How Dream11 Fantasy Sports Weathered the Suspension of the IPL

Dream11 is an internet fantasy sports activities app — a class of apps that has seen some controversy in current instances with critics calling it nothing however playing, whereas proponents defend it as being skill-based as an alternative. The fantasy sports activities phase is banned on Google Play, and a number of states in India additionally ban paid contests on Dream11. Supreme Court of India dominated Dream11  fantasy sports activities as not playing and recognises it as a ‘Game Of Skill’. Dream11 enjoys a consumer base of over 110 million within the nation.

The firm attributes this to the Internet penetration and rising adoption of smartphones in India, together with the overwhelming reputation of cricket. Dream11 presents a single-match freemium mannequin of every day fantasy sports activities. Users can play in observe contests which are free to affix or in money contests that require an entry price.   

According to a current FIFS-KPMG report, on-line fantasy sports activities operators’ gross revenues stood at over Rs. 2,400 crore for the FY 2020 as in comparison with over Rs. 920 crore in FY 2019, a rise of virtually three-times over a interval of 12 months. The report reveals that Indian on-line fantasy sports activities platforms have proven a speedy improve of their user-base YoY, rising from 2 million in 2016 to 90 million in 2019. Dream11 has been using this wave, propelled additional by massively in style sporting tournaments like IPL, and is now thought-about the world’s largest fantasy sports activities platform.  

Expert opinion: TechArc chief analyst Faisal Kawoosa says, “Fantasy sports activities let’s one immerse into the sport. In India, a sport like cricket is idolised. Hence, an excellent connection and purpose for reputation. Esports and different on-line gaming is a actuality now and it’s a promising and possible enterprise in the long run. As the sector grows in India I believe the shortcomings will get solved, as an illustration, authorized elements. Personally, I consider there’s a sturdy interjection between ability and likelihood in such video games.

Bhavit Sheth, Co-Founder and COO, Dream11

Gadgets 360 spoke to Bhavit Sheth, Co-Founder and COO, Dream11 to know a bit extra in regards to the firm’s overwhelming journey thus far and its future plans.

1) Tell us about your profession earlier than Dream11   ​

I accomplished my engineering at DJ Sanghavi College of Engineering, Mumbai, in 2007 and co-founded Dream11 together with Harsh in 2008. From 2008 to 2012, we dabbled with completely different on-line fantasy sports activities (OFS) codecs that will work greatest for Indian sports activities followers.  

2. What impressed you to construct Dream11?   

Dream11 was born out of a drive to resolve a private drawback. Harsh and I’ve all the time been avid sports activities followers and took part in EPL’s on-line fantasy sports activities contests. When the IPL launched in 2007, we began in search of fantasy sports activities platforms internet hosting IPL, however there have been none. We felt a have to share the fun of fantasy cricket with our cricket-crazy nation. Our shared imaginative and prescient and keenness for know-how, sports activities, and fantasy sports activities translated into one thing a lot bigger.   

3. How had been the primary few years of enterprise at Dream11, and what had been some preliminary struggles you confronted?   

Fantasy sports activities have been performed worldwide for over 50 years, but it was a comparatively unknown idea for Indian sports activities followers. Launching fantasy sports activities in India in 2008 meant that we needed to educate potential hires, buyers, and, most significantly, customers in regards to the idea. This, too, was when high-speed Internet was not simply accessible to a majority of the inhabitants.

For an entrepreneur, the primary few years of beginning a enterprise are all the time essentially the most difficult and memorable. When we launched Dream11 in 2008, we started as a social community for sports activities with fantasy sports activities at its core. At that point, we supplied a free-to-play, season-long mannequin that was ad-driven. However, the preliminary plan did not work out, and over the following three years, we experimented with varied fashions earlier than we lastly pivoted to the present format in 2012.  

4. When did you start seeing appreciable progress within the enterprise, and why?   

With easy accessibility to the web and smartphones coupled with the correct amount of schooling and product-market match, Dream11 began witnessing phenomenal development from January 2015 onwards. We reached 3 lakh customers and in addition acquired our Series A funding from Kalaari Capital and Think Investments. Each 12 months since then, we began gaining extra traction and reaching new milestones.   

We slowly began partnering with sports activities leagues, each home and worldwide, to generate extra consciousness. We additionally launched fantasy sports activities for a lot of different sports activities, moreover cricket, like soccer and kabaddi.   

In 2017, we onboarded Dhoni as our Brand Ambassador and acquired recognition from Punjab and Haryana High Court as a sport of ability. Currently, Dream11 has reached 110 million customers, hosts fantasy sports activities for 11 sports activities, and was additionally the title sponsor of IPL 2020.  

5. How did you give you the identify ‘Dream11′?   

In sports activities, Dream11 is used to suggest a dream workforce of 11 gamers. Since the platform was meant to offer sports activities followers with a chance to create their dream workforce for his or her favorite sports activities resembling cricket, hockey, soccer, and so on., the identify Dream11 appeared apt.  

6. Fantasy sports activities apps are banned from the Google app retailer. How did you achieve the belief of customers to obtain the app by different means?   

The largest issue that has labored for us at Dream11 is taking a ‘user-first’ method. When we began Dream11, we had a really small workforce and a a lot smaller consumer base. As on-line fantasy sports activities had been new to Indian sports activities audiences, we needed to create an providing that had a superb consumer expertise that addressed the wants of sports activities fans. We determined to construct connections with our customers to get inputs and suggestions immediately from them. This helped us to constantly enhance Dream11. Users additionally realised that they had been certainly being heard and so they may belief us.   

