00:10:59
Speaker
So I was like, yeah, that's a good observation. I don't know, maybe it's a personality that, you know, once I feel Kiyo crack, I don't know. I don't know anything else to prove to anybody else. I don't know. Some of these are, you know, difficult rationalizations. But to your question, I was like, let's give it a shot. And in the beginning, you're a competitor, then you realize what the hell is a competitor. But to your question, maybe if I preempt your question, I never thought I'll be an entrepreneur.
Founding Sports Village and Its Early Challenges
00:11:30
Speaker
Not even once. Not even once. I never thought I was an entrepreneur. I don't think any of them batch mates. Though now they tell me that we do, you'll be an entrepreneur. I don't think at that point, they would have said that. I was very clear. I don't think. So you joined Wipro from campus, I am assuming. And what were those almost three years you spent there? So what was those three years and what was the trigger to quit Wipro?
00:12:00
Speaker
So I must replace some records. I think GoPro was a great experience. It was a great place to start my career. I think it's a tremendous place to bounce some coal lessons and integrity and value and so on. I was very fortunate that the boss, my boss who hired me was also IMB alumni. He interviewed me and he ended up working indirectly. He was very senior to me. We should have had like three people between us, but because we are part of an initiative, I was working indirectly.
00:12:26
Speaker
I learnt a lot. I learnt a hell of a lot in the first two years. So I spent some time in international marketing business in the first year and a half. Then I spent some time in domestic sales, selling PCs to Camera Bank, which I went back in 1998. Then I was like, what's the next? Then before the standard career would be, you can throw hardware, then you do software, then you go abroad.
00:12:50
Speaker
And I was like, this is not what I wanted to do. You know, it just didn't sound, I don't know, very juicy enough. Like, there's not really something better. And that's when this whole thing of entrepreneurship, you know, started seeming very glamorous. We are really interesting. And I had a few friends, a friend of friends who were entrepreneurs. I used to spend time with them.
00:13:07
Speaker
And it was very fascinating, but I had no clue when I ever quit. I had got married just then. So to your question, I think because really the reason I quit before was there's a why not, as against why. Why not always makes life not too interesting and why. And why not is not for expensive, not for liberating. Why is it very constraining? Sometimes.
00:13:42
Speaker
So that was really the way it started and my wife was in different times. We said, and see entrepreneurs like us who are entrepreneurs of choice as again entrepreneurs because we are forced to be entrepreneurs, many other people are. Always have the safety net in entrepreneurs.
00:14:00
Speaker
Second is very rarely do you do a big capex business. You don't have to act like how good those approach behave. Very rarely do. You do a service business. Anyone is starting something and people don't need anything. You just work harder and sweat smarter. That's probably best you can do. And that's what I did. I had this very simple idea called learn at home, where I used to sell, send people to train people on computers at home.
00:14:26
Speaker
this was like a long-term training or like short-term course to learn computers short-term simple ms office like what you just asked me before you started the call a lot of people don't know the answer to that so just helping people use computers ms office internet email what nid was also doing at that time they also had this
00:14:54
Speaker
But NIT used to do it from a hardware and an engineering objective. Okay, NIT was not doing it from a usage objective. And the reason it started was my mom wanted to send me an email. And I told my dad, Aapsi, Haro, he sent me an email, he said, you come to fly down, I'll pay you to fly down from Bangalore to Bombay. And your trainer, I'll pay you. I was like, interesting. There's a bucket here. But on a serious note, people are struggling with computing power. People are struggling with using computers.
00:15:24
Speaker
And I thought that I'll just send people to their homes, learn at home. So that's how it started. Or let me pause there. So that's how my journey started. Really, why not? And this problem I faced because in, in the pro very often I would be the friendly tech support guy, right? See a lot of tech support till that time, the hardware tech support. You want peace in each other tomorrow, internet friends in each other. But to excel may, it's going to be different.
00:15:53
Speaker
The next text support guy won't know. The text support guy is not considered to handle that. The actual usage of the computing power. The reason you bought the computer was you used the damn thing for your object and there was nobody supporting you for that. They only supported you to keep it running. So I would fool around myself. I would say, I would read up help, I would do something. And I would figure it out. So I would become the informal text support guy. Let's go play.
00:16:19
Speaker
It doesn't sound like a very profitable business. You can't charge very exorbitant amounts also if you want to scale it up.
00:16:41
Speaker
Okay, and people should go home and so, of course, you know, like always, I had this thing, he made that ring if his lifetime value will send something else, you know, the usual stuff, you know, this time for the plan to work on. But yeah, it was not scalable, but it was the business that made sense to me and I just started it. And then as we started that,
00:17:01
Speaker
I also started worrying about scalability and I found that after I trained somebody, that person, I had three or four people working with me later on. That person would email me saying, because I am a software's internet copier, but I print out, I say, can you email me instructions? Because he or she knew, if I send my guy, I would charge them funds. And I would say, I would write email, one, two, three, four, I say, click here, click here, click here, pretty much helped one on one.
