In the context of grassroots cricket in India, there are millions of Indians who play cricket regularly in social groups and amateur tournaments. The nature of these competitions is often casual and informal, but the animated discussions that ensue post-match certainly make for good banter with friends. So how does one go about identifying an opportunity and building a viable business in such a sector?

To find out, Sportskeeda caught up with Abhishek Desai, founder of CricHeroes, a product that set out to solve the pain points of the Ahmedabad-based serial entrepreneur. Starting out as a scoring app, CricHeroes has now built what it terms as a mobile-first platform that builds an ecosystem around grassroots cricket and enables e-commerce on top of it.

Reminiscing about the motivations behind creating such a product for the grassroots cricket community in India, Abhishek said:

Stressing the fact that the numbers and other data from most of these contests go unrecorded, he added:

Based on his own pain points, Abhishek felt the need to gain meaningful insights based on data. Reflecting on how he initially went about trying to find a solution, he said:

After this experience with existing scoring apps, Abhishek explained how he noticed a gap, and an opportunity, in the market:

Going from a relatively straightforward scoring app to creating an entire ecosystem around grassroots cricket and integrating e-commerce into it is no small task. Touching upon how this evolution came about, Abhishek said:

While presently, CricHeroes may not make any revenue from this service, the product has gone on to create an entire e-commerce platform on top of this existing ecosystem. Commenting on the integration of e-commerce into the app and how it will serve the business in the future, Abhishek added:

While CricHeroes seem to be in the process of building a robust foundation for a long-term sustainable business model, the business is also monetising by selling premium features such as CricHeroes Pro membership, live streaming, white label apps, promotions, and more, to players, organisers and associations. On the subject of CricHeroes’ monetisation timeline, Abhishek said:

Highlighting the achievements of grassroots cricketers on CricHeroes

Given that CricHeroes is a product offering aimed primarily at the grassroots sector, it can have a notable impact on unearthing quality level talent from the vast number of people that play cricket in India. At the same time, it also needs to make sure that its users — the amateur cricketers — are being incentivised to perform better at the game. Admitting that they are big on recognition, Abhishek said:

Speaking further on the tools used by them to unearth quality talent from grassroots cricket, he added:

In another commitment to their goal of helping shine a spotlight on quality players from the grassroots community, CricHeroes also recently organised the CricHeroes Awards 2021, hosted by noted host and commentator Jatin Sapru, where some of India’s top talented cricketers were recognised for their achievements.

Acknowledging that this has been the biggest effort from their side in this direction, the home-grown sports tech brand is also aiming to do an offline award show next year with greater fanfare, as admitted by Abhishek Desai.

CricHeroes’ funding-spurred growth and IPL aspirations

CricHeroes, which is based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, saw its consistent efforts to promote grassroots cricket rewarded with the faith of Games24x7, India’s leading digital skill games organisation that is well-known for popular fantasy platform My11Circle and fast-growing rummy platform RummyCulture.

Games24x7 invested an undisclosed amount in CricHeroes in August 2021. Speaking on how the influx of capital has helped the business so far, Abhishek said:

As most who have followed the major developments around IPL 2022 would know, Games24x7 has also signed up as the title sponsor for the Lucknow Super Giants on a three-year contract. When asked about how this association would help CricHeroes and whether he sees CricHeroes supporting a potential grassroots program by the IPL team down the line, Abhishek replied excitedly in the affirmative, saying:

Outlook and roadmap for sports tech in India on the back of Union Budget 2022

The Union Budget announced by Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister of India, on 1 February, 2022 saw the sports budget being increased to INR 3062.60 crore. Explaining how this augurs well for the development of sports tech startups in India, Abhishek welcomed the hike and rounded off the interview by saying in his closing comments:

With a solid foundation from their current product offerings for a long-term sustainable business, the backing of one of India’s leading gaming companies, and the increased focus on the growth of the sports industry, the future certainly looks exciting for CricHeroes.

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