Building of Dream11

I had the opportunity to listen to the exciting conversation between Vani kola, Managing Director at Kalaari and Harsh Jain, CEO @ Dream11. Here is the summary of the exciting talk.

Harsh beautifully narrated his entrepreneurial journey. From getting rejected with over 150 VC’s to getting funded from Kalaari Capital.

Harsh spoke on how the system needs to be updated as the team and user base get expanded. The system which worked for 5 people doesn’t work for 15 then it doesn’t work for 50 then 150 then 500.

Then the conversation moved to how Vani trusted Harsh with the fantasy league even after getting rejected by 150 VC firms. Vani didn’t know much fantasy league back then. She was thrilled with the clarity in thinking and passion that Harsh brought.

Thereafter the most crucial topic was discussed i.e. culture even Harsh’s Twitter bio describe CEO as Culture Enforcement Office. Culture is one of the most important aspects to build the team and have the same vision.

In the initial phase, they note down 8 – 9 points on culture then extended it to 11 to rhyme it with Dream11 Six months later people couldn’t remember the cultural points they made.

Hence they brought it down to 8 points. It didn’t work out well. Hence then brought it down to 5 with the acronym. “DO PUT” (Data, Ownership, Performance, User First, and Transparency). It was easy to remember.

The next challenge was to integrate it. Hence they made it most important that if any employee doesn’t score seven out of ten on the DO PUT scale for three quarters in a row. It will be fired irrespective of his performance level.

Thereafter Harsh replied on his audacious goal to improve the whole ecosystem. He put forward some thought provoking questions like do you know where you can buy the jersey of Team India or where you can customize it?

Where can you look to figure out how much Rohit or Kholi scored in the last 10 matches? We would need to gather the pseudo data to get that.

Then the conversation moved to build value-driven company that adds value to the users thereafter thinking for revenue. For instance, Whatsapp doesn’t still have a proper revenue model. He beautifully answered the question asked by the audience. I couldn’t ask one. My question was to whom do Dream11 consider it’s competitor since the fantasy league domain is crowded now.

Summing it up with the quote that kept Harsh moving forward “Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqder se pehle Khuda bande se ye poche bata teri raza kia hai”

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