00:17:30
Speaker
and i said interesting so i went back to the pro and said look you are selling pc's why don't you bundler the email email support pack into your pc's home pc's and whenever customers have a question they can email write to me and i'll reply or email okay so that suddenly took out the physical part
00:17:53
Speaker
Then I started looking at that, I was talking to this friend of mine who is now in the U.S.
00:18:18
Speaker
So that's when we got more tools, what we started coming from Q support, one of the first remote tech support businesses. Later on, we called BPOs. But back then, there was not even a word called BPO in 1998. And we had Q support. We had 100 people in the BTM layout in Bangalore, 24x7 tech support for companies out of Chicago. So your friend was doing customer acquisition and you were doing service delivery.
00:18:56
Speaker
How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office? How did you get the money to set up an office?
00:19:10
Speaker
No, no, no. He was just a friend. He just advised me saying...
00:19:22
Speaker
No, no, no, but see, that's the thing, right? The good news is that the problem that most of us face, 99% of the time, somebody else has faced it in life. We don't have to agree with them for the first time. 99% of the time. 1% might be very unique to you. So I would just reach out to the network and figure out, Gary, what do you think about that?
00:19:41
Speaker
And there are people who are willing to help. So one big learning I have had in my journey of saying that people are wanting to help, not just willing, wanting to help, but somebody has to ask. The problem is nobody is asking. You will find that if you go out and ask for help, the floodgates are willing to open. Nobody is even not here at all. With of course, sincerity and not wasting my time. And you know, also nice hygiene, obviously hygiene things, right. You should be sincere and you should have your own homework.
00:20:04
Speaker
everything else. But after you're done your homework and you're struggling with a problem, the enough people will say that it's going to be a problem. So I was fortunate to get a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, investors, friends, senior colleagues who maybe thought that I was sincere enough in this problem solving. That's
00:20:28
Speaker
very hard to pay it forward. People reach out and wherever I can, I help. So you raised funds and you set up like a 100 plus member BPO unit, like a pioneering BPO unit, then what happened?
Evolving Business Models and Attracting Investment
00:20:41
Speaker
I made probably the biggest mistake of my life.
00:20:46
Speaker
And I listened to a piece of advice that I should have listened. I've got a lot of shitty advice, but this one I listened. And the advice that I listened to was, you have set up the company, you have got the early customer, you have raised funding, now you move on and do something else, let somebody start this company. This is the middle of the dot-com bust. And like I said, I've heard a lot of shitty advice, this one I've heard, I've listened to. And I got carried away by this thing of seated entrepreneur who actually looked at me.
00:21:14
Speaker
The CTS piece of advice. Anyway, I keep telling people not to go.
00:21:19
Speaker
But so what happened with that, I'd say was there was a time when the business was not always doing welfare.com, but we still had enough revenue. Of course, we had more than the revenue cost because we're trying to grow, but we're going to zero revenue company, right? So what we should have done, what I should have done is I should just cut all my indirect costs so that my indirect cost is equal to less than. And what were the indirect costs? People, mainly people, people and some travel and marketing and sales.
00:21:47
Speaker
Well, if you had become flabby as an organization, you're saying, you could have... Not flabby, we were designed for growth and the market just tanked. The market is tanked. Market is tanked. So we were designed for growth and suddenly the market tanked. So I should have just cut my costs. Instead, I chose to step away and hire a CEO. Okay.
00:22:10
Speaker
Now what happens with that is, and that's the biggest mistake I've made in my life, but what happens with that is, everybody's debut is nobody's baby. So there are investors, there are board members, there's a CEO, there's a core team, and everybody is thinking for himself only. The CEO is thinking about his next job, core team is thinking about the next job, investors are thinking about the portfolio. They have one in 10, right? They have success, and maybe you're not the one in 10. So this debut is nobody's baby. What was your stake in it? I was probably at 15, 20%.
00:22:38
Speaker
But I think it's not about ownership stake. It's not an equity issue. I think it's an ownership issue. I think it's a distinguished issue. It's an ownership issue. It has to be somebody's baby. And somebody has to say to Bajavatam where they can ask. And that person is always, in my mind, not always, you can correct that. Is the real co-founder a founder? That could be somebody who joined yesterday. It could be somebody who joined yesterday, not somebody who started it 20 years ago. That person has the ownership to say, you know, I will take care of this.
00:23:06
Speaker
while everybody is figuring out their next steps. Somebody has to say this is my baby. And at that point, I was not there. I made a mistake. And finally, long story short, the company shut down. And within 15 months of the company shutting down, there were 1000 to 200 people. Yeah, around 2002, the whole boom started with Ziki and yeah,
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, and I remember Rajesh Jain coming to our office and when he was after the India world, he sold to Siphi and he was an investor for Siphi. And I remember him asking me, we saw him in the crypto India largest IT company. Bipro gave us to pay these tech support kilo again. And Terepa saw him, he said, tell me the business logic. I can't argue with you, but something is, what you're saying is true.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's just data, right? I can't help you with data. I didn't know BPO at the time. The word didn't exist. Now, I should just stay with it. So my begins learning to sports village or even when I got out of that and of course it was very intense.
