💡 Founder Spotlight: Akshay Khandelwal

Hello, Akshay. So let's start. I'm João Tomé. I'm a content writer at Cloudflare. Welcome to Founder Spotlight, where we shine the spotlight on the stories of startup founders all over the world. And today we have the founder of DFX, Akshay Khandelwal. Did I say that correctly? That's all right. Akshay, thank you for coming on our show. So I always love to start this way. Where are you right now? I'm sitting in Guelph. So first of all, thanks for having me on the show, João. I really appreciate it. To answer your question, right now I'm in Kota, Rajasthan. It's a town in India. It's actually my hometown in India. We are actually based out of Singapore, but I've been traveling recently and this is where we are right now. So in terms of your startup, DFX, right? I love this slogan part, building the cricket metaverse. It's one of the highlights of your startup. Can you summarize what your startup does, really? Absolutely. So DFX basically stands for digital fan experience, right? And what we are doing is we are building the future of sports content consumption and engagement, right? If I decode it to you, let us start with the problem statement that we had and we're looking to solve. A lot has been happening, of course, in the world of digital, in the world of crypto, in the world of metaverse, but there was little being done in the world of sports. And if you look at the average fan profile, the fan of the sports, they are now very evolved, right? They're consuming the content through dual screen, they're passive consuming it. And they're looking for an avenue to share their passion with the teams, right? And it's almost as if they're having always this one-way conversation, right? They have this passion, they want to express it, they don't have any avenue to do that. And on the other side of the equation, there are all these different teams and the clubs and the franchisees where they have this long tail of fans, right? They have 50 million odd fans, they know very little about them, right? So on one side, there are the teams which are trying to know their fans and the other side are the fans who are trying to get to express their passion and be noticed by their teams. There's nothing in between, right? So we are creating that layer, right? We are creating that layer where the content can be consumed and the fandom can be democratized in a way, right? The special rewards, the opportunity to have a two-way conversation with the team can be enabled for each and every single fan. We are starting with cricket, that's the area of focus that we have chosen. And the reason for that is as a team, that's our strength. My co-founder, he was a professional cricketer back in the day and has basically built a career in the field of sports. And of course, India being the home ground, cricket is the religion. So there is no better way to start with this point, start in this domain. Of course, it's interesting. In terms of that relationship with the fans, how can they have a metaverse-like experience using your platform? Can you summarize that in terms of the way they connect? It's not VR, right? It's using an app, mostly that, but how can they connect with the teams using your platform? Yeah. So there are two layers on the product that we are building. The first layer is tokenization, right? So what we're doing is we are obtaining the license of different teams' IP and we're tokenizing those IP. And this is kind of like a sophisticated loyalty program. So the fans can then buy the tokens, right? When we buy the IP, we tokenize it, we become the market maker. The fans can buy the tokens. Once they buy, then it kind of like a sophisticated loyalty program that you have, right? For in case of, let's say airlines, when you spend more money, you get some points and you can use those points to get the free upgrades, the business loan access and so on. If you are up in the leaderboard, you can even get money can't buy kind of experiences, right? Kind of works similarly like that. When you buy the tokens, you start getting, you know, some special rewards from the team. You even get some voting rights within the team's decision. These could be the things which doesn't really impact the performance of the team, but still as a fan makes you feel that you're part of the team, right? These could be simple things like, you know, what should be the color of the uniform in the next, or the color of the jersey in the next season. It could be like, what should be the song played in the strategic timeout of the game. It could be something like, you know, which NGO should, you know, the team support in a particular game and what armband they should wear, right? So as a fan, now I'm feeling like I'm able to, you know, vote and my team is responding to that, right? So that's the first layer, which is where you see this two-way conversation happening. And then we didn't stop there. We said that, okay, we need to push the utility of these tokens that we are doing even further, right? Because for some fans, a category of fans who are