A whole lot of our preliminary choices round prioritising consumer wants and personally connecting with them labored for us in establishing consumer belief and loyalty. With fantasy sports activities being inherently social, the customers who had an excellent expertise on the platform unfold the phrase to their buddies and households as properly. We finally launched a referral programme that propelled our development by optimistic word-of-mouth references from customers and grew consumer conversions.    

7. Why is the fantasy sports activities phase so in style in India?   

India is a cricket loopy nation with many sports activities fans. There are over 850 million sports activities followers in India, out of which 400 million watch or interact with sports activities on-line. We all have sturdy opinions, particularly on workforce choice. Through on-line fantasy sports activities, followers get the chance to showcase their information of the game and compete with their buddies, household and fellow followers who’re equally obsessed with sports activities.   

Fantasy sports activities makes followers interact actively with the game and makes watching reside matches extra thrilling. Research reveals that fantasy sports activities improve sports activities consumption amongst followers by 60 p.c. It can be discovered that 48 p.c of fantasy sports activities customers now watch nearly each sport no matter the workforce or nation taking part in. 

8. Did the sudden suspension of the IPL 2021 have an effect on Dream11?  

We agreed with the BCCI’s choice to postpone the IPL. It was vital, at the moment, to deal with tackling the disaster and guaranteeing the well being and security of everybody concerned. As fantasy sports activities is totally depending on reside sporting occasions, and IPL is the preferred occasion, it did affect us. While not on the scale of IPL, we had been nonetheless capable of maintain followers engaged by that includes sporting occasions in areas that had been much less impacted by the pandemic at that time. We are trying ahead to the resumption of the 2nd half of IPL in September 2021.  

9. How does Dream11 handle to interact a lot of customers on the app, particularly throughout extremely in style tournaments just like the IPL? What are the technological experience and benchmarks behind this?  

During in style tournaments, we have now managed 80 million requests per minute and over 5.5 million consumer concurrency. While a whole lot of effort has gone into getting our methods prepared, the early adoption of the cloud has been one of the crucial important elements of our two-pronged technique – predictive and reactive. Our automated platform predicts the anticipated visitors for each match, and the automated scripts handle baseline IT Infrastructure Deployment. In our deployment pipeline, it’s a should that every launch is validated in opposition to the efficiency and resilience of the predictive load. We have a rigorous plan to execute load assessments earlier than we launch options. This prepares us for big visitors spikes sooner or later.

Our microservices are horizontally auto-scalable in order that they will handle a sudden surge in consumer requests. We do that scaling earlier than the match begin time, which can be the deadline to create a fantasy sports activities workforce, and in line with visitors projections.

We closely leverage information analytics for product enhancements resembling personalisation, enhanced gameplay, contest era, real-time chief boards, and so on. Deep Learning fashions are additionally constructed to analyse client behaviour and create a personalised consumer expertise. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are used to detect any anomalous behaviour throughout the system, generate alerts, and typically take self-corrective actions. To guarantee information safety, we deploy preventive and detective controls to watch its functions and infrastructure. We at present have over 300 Sportans [what Dream11 calls its employees] within the tech workforce, and as we additional scale-up, we shall be hiring one other 200 Sportans within the subsequent six months in tech, design and product.  

10. What has been the most important studying through the COVID-19 disaster?   

In order to outlive and thrive, it is crucial to have the ability to rapidly adapt to any state of affairs. With the entire world abruptly coming to face nonetheless on the onset of COVID-19, reside sporting occasions throughout the globe had been affected as properly. This, in flip, impacted the fantasy sports activities business. However, we took it as a chance to regroup and rethink our technique. From a product standpoint, throughout COVID-19, we launched newer sports activities, resembling baseball, handball, and leagues hosted in areas that began recovering from the pandemic, resembling St. Lucia, Bundesliga, La Liga and EPL. On the tech entrance, we cleared our tech debt and upgraded our methods. We continued with our hiring plans, regardless of the enterprise affect and grew our workforce of proficient Sportans.   

During the pandemic, we realised the significance of clear and open communication and have taken a number of measures to make sure everyone seems to be heard, given acceptable help for bodily and psychological well being administration with entry to professionals by our partnership with ‘Visit’ and ‘Santulan’, that present confidential consultations, well being check-ups and counselling. Since the pandemic impacted nearly everybody, we ensured that our Sportans prioritised their well being and security with out worrying about their work or job safety.  

We launched a Rapid COVID Resource Channel for rapid COVID associated assist – from needing sources at residence to getting medical assist or hospitalisation. We additionally launched a free vaccination drive for all Sportans and their households throughout the nation. These are all along with our common inside initiatives to destress Sportans, construct workforce bonding and uplift their moods, resembling weekly AMA periods, enjoyable contests and quizzes, 90 minutes of obligatory lunch break, no-meeting Thursdays and occasional shock presents for all Sportans and their households.   

11. Any administration mantra that you just want to share with budding entrepreneurs?   

As an entrepreneur, my recommendation could be to consider in your imaginative and prescient, align your workforce members to it and keep persistent. It’s simple to surrender when issues will not be going your method, however persistence helps you energy by the tough phases. It’s utterly fantastic to make errors and fail, however it’s good to fail quick and study quick. Finally, guarantee that you’ve got somebody who will be your sounding board, whether or not or not it’s your workforce, mentor or peer.  

12. What is the worker energy at Dream11? Are you trying to rent at present?   

Currently, we have now 500+ Sportans at Dream11 and wish to rent about 200+ extra throughout core capabilities in tech, design and product within the subsequent six months. 

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