00:24:28
Speaker
You know, failure is very intense, intense experience and our education system doesn't prepare you for it. I have not prepared for it. I have never failed in my life. I have done reasonably well, you know, barring some girlfriends here and there. Then you done reasonably well in life. But you know, and then suddenly you have this thing which failure is stark. You can't negotiate with this failure. Come deep on the way. That's it. I mean, you can't negotiate with it, right?
00:24:54
Speaker
You can't say, oh, by the way, no, this, by the way, no, that. And that's when I realized that I should have just stuck on with it. So I had a few key learnings. One was that when, if what you're offering fundamentally makes sense to a consumer or to the market fundamentally, and that's the biggest if, then just wait for the right time when the market there happens.
00:25:12
Speaker
When the market wave happens, like from 100 to 5,000 people, you will also get carried by the market wave. You don't have to do anything smarter. But as an entrepreneur, you can only make the market wave. Well, you cannot make the market wave. As an entrepreneur, you can stay alive, right? You can only convince investors to invest in you, convince startup, your co-founders stay along, convince the only three members to stay, and they have a whole new belief and all that.
00:25:33
Speaker
Market eyes are the wire. Marketer doesn't care how smart you are. Marketer doesn't care how well you are funded. Marketer doesn't care how degrees you hold. Marketer is wire when the marketer wins the buy. So let's put this notion of which I think is the most powerful weapon that we have but we never use. It's in think or time. So I told myself whatever choose to do next, I will give myself as much time as required.
00:25:52
Speaker
I will take my time to figure out what it should be. But once I commit, as long as it takes them, we'll solve the problem. And again, with the fundamental provider, if what you're offering makes fundamental sense, then the model will emerge. So in that 2001 to 2003 period, when you heard the advice that you take a backseat and do your next venture, what was it that you were doing at that time then? I felt that I thought I was going to take onto that, actually.
00:26:21
Speaker
So I thought he and Mary, the reason the business didn't work as well was because I did not have my own relationship in the market in the US, in the tech business. So I said, let me build my own tech relationship. So I found a job.
00:26:38
Speaker
in the Bay Area, where I was managing partnerships for internet switching software company for the Intel, Marking, all these guys. It was Indian company, but I was managing the partnerships. I was in the Bay Area, in the tech world, networking with people and video people. So, now when I came here, I couldn't do it beyond that. And I couldn't.
00:27:00
Speaker
So my wife and I sold our stuff in Bangalore. We moved to US, we bought stuff in the house, we bought a car. And nine months we stole stuff in the house, sold the car and came back to work. I just couldn't do it. I just needed the entrepreneurial, I just had to be alone again.
00:27:19
Speaker
okay well you had tasted blood in a way though job but i was i yeah these are you know they're very colorful colorful metaphors maybe it is i don't know but i i know that i was extremely restless i was just part of peace and my wife said it was the point of being in the us if you're so restless and not at peace
00:27:41
Speaker
And what happened though on a serious note was I did spend time in the US trying to find a, you know, start a company and
Expanding Sports Village's Reach and Impact
00:27:47
Speaker
all that. So I went and met people. That's what you normally do, right? And you think your ideas are important to yourself. And as I met people, I found everybody asking me about India. And I would introduce them to this, introduce them. And suddenly, it's a video that's about my Indian network. Well, I was in the Bay Area asking for ideas to do in the Bay Area. So I asked myself, what is the value that I have in India? My network is in India.
00:28:12
Speaker
Should I be starting a venture in India? Why am I doing it in India? As an entrepreneur, the only thing you bring to a table is the ability to sweat smarter. Your credibility, reputation, therefore your network. People are willing to pick up the phone in a call. People are willing to put in a word for you. People are willing to open a door for you. There are network folks in India. So I said, let's just come back to India. So we came back. We had no idea what we were going to do. But we said, I joined a French startup to help him some early time. But I was very clear that over time, I'll do something on my own.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yes, so then I was, again, I thought of myself as a tech tech entrepreneur. I kept thinking of ideas around technology and internet and all that stuff. And this friend of mine, Jason Carr, and I were, he was with me in Q-support for our adventure. And so earlier, the tech support adventure was called Q-support. And so Jay and I were together at the time, and so he and I were pulling around with ideas to whiteboard the next week's project. We spent a full afternoon with Madani Arata. As we were leaving that room,
00:29:12
Speaker
Jay said, yeah, I wish there were more kids. OK, she played. I said, I didn't repeat that time. I said, why? What happened? We didn't have Beta Siddharth, who then was six years old. Siddharth now, whatever is in IIT, can't do it. Time flies. So Siddharth used Siddharth's music in India. I said, Pini Siddharth? I said, Jagani, you can let go. We'll talk about it later. I said, Jagani, you want to?
00:29:42
Speaker
I said okay. Then he said I didn't have kids so I could not relate to the pain.
00:30:21
Speaker
So, he said, I wish we could go to the owners and tell them that we have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with. We have a lot to start with.
