The Websites That No One Knew Existed
I love playing Cricket. Ever since I was a kid, it’s been the one sport that has kept me active and social. The highest level I got to playing was an amateur professional for New Castle Cricket Club in England. I was 17 then. I got a contract to return the following year by another club that saw me playing in a T20 finals but I chose to go to university instead. My foray into being a pro in the sport ended there. Why the spiel above? Because Crickets role in my life is what lead me to create two websites called 22Cricketers.com and uCricket.com in 2010. The idea behind them both were to connect amateur cricketers through their stats. Unfortunately neither took off because the system I had created was too comprehensive and accuracy was impossible to maintain. Most importantly, there were no smartphones back then!
Building The Largest Cricket Community In The World
Fast forward to 2015. I was still playing cricket every weekend around the city. I had racked up 100s of games since I graduated from university. My obsession for maintaining my stats continued. But now everyone had a smart phone in their hand! WhatsApp had become the messaging platform for the majority. I still wanted to create something in the amateur cricket space because I saw a lot of issues that could be solved with technology. Instead of building another website, I first tried to connect the cricket community through WhatsApp. It wasn’t easy. Organizers thought I was stealing their contacts. Team captains were wondering what was the point of being added to such a group. It took a few months for me to add the right members one by one but once it had gained a certain critical mass it tipped over to running on its own. What tied them all together? Love of the game and Stats, the very thing I tried to use to connect them all in 2010.
It’s now been 17 months since the NCR community kicked off. I would dare to say that we have got one of the biggest cricket communities anywhere in the world! Indians are crazy about the sport and play a crazy amount of it even in 45 degree heat.
It’s not all been smooth sailing. It has required our time and administration but overall it has worked like a big joint family would. So many have got so much out of this connection that for me it has been immensely satisfying. At the very least I now know more cricketers then I ever did in my life. I have got to play with more teams then I ever have. More cricket is being played overall across the city. There is more transparency throughout. Everyone has a say. It’s been amazing.
The App That Refuses To Get Built
To take these benefits to the next level, I have been trying to create an app. Man has the development of this app been a nightmare! I have gone through 3 different developers, lost thousands of dollars, launched a system which didn’t work well, and wasted an insane amount of time with techies that over-promised and under-delivered. But I am still at it because this vision of mine has been stuck at the back of my head since 2010. If I do not create it, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.
After making several mistakes, now I am working with 2 separate teams to create something special. The first team brainstormed for 2 weeks with me. We laid down all the ideas I had. They suggested some more. We sketched it out on paper. We went back and forth. Finally we had some semblance of structure. Then we proceeded to split up all these features into 2 phases. Phase 1 is being designed. It looks awesome. These guys are world class at designing User Experience. I have already given them an A even though the work is not complete.
To execute Phase 1 that team 1 is designing, I need developers. There is so much demand for these guys that you can’t tell who is good and who is bad. There are no set standards. Their services cost between 2500 USD (~1.5 lacs) to 50,000 USD (~33 lacs). They live all over the world. They all show you portfolios of their stellar work. They all seem to have high ratings. After my experience going through 3 of them without much success, I know how tough it is to spot talent in this field. No wonder they get paid 6 figure salaries by the top tech companies for their abilities!
The way I am doing it now is through references. I am looking for quotes from them all, and then proceeding. I had narrowed down on one individual who works on the app side for a big bank. I met him for a meal day before yesterday and then shared an agreement with him the following day. Here was his response:
So my first advice to you would be:
“Never work with anyone who doesn’t want to put down an agreement on paper.”
The agreement does not have to be long. It can be a scribble at the back of a paper. Given the nature of the work, there is so much room for disagreement that I need to make sure that I am on the same page with my potential partner. Him refusing was an immediate red flag for me. I feel like he had no intentions of working on the project and was looking for a reason to get out of it. If he did want to work on the project he would have come back with changes he wanted in the agreement. So now what? Now I will approach the 3 references I have got from my world class designer, get quotes from them and then pick one to execute the designs.
CricHub Will Connect The World
Vires Acquirit Eundo – You gather strength as you go.
One way or another this app will come to life. With the first team we brainstormed a few names. It was called Cricket Captains till now but that name does not factor in the organizers, the suppliers, the umpires, the scorers, the batsmen and the bowlers. So we found an awesome name Cricket Hub. When I went to trademark the name I found out that it was already taken. Damn! Then we found a better name. CricHub. The trademark filing went through. I got lucky that CricHub.com was on auction. I outbid all 12 others to buy it for 7854 INR.
What About Competition?
Aha! Competition. A lot of people protect their ideas because they think that someone might steal them. Don’t be one of those stealth mode people. Ideas are cheap! Everyone has them. What matters is execution. If you are an entrepreneur who can create something that does not exist then you deserve to be a competitor. I welcome you to the playing ground.
All it takes is the courage to take action and the perseverance to keep at it as everything you thought of fails to work.
Harsh's Blog 
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