When You Need Playmates, Sports Social will Connect You to Them

It’s a gut feeling that more guys will relate to this than girls. The nature of a male is such that one must bond with fellow males and if it happens through a competitive dose of fun sports then all the better it is.

Nikhil, Devam and Tushar are your average trio of working professionals. When they moved to the big city to join the hustle of corporate life, one thing they missed was their social life. We don’t mean the drinking and pub strolling. We are talking about a bunch of buddies to play sports with to keep fit and sound both in mind and body.

That’s when the three fellows decided to turn entrepreneurs and launch Sports Social. We have Nikhil giving us more information on the network that will help you find your ‘squad’ to toss around a ball with in the evenings.

What is Sports Social in your words?

Sports Social is a location-based app that lets you maintain your sports profile; allows you to make your sports and fitness groups (playmates); lets you follow other's sports activities and to make a fan following; connect with other sports enthusiasts and discover sports and fitness activities near you.

You can also locate the venues nearby for more than 10 sports like cricket, football, lawn tennis, and badminton.

Why did you decide to found this venture?

After completing graduation and joining my first job, there was a sudden change in life and sports was totally forgotten. It was a difficult shift in lifestyle because I grew up playing cricket and lawn tennis. What I came to realize was that this is a very common scenario with every other individual who goes through studies and then moves to a new city for a job.

Some initial market research provided us a clear indication of the large gap within the sports ecosystem of India and the difficulties people face in chasing their favorite sports. So we (Devam Srivastava, Tushar Gangwar, and I - Nikhil Kanaujia) launched Sports Social, the mobile app, on 31st December, 2016 to bridge that gap.

Share with us what’s special about this venture and how it’s different from its competitors?

We are one of a kind in our market because of our vision, product and our market approach. Our aim is to promote sports in India and create a sports-friendly environment. Currently, if we talk about competitors, all of them are very focused on a service-based model rather than product based. We want to empower every individual who wants to play sports.

How did you manage to fund this idea?

We bootstrapped at the beginning and used our savings to fuel Sports Social. Currently we plan a monthly expenditure and collect that much amount from friends and family. We are however in talks with several VC firms to raise our first round of funding.

What are/what will be your monetization paths?

We are not going to monetize Sports Social in the coming 6 months. Our focus is mainly on customer acquisition and creating a user-centric platform to satisfy their needs. Our first monetization path will be customized/native advertisements for the stakeholders of the sports industry, then move on to the multitude of other way to monetize an online social network.

Tell us how the business has grown so far

After the public launch of Sports Social on Android, we have grown to over 15,000 users in less than three months and got some very nice feedback and reviews about our product.

What marketing strategies and plans are in place to grow the business?

Our primary focus is to have a strong hold on NCR. After this, it will be easier for us to grow exponentially all across India. We are using both - digital as well as ground marketing approaches and are reaching out to schools and colleges to promote our application.

What is the market size and opportunity?

India prides itself on being a sports crazy nation. Sample this: More than 300 million watched Cricket World Cup 2015, recent trends are not just limited to cricket, ISL (Indian Super League) got more than 170 million views. There is a huge potential in terms of depth of sports in India and we believe that technology will make an impact here.

Any challenges faced setting up? Anything unique to your situation?

When you start something at an early age and it’s a new vision there are always challenges. Sports Social is a term with great depth and we had to understand sports in all its forms to create a user-friendly application. We spent almost a year understanding sports, market conditions, product fit etc. And now we are happy to see that hard work paying off with our team and network growing rapidly.

Share with us some memorable moments while running the business

Best memories are celebrating the milestones that we have reached till now and deciding what future we want to build for next generation. And that is a lifestyle, a culture, where everyone is welcome to play and enjoy their favorite sports.