00:30:27
Speaker
So he said, I wish there were places, safe places for kids to play. I mean, I like sports. I can't tell you more. What do you think?
00:30:45
Speaker
just clicked for me. I said, wow, this sounds interesting. And I just said, completely serendipitous. Completely serendipitous. And you know, this friend of mine in the IIT, when I was in the GRE, this friend of mine wanted to help me understand, you know, you use tricks, you know, the words, right? So it's a serendipitical, serendipity is when you're looking for detail in the haystack and you find the farmer's daughter.
00:31:15
Speaker
The question is, not that you found the answer, the question is what do you do now, right? Are you going to still look for the needle? Are you going to do something like this? What happened with me was just that, I was looking for needle in the haystack and disappeared. And serendipity always represents a choice. You could listen to it or ignore it. Fortunately, I chose to listen to it. And lo and behold, the serendipity is our first.
00:31:42
Speaker
So how did you start it off? And you started with Jay only like both of you together? Yeah, actually Jay and I started and Jay and another friend G2. The guy who I told you was in the US KPMG. So he's also from BRC where I grew up and he's also been a big sports freak, he's an entrepreneur. So actually I reached out to him and he said, I'm in. So three of us started, Jay moved out within the first year or so and then G2 and I actually got together.
00:32:09
Speaker
You executed the same idea you discussed, talk to property owners and make it into a playground? Yeah, that was the idea. And we thought that we will set up our own first place, so we can prove that it works. But we again rented a place from the landowner and we had no money.
00:32:30
Speaker
So you had no money, then how did you like actually execute the idea? So we went out and raised money up in our family. And in hindsight, I think we probably did a very smart thing, which is that we went and said to a bunch of our friends.
00:32:54
Speaker
So we raised from 25 lakhs from 15-20 people. Now didn't it was smart? Obviously we took our time to figure out the model and we couldn't get the money. So let's see, if I had taken 50 lakhs from UXA in 2003, you would have been sitting in my house for more things. You'd be like, I said that, right?
00:33:10
Speaker
Whereas if I've taken a lag from you, lag and a half from you, you're like 3K, at worst you're heading it out. 3K, that's all you're trying to do. Worst case 3K, I don't know. So in hindsight, in hindsight, not strategy again, and maybe just strategy again, it just worked for us. It just took over the time period. So then that's how we started. We had a round in Bangalore and we thought we'll have a network of sports to lead across the country, leverage the core of the country.
00:33:36
Speaker
partnering with real estate guys by an apartment complex, school owners. After school, it was all going to be after school evenings, academy. And then how did the business evolve from running your own to, I think, eventually it was more about schools as your customer. So how did that evolve? So yeah, when we started out, we were meant to be a noun. Now we're evolved. So a noun is a place.
00:34:04
Speaker
We're meant to be a set of places. Sports realized when we started out in 2003, it was meant to be a place. Now, we are a work, we are a service. We deliver a program, we don't have our own place at all. We partner with schools, we partner with academies, we partner with, you know, grants, CSR, donors, government, but we don't have our own place at all. We don't have single place. So, like, how many years did it take you to figure out that you need to be like an asset light, Joe R. K. Blingo, where asset light model,
00:34:50
Speaker
So 2003 to 2008 was our huge experimentation phase.
00:34:57
Speaker
And remember, in hindsight, we call it experimentation. At that point, every experiment we did, we felt was the one. And every time we had an excel sheet where we would become billionaires in like 18 months. So I think the issue is around
00:35:25
Speaker
We thought that we will get access to, we illustrated everywhere, that didn't happen. So when we went to an apartment complex, it became more difficult again. That didn't work out. Then we tried to hire a small hall for small kids to play. That didn't work out. Then we tried to sell tickets for the world cup. Then we tried to do two sports tours. Then we built an app, thinking, this is active on social media, before Facebook and Twitter, which will help people to find other people to play with and all that stuff.
00:35:52
Speaker
to fight about power. Like I said, it's a juicy model to solve, and we're like, solve the scope. And then finally, 2008, and is when I said, so one thing that did work to a small extent was corporates in sports, where corporates are using us for some HR team building, some events, some inter-corporate, inter-corporate, inter-engagement. So as a sales promotion for marketing projects, it's like a sports event management. That became one part of our business.
00:36:24
Speaker
over time, of course, we became very large in that. That is the starting point, P 2008. And, but that was still not, in my view, a sustainable and scalable way to get kids to play. It was very episodic. Events by definition is right. So I said that is important, but that is not solving the problem you want to solve. So I kept looking, so G2 kept focusing on the event side.
00:36:49
Speaker
And that's how we divided our work also. We need to focus on the event business. Well, he felt passionate about that as a revolution. And I said, yeah, that is not solving the problem that I wanted to solve. Let me still keep looking for solution. So we configured the business different way. We created multiple entities. He had a higher equity in that entity. I had no equity. We did all kinds of stuff. So that, you know, there's freedom. Otherwise, you are just, you know, there's not enough happening and you're kind of fighting more than doing.
