Fun as a way of doing Business, and why the “Cricky says Thanks” Campaign?

As I (CricketRadius) launch the Cricky says Thanks to Dravid and Ganguly campaign on twitter today, I want to take you into a brief journey of how I came up with the idea and how I see fun as an integral part of life, whether it is doing business or watching a game of cricket, or anything else for that matter.

If you Obey all the Rules, You miss all the Fun
If there is one mantra I live my life by, it would be this. The focus is not on breaking rules, but on having fun. We learn by doing, and by failing we learn how not to fail the next time. But that failing had all the fun. Remember the childhood days when you fell off the bicycle, or while playing football, and how much fun it was. And with every fall, we became better at not falling. For me, doing something the way I want do it is the greatest thrill in the world.

Cricky The Fan

Cricky The Fan

Work = Fun = Play = Business
I have always been in the business of cricket. Irrespective of where I have worked, I have always followed every single cricket match played by India in the last 20 years. I have devoted hours every day reading articles, watching videos and discussing about cricket with my friends and colleagues. The point I am making is what you ‘care‘ about is your business anyway, in whichever form it is. And throwing yourself into a job you love and enjoy is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

I am my own Customer
The one thing that wakes me up in the morning these days is the idea of giving a great experience to my customer. I have myself followed cricket by way of keeping a track of records in notebooks and cutting pictures from newspapers to form huge albums of collages. Later on I have maintained excel sheets containing all kinds of cricket related data and kept them updated regularly. What I am trying to do with CricketRadius is to deliver a product for myself and people like me. I have still not figured out what the end product would be, but I am sure I know it somewhere deep inside and just have to bring it out in the right form.

Get Started. Make Impact. Small is not Bad
If I have an idea that can save the planet, I will act on it. But if I have a small idea which will just make watching cricket more fun, I will work on that too. For me, the real joy is of ‘creating‘ something new, not in how big or  small, and the journey in itself rather than the destination. So the point is – Just make a difference where you can. Some solutions can be scaled up, some can’t, but I like to realize that after taking action, rather than in classrooms and meetings.

Relive 5 historic matches of Ganguly and Dravid on Twitter from 23-27 May

Relive 5 historic matches of Ganguly and Dravid on Twitter from 23-27 May

How the campaign came about?
It is not a co-incidence that the campaign is about expressing gratitude to Dravid and Ganguly for their contribution to Indian Cricket. I have spent my childhood watching their entire careers and I believe these two players have had the biggest impact on Indian Cricket in the last 20 years, along with Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar. And in todays inter-connected world, the question I am asking with this campaign is – “What if twitter had been there on these 5 historic matches which I am re-creating and reliving?” Every fan has the option to relive those moments of pure joy by following the commentary, reading articles and watching videos about the same online for 5 days starting today.

And what better way to show that we acknowledge Dravid’s and Ganguly’s contribution to Indian Cricket than getting all fans together in the form of a huge collage made out of our Twitter profile pictures – The Twit-Bat. So follow the matches live on our twitter account, and invite other fans to take part in the campaign all details of which can be found here.

Why CricketRadius? The problem and the market

As you know, I launched CricketRadius.com on April 2nd. It is my second stint at entrepreneurship after SaleRaja earlier. In this article I will try to answer what idea I had so as to convince me to leave Yahoo and jump full time into this. Being very frank, I got the idea (and it is still refining) after leaving Yahoo. I had a very basic vision of doing something to connect fans when I left Yahoo, but the idea of a social network and what all features it will have have only come in the last three months. See below paragraphs to know more about the problem, the market and the solution.

The Problem
As a cricket fan, right now there are websites where you can check scores, read articles and stories written by former players and experts. Cricinfo, CricBuzz, CricketNext, Yahoo Cricket are some of the popular names. There are also a lot of fan blogs where bloggers share their views about the game. But there is no platform which gives you a cricket profile, where you can express your love for your favorite teams, players, stadiums and matches. There is no platform where all the fans can come together and share the experience which comes when our team wins, or our favourite player gets a century or a hat-trick. We watch cricket and enjoy it with our friends and family, and that is where the real love and joy for the game comes out.

We can obviously share about cricket on social networks like facebook and twitter. But it is annoying when you share about your favorite team on social networks, and every other non-cricket update gets in the way? Like someone’s birthday wishes, or what dish has one cooked, or some funny pic about a guy getting hit by a car. Wouldn’t it be great if you could talk just about Cricket?

CricketRadius - Because Fans Deserve Better

CricketRadius - Because Fans Deserve Better

The Product?
CricketRadius is a social network for cricket fans by cricket fans. Interact with others who have cricket in their blood, and discuss about your favorite players, teams and ongoing matches. Check in to the players and teams you are watching, score runs and let the world know your cricket acumen. Also, score runs and get rewarded on the way.

The Market
Currently there are more than 100 million Indian internet users, of which 45 million are on facebook. There is no need to quantify in numbers the popularity of cricket and how many of these users visit various cricket websites or share about cricket on facebook and twitter. This number is expected to rise to 300 million by 2014, according to Google India. A large young population (more than 50% of Indians will be under 30 by 2015) with better incomes and a growing economy are all reasons for this impending growth.

Online advertising in India is only worth $200 million, of which $100 million is of Google alone. Online ads and engagement models have yet to catch on in India, considering the global online ad market is $ 80 billion while global revenue for Google is $29 billion. This despite the fact that India is the third largest internet populace, only behind US and China. Some more figures can be found at http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/09/16/internet-users-to-triple-in-india-by-2014-google/

This presents to me a huge gap and a product missing for an ardent cricket fan like me. Cricket is something about which I am really passionate about, and it has been a dream come true creating a product which more than anyone else, I want to use and share with my cricket lover friends.