Introduction:
There are 476 Mn cricket fans in India, that is around 1/3rd of India’s population. Cricket fans use their smartphone to engage with other fans, cricket content and contests across various platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter and Reddit. In the realm of cricket engagement, users currently face a fragmentation challenge.
Offside brings the fragmented and half-baked experience across different platforms to one. Offside is an all-in-one social platform for cricket fans. Offside is building a "virtual third place" dedicated to cricket, where global cricket fans can engage and experience cricket like never before.
Offside stands on three foundational pillars: personal engagement through free to play cricket contests and mini-games; Personal content consumption via platform and user generated content; and social connectivity via communities and live match discussions. These pillars underpin Offside's identity, catering to a diverse cricket-loving audience. Offside has viral loops built into the app for a sustained growth- referral engine, extremely shareable viral cricket contests and unique cricket content.
Offside's business model centers on strategic collaborations, emphasizing partnerships with clubs to host official fans and enhance fan engagement. Additionally, they will forge alliances with advertisers through sponsored events, granting them access to a dedicated cricket audience. Moreover, Offside will leverage parallel ads by partnering with streaming platforms and their advertisers, optimizing return on investment by offering direct call to action for the ads showcased on these platforms.
Shivam, an IIT Delhi graduate immersed himself as an early-stage startup founder. Prior to Offside, he solo founded a P2P rental startup and two more startups after that, one of which was finalist in inaugural Toycatchon 2021 among more than 40,000 teams. He has worked on diverse early stage products ranging from board games to crypto. He connected with Rishav in 2014, and this marks their second startup collaboration. Rishav is a CTO at Offside. He is a BITS Pilani Computer Science graduate, commenced his career as a Software Engineer at Wells Fargo, later becoming a Researcher at the German Research Centre for AI. He boasts published research papers and has been spearheading tech development at Offside.
Market Opportunity:
Globally there are more than 3 billion cricket fans with access to smartphones. In India, there are 476 million cricket fans i.e. one-third of India’s population who engage with cricket related content online. Every year, during IPL, more than 400 million viewers together spend roughly 400 billion minutes watching live streaming. 70% of this audience regularly use a second screen to engage with other fans, friends, content and contents on different apps and platforms. There is no other all-in-one platform for cricket fans in India, therefore, creating a huge opportunity for Offside to capture.
100X.VC Thesis:
100X has a strong thesis on vertical communities and how they will reshape the internet. With the unorganised behaviour across Whatsapp and Reddit where millions of Cricket fans engage in conversations during matches - from IPL /WPL to local cricket leagues to World Cups - 100X believes there is a massive opportunity to organise this pre-existing behaviour. With the team that is customer obsessed, we believe Offside can build a large community for Cricket and then add other disciplines in times to come.
Conclusion:
Offside's innovative approach to building a cricket community and an all-in-one platform for cricket fans, positions it as a promising startup in the cricket engagement space. By capitalising on the massive market size and engagement observed during IPL and events like World cup, Offside aims to become a go-to destination for cricket enthusiasts seeking interactive and engaging discussions. With a well-rounded team and a strong GTM strategy, Offside has the potential to capture a significant market share and provide an exceptional user experience.