00:37:17
Speaker
So we said, let's align, but let's go our own ways and then figure out in the future how we come back together. And so I tried a few models app and tickets and everything else and finally do not eat and I decided not on school boards. And frankly, it was just another of the idea. It was not like, and we said, we will,
00:37:54
Speaker
After school I got a challenge. That's the one important thing that I realized and again, maybe some of my education background is good for that. But after school I got it and didn't work in 2005. There's no one going into 2018 again after school. So I remember meeting a school leader in 2009 and they said, huh, good idea. Why don't you start with after school academy and the next year we'll see in school. And I would say, no sir, after school I don't want. And they would look at me and say, I'm giving you a chance to do after school academy.
00:38:11
Speaker
But one important thing we said is we will not do after-school academy, we will do in-school program.
00:38:23
Speaker
You are saying no, but you know and I would say make another district work and that was one piece that started getting some traction. Of course it was tough. We waited after principal scams for hours, not met, even then not got anything.
00:38:39
Speaker
with a meeting, which is all kind of stuff. But slowly we felt that we did have a model which had a geno-technomics, which is of course profitable, and a large additional market, which as you know are the two criteria for any scalability. Okay, so in a year, how many schools did you sign up in that year, like 9 to 10? 9 you started this? The Siavara school.
00:39:03
Speaker
And that's when seed funds, this is an early stage fund, Aarti Jacob Rovind, they invested in us. And Aarti Jacob Rovind had invested in the early eventual include supporters. So the new of me is also production. And, you know, they made the mistake of giving the same entrepreneur again. And I made the mistake of taking the same investor again. But they were kind enough to invest. And that's how what is called edu sports started separately as a brand.
00:39:29
Speaker
to the company and that kind of we were able to raise money because that model was scalable and apparently G2 ran a sports consult which was the events marketing sports, what you call experiential sports marketing business now where you work with brands and leagues and governments with large scale events again to help them achieve their goals through sports.
00:39:49
Speaker
So that both of those journeys continued and then 2015, Gaja Capital, which is in the private equity investor in India, they invested in Eddie Sports, they brought out all the older investors. And that's the time when we kind of brought the sports consult business together again, while it was at Amslen, we put it all together. And we said, okay, what do we call this combined entity now? Because otherwise it was Eddie Sports and Sports Consult. And I said, look, earlier the sports field advantage is called sports.
00:40:17
Speaker
So now again this combined data got formed because of the capital investment and it became sportswear 2015. So tell me about the unit economics that you figured out that this is making sense. Like what was your pitch to a school? What did you charge them and what was your investment in delivering that? So our pitch to a school was sportswear education. Do you agree or not? I'm saying it repeatedly but you say it deliberately.
00:40:48
Speaker
and obviously it will be like the guest sports education. And I would say, okay, if you think sports education then run sports the way good education is done. How do you run maths or science? You have a curriculum, you have textbooks, you have daily class, you have assessment for each child, you have parent interaction, you have report card, the child is not doing well, gets more attention, right? All this stuff happens. But in sports,
00:41:13
Speaker
You're seeing sports education, but in sports, you don't have a curriculum, you don't have a lesson plan, you don't have a trained teacher, you don't spend time on the weaker kids, you don't spend time with the smarter kids, you don't have a report card, you don't have democratic, you're assessing your program. So you're just seeing sports education, not doing it. So they would say, okay, what do you have? We have exactly this, we have curriculum, we have assessment here. So that's how it started.
00:41:39
Speaker
So we said, look, we are here to help a school leader deliver school support. Like how much time did it take you to get all these things in place? Like in 2009, 10, when you were pitching, were you pitching this exact thing or this like took a couple of years to finish? No, no, no. It's all evolution. It's all evolution. It's all evolution. I guess in hindsight, everything is strategy. I still remember in 2000. See, when it first started, we thought we'd only be a training and consulting company. We'll not even have our own trainers delivering the program.
00:42:09
Speaker
Okay, we thought on training, we checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character.
Market Challenges and Adapting to COVID-19
00:42:25
Speaker
We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We checked the class character. We
00:42:39
Speaker
And after making me wait for two hours, finally at like 3.30 in the afternoon, she called me and said, Mr. Samuel, I've seen your proposal. I like what you're doing. I said, very good. I said, what? So who will you send to deliver the kariki? I said, man, who will you send? What do you mean? You have five PE teachers. I will train them. She said, no, Mr. Samuel. That won't work.
00:43:07
Speaker
said mark we have 5 free features and till that time we didn't even think about hiring or don't even think about like mentoring
00:43:15
Speaker
So then after 30 seconds or 2 and 4, she looked at me, I said, remember, she looked me in the eye. I said, Mr. Samuel, I like what you're doing. I hope you succeed. But if you don't send your own trained staff, even if I buy the program this year, I can assure you that the books will lie in the library getting pressed. I can assure you do not really implement it. And next year when the management asks me the question, I will have to say, sorry, we can't do it. So choice is yours. And in that moment, I said, okay, ma'am, we'll send you staff.
