We are publishing an interview of Mr. Piyush Kumar, Founder and CEO of Rooter Sports Technologies Pvt. Ltd – A startup that creates a platform for sports fans to connect with each and engage in real time to have a better experience.
Piyush is the Founder and CEO of the Company. He has close to 14 years of experience in Advertising and Marketing with brands like Rado, Dish TV, HCL etc. He started Rooter with the idea of making Tinder for Sports fans. Soham Sinha, Co-founder and CPO, joined Piyush to start the tech team of Rooter.
Soham is a Computer Engineer and also has MBA degree from MDI Gurgaon. He worked in Startup sector for 5 years before joining Rooter. Akshat Goel, Co-founder and CTO, joined Rooter as Head of Technology. Akshat is the brain behind entire technology of Rooter. Akshat also has 4 years of experience working with various tech startups.
What is the problem you are trying to solve?
The biggest insight of sports globally is “No one wants to watch sports alone”. Rooter provides the platform for sports fans to connect with each and engage in real time to have a better experience following sports.
Rooter also fills in a huge space for engagement for Sports Teams/ Leagues and brands that are looking at growing their reach within the ever-growing consumer segment of sports fans.
What is the uniqueness about your Startup?
The uniqueness of Rooter is the fact that its the only platform in world which is connecting sports fans and engaging them during Live matches. Its the ability of Rooter to use technology to mobilise entire sports fan market that makes the idea so unique.
What is the revenue model?
Rooter is a free-to-use app right now. Sports fans join Rooter, create their sports identity, play Live match prediction games and interact with other sports fans in match and team forums.
The gratification model of engagement on Rooter is prizes given to Top 10 winners for all games and redemption of Rooter Coins (Virtual currency) for vouchers of various e-commerce, payment and sports brands.
Business Model:
- Rooter will get brands to advertise on the application to talk to sports fans in a unique way. 12+ minutes time spent is a unique offering.
- Rooter is looking at helping brands generate customer leads from the platform using Redeem option and other targeted opportunities.
- Rooter is also open to sponsorships opportunities for sports and FMCG brands looking at targeting sports fans.
- Rooter aims to introduce Freemium subscription model for its users in next 6-8 months offering additional benefits to sports fans paying a monthly subscription fees.
Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
Sports fans across India and globe are our target audience. Rooter fulfils the need to help fans connect and engage with their sports.
What is the big picture of your startup? Will it lead to something bigger? If so, how?
Rooter is a Sports social platform that is connecting sports fans and engaging them during Live matches. Our concept is unique and first of its kind in the world. Our mission is to build a tech platform that will connect all sports fans. Rooter will create an identity for sports fans just like other social platforms and will help brands/ teams/ leagues to engage and grow with the rich user community Rooter is building.
Since Rooter is directly linked to Live Sports action which is ever growing in India and across the world, Rooter is a future ready product aiming to complete the second screen experience of sports fans.
Any other information about your startup that you would like to share with us.
Rooter is growing at a steady pace now. We have crossed 70000 downloads with an average monthly user base of 35000 and average daily user base of 7000-10000 users. The average time spent on the app is also steady at 12+ mins per user per day.
We also secured our seed round of funding recently led by an Indian Technology Firm called Intex Technologies.
Our next milestone for product is as follows:
- We need to cross 5 mn downloads in next 3 months with an active user base of 125k-150k active users. We will also like to keep average time spent steady at 10+ mins per day per user.
- We recently relaunched our iOS app. We want to bring it upto speed with android app and keep it ready for our global launch in June 2017. We plan to start with SE Asia and one small part of Europe given the next Football season.