00:43:41
Speaker
I had no clue how to hire stuff, I had no clue how to trade stuff, I had no clue how to deliver it. But I could feel the customer, you know, the classic earlier doctor saying, do this and I'll buy from it. I like what you're doing, I see you're sincere, I like your product, but your product has this feature missing. Add this feature and I'll buy from it. And I said, okay, and that meant a completely different business model from a technology company to become a server teller, right? Before COVID, as of March the first, we had almost 2,000 people on our roads.
00:44:09
Speaker
because we were training, running a program. So for each school you would have like a couple of... Yes, each school you would have a trainer at least, at least 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. So it would be just not from a technology company to a center. So this was in 2010 that you hired your first trainer. 2009. So you have to question the unit economics was curriculum.
00:44:34
Speaker
an assessment, trainer, PTMs, events, sports days, and if the school was spending around 2 or 3.5 lakhs a year, they'd be with us, they would spend 6 or 7 lakhs. We were not a cheaper outsourcing model. We were a model to help them deliver on the promise that they were already making of sports for education, but not really delivering. And of course, the context was that, you know, the neighborhood would take around the disappearing, therefore, the parent would not have the option of winning the play, therefore, the school became the only option.
00:45:03
Speaker
A lot of this is about timing. Beyond the point, as I'm sure you've seen the studies, the largest determinant of success of ventures is timing, which is when in the market a bunch of forces come together that just sets it up for the venture to succeed.
00:45:21
Speaker
So your monetization of a school, was it just the school only paying that six lakhs? Or did you also have like outside school hours programs for which parents would pay directly? So originally we had only in school because we wanted to focus on it and get strong enough on it and build it. Then as we build further, we added the school business and the partnership. We came together in the sports field for the after school model. We had our own events and leads on the weekends.
00:45:50
Speaker
We added sports tools. So the idea was that we helped kids on their entire sports journey. Sports and a part of education is the fundamental physical literacy. After which there are different levels of engagement in terms of weekend participation, inter-school tournaments.
00:46:06
Speaker
So the idea was to, as sports wheels, the idea was to help and how do we get 100 million players to play and not everybody needs to get better in competition every time. You could just play the same level and just have fun for a certain time. Okay. And so where all are you present? Like, you know, where do most of your customers like 250 or locations across the country. But where are you strong in? Like what are your top
00:46:32
Speaker
the states.
00:46:43
Speaker
I think there are a few that we're not strong at, but pretty much we're spread out. So I want to understand how you learned to build an organization. I mean, you know, so managing five people, 10, 20 people, even up to 50, 100 people you had done in the past, although it was a single location. Now you have the challenge of multiple locations, one or two people per location, multiple states all over the country. So, you know, how did you,
00:47:11
Speaker
build this kind of an organization with such a remote distributed workforce. I'm assuming there would be very little oversight on what a trainer is doing in a school just because you can't have one supervisor to one trainer run. So how did you solve this organization building challenge?
00:47:40
Speaker
So one thing that helps us is the solution was actually the school itself. Because our program was happening in a very structured environment for the school. The school had a time table, the school had a coordinator, the school had supervisors. So we also enabled them with all the treats, but they could review themselves. So we believe
00:48:08
Speaker
We provided the lesson plans and the connection to them. So that they could just open the book and say, Chaa ji aa una saar. You know what I can do. So
Resilience and Future Opportunities in Entrepreneurship
00:48:16
Speaker
that was one. Second, of course, we had for one, and then we had a delivery manager. We had a delivery manager.
00:48:24
Speaker
Second, we used that amount of technology in the back. Like, you know, how did you build these people? Like, how did you build trainers? How did you build a delivery manager? These are not off-the-shelf resources. No, of course, we hired and we trained and we spent time. And then you like created an academy to train coaches and... Yes, academy, yes, yes. I mean, we trained, we trained the academy, we trained the office and we did training.
00:48:52
Speaker
So what about your like middle management layer like you know your state heads and like how did you create that list like people who would probably be? So the beginning would be centralized, right? The beginning was centralized so some of us would play those roles. And then over time we hired people, again in the beginning it was not a personal network, people who fundamentally had a management capability but did not have a technical capability.
00:49:15
Speaker
or the domain knowledge and now overtime which we thought a lot more domain knowledge and we spent a lot of time on the training and a lot of our teams are actually come to us.
00:49:31
Speaker
So essentially, becoming a trainer was like a gateway to multiple functions and roles within the organization. Our culture was that, of course, very diversity, but we said, let's give our interns a chance first. The benchmarks are not going to reduce, but maybe some time might be more. But if the exact thing I can do it in two extra months, we'll give it a chance. And how did you use technology to scale up?
00:50:03
Speaker
But we used SMS reporting in the beginning so that all the lesson plan execution was reported. We used an app to upload the assessment based data. So you see as a given example if I do assessment 500 kids in our assessment
00:50:18
Speaker
and roughly 8 parameters. I will be tracking 4,000 data points per school for a suspect into 100 schools or 1000 schools through the map to send me the amount of data that is coming in. And then we are processing the data to say last year can happen.
00:50:43
Speaker
like your trainers had like a mobile app or something where they could input data
00:50:52
Speaker
Out of your total addressable market, maybe not every school would be a customer for you. What is your percentage reach? How much have you penetrated?
00:51:07
Speaker
No, no, see, this is a huge market and we right now at around, I think private schools, we are at the norm, we are at private schools. There are only CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35,000 in private schools, CBSE has earned $35
00:51:34
Speaker
So this market is not a market size problem. The problem is a market access problem because this is making these trustee principles stick time, long time, all around. So now I think we have got fair amount of derivative even around long enough. So now what people think was cool, we don't know how much the selling is very immediate, very clean, but yeah.
00:51:56
Speaker
It's an exhibition. Now we reach the exhibition problem. If you remember I told you earlier one of the figures of the model science is scaling the model. And now we reach the problem of scaling the model. Model was model profitable. Now how do you scale it? With me stretching. So I'm trying to find a really solution to it. And you're working with the governments also? Like directly with state governments and all for care schools? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So there, yes we are. We are a government of our school program.
00:52:41
Speaker
So what do you think is the way to go from 1500 to 15000?
00:52:49
Speaker
So, I think the network effect at one level has to be, and that has started to begin. So, you have to use schools, excuse me, to be part of the education beyond those namesakes. So, I think the real issue of access and real issue is how do you get the parent community to demand a better sports program. So, in private schools, the parents demand stuff will happen. They don't demand. They want to go to the government office.
00:53:15
Speaker
And that's why I think this whole NAP is also aligned well when we talk about playways. So I think it feels like the timing is just point right in terms of policy, in terms of periods concerned or the yield will now prove it, the whole health and fitness company will keep pushing. And therefore, stores need to come to work this out. But we also like to leverage across the accounting business, across the brand business to see how could we get budgets from brands to help with the program.
00:53:44
Speaker
you kind of find a way to present it. Sorry, you've not spoken about the brands business. What is the brands business? There is a corporate partner. We started with engagement. Now over time, we all need to support and achieve that with the competitors of any consumer. So we do have a largest group. We work in India. We have the finance foundation.
00:54:14
Speaker
we build a program with friends like Milo and others, Scrabble and Mattel. They want to reach out to the consumers. We design a sports program. And again, there are also the simple graphic schools. The schools provide a sustainable way and economical way to access it. If you design a program, it is easy to education. So we are also looking at finding ways to align these
00:54:44
Speaker
provide sports in the building. Kids want the sports because it's very important. It's very difficult to find a job on the network. Say the lead is, like CSR video, you have to work with them. We have a message of these who are investing in education and wanting to CSR update them. It tells them that add a layer of sports to their education investment and the efficacy of their education investment. So that's also the same interaction.
00:55:11
Speaker
What is it that you are currently excited about? What is some interesting challenge? Of course, there's a bigger juicy problem that you're solving, but within this, what is at a more micro level something which you are excited to solve as a problem or something you're excited to learn?
00:55:36
Speaker
So I think this COVID situation has created an opportunity of using technology in a way that has never happened. And I am trying really hard to figure out how we use it to achieve the objective of it. And towards that, we made a few details. We have a section of how we can figure out. And therefore, we launched our own live internet service collective club, which is a P2C service. We are on our way to subscribe to the channel. It's a live internet exchange.
00:56:17
Speaker
Did you lose customers due to COVID? Because schools have been under pressure.
00:56:29
Speaker
So, we will get up to all of them. So, there is a question, how do we use technology? And how do we deliver programs? So, we are doing that during COVID time.
00:56:56
Speaker
very interesting, very interesting way of using physical intelligence to stay at the same goal of getting struggling which before Covid we were very physical companies.
00:57:07
Speaker
that's really exciting and hopefully that can then see once that works you can then address the whole world and as we speak our active customers are from some seven different continents so they found us and they're signing up with us so suddenly the whole world can be a
00:57:26
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, you had those years of like one was, I can say in a way where you were experimenting and failing and experimenting and failing. So, you know, how did you sustain yourself then?
00:57:43
Speaker
So I think the way, like I said at the beginning, the time as the weapon that we don't value enough was one example. And once you remove, say I think entrepreneurship and personally most founders, when you start out there is this unstated time limit of five to seven years.
00:58:00
Speaker
That is very unstated, very implicit property talks about. But hey, now what happens with that is if your first experiment doesn't work and you used up your money and you're getting to the value of death, then coming out of it can take 2 to 3 years again. Suddenly out of 5 to 7 years you used up to 3 years. And then you only have 2 to 3 years left now, right?
00:58:20
Speaker
Therefore, you do something stupid. You either go and try and give a ton of money, take care that money can solve your problem, or you give up and say, are you in Iran? Or because of a very artificial notion of five to seven years of the time required to build a business. My view is that it takes 15 to 20 years to build something really valuable.
00:58:38
Speaker
So therefore, take your time to decide what you want to do, but once you decide to scale it. Now I'll answer your other questions. How do we survive from that? The good news says that, again, people who want to know the choice, once you decide here, then it's actually cast your mind, because you need to find out if you run your house. And I have done this, I have done part-time for Seligand's friend, I have done
00:59:01
Speaker
That's the easiest way, right? And you can easily work for, let's say, a part-time with a friend and have enough to go to your house and do your venture on the side. So, I've done that. I have taken loans. I have delivered my equity. I have done all that with the idea that I and my family should get a certain living standard to get over the problem.
00:59:19
Speaker
That means at the end of the whole thing, I have less equity and I should, I could have had, that's fine. So journey is equally important at this stage. So once you think about the cash flow problem, then it's very easy to solve cash flow problems. Just to do a part-time or a full-time or a part-time cost. You can't go to Switzerland every second month. You have to go out again. That's it guys. So it's totally difficult. And that's why it comes back to the main question of how badly do you want to solve this problem? How juicy is it? And there to be there is a fundamentally starting point.
00:59:44
Speaker
And if it's not juicy enough, when things get tough, you very end up asking the question, why am I doing this? And I think there is a notion of operate cost that works in all these conversations. You market with, I will try to do that. But there's also the notion that I think people should remember, which is this notion of opportunity question normally. Because we know that it's not just the passion and not a good applicator of stuff.
01:00:11
Speaker
What I mean is that if you give it enough time, let's assuming again you go back to the first conversation, assuming you get to offering something which fundamentally makes sense. Like in my view, getting kids to play fundamentally is a value in order to find a model.
01:00:24
Speaker
And whenever it makes sense and you give it enough time and you keep exploring the tech drive, you will at some point find the right one. And then at some point the market will come. When that happens, it might take 5 years, it might take 10 years, and the market is taking 17 years. So you are working for the purpose. When that happens, all your opportunity costs will get more than compensated by the one product market fit and the market is coming. Enough. Because under their opportunity costs take some amount of salary every month into a number of years. But even if you just say, oh, 10% of the company just
01:00:53
Speaker
achieving this product market fit. When you do the math, 10% of the valuation of the company, you will easily know the company in the category itself, apart from the fact that you learn side-on-side after-front time and, you know, not 0% of the company. So therefore, the opportunity person not doing it is that you could have achieved your financial objectives, although with some direct data image and done what you really wanted to do. Then why would you know it, right? And my question to Marcelo was that if you think we are so smart,
01:01:23
Speaker
in all of the things that start. Then solve the problem without compromising on the operating cost. See, building a business while compromising on the operating cost is the easiest thing to do, right? I follow my passion, I earn one tenth of what I could earn, but I follow my passion.
01:01:43
Speaker
What's the big deal in that? If you're so smart, find a way to follow your passion and build a business and earn more than what you're earning at least or make a ton of money. That is the problem you should solve if you're so smart. So that of course is everybody's dream. But you know what you said, it's like it's what every aspiring entrepreneur has as his dream.
01:02:29
Speaker
Nobody has written in stone, no God has said. In 2010, when you raised from Seed Fund, are they still investors with you? Have they had that level of patience? No, they got to exit with, no, they got to exit with. But remember, investors need to exit. You don't have to. If you think you are not actually, and if exit comes in, of course, that's the choice to make. But my point to you was that
01:02:30
Speaker
Not to say yes.
01:02:58
Speaker
Time as a motion is a operating cost argument and operating cost account is an operating cost of not doing it and the base level cash flow is an unimaginable problem.
01:03:12
Speaker
Sounds easy when you say it. But I'm sure when you're in the thick of things, actually going through cash flow crisis, type of problems. You know, this reminds me of this, I did this Maroosham Martimari course in 1995 and after YMB.
01:03:36
Speaker
So Thargasi and I, and then we were learning smoke rot, I started on that 18,000 feet per camp, 10,000 and it's like minus 30 in the night.
01:04:16
Speaker
So to your question, it's tough and all that. But we chose this. The easy job was there. You left an easy job before this. And now when it's hurting, you say, oh, it's hurting. And everybody came for this. So let me give you the next day. Again, we were at a three to normal circuit. Again, to complete this story, it's relevant to entrepreneurship. And again, we created it. Sir, what? OK. I'm a Sanjay Akbar, but can't wait. Then we said better.
01:04:28
Speaker
That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something.
01:05:07
Speaker
So that was saw me telling us how he built Sports Village, one of the largest youth sports platforms.
01:05:14
Speaker
If you'd like to know more, log on to sportsvillage.com. That's S-P-O-R-T-Z village dot com.
01:05:36
Speaker
If you like the Founder Thesis Podcast, then do check out our other shows on subjects like Marketing, Technology, Career Advice, Books and Drama. Visit thepodium.in that is t-h-e-p-o-d-i-u-m.in for a complete list of all our shows. This was an HD Smartcast Original.
01:06:08
Speaker
log on to hdsmartcast.com to listen to more such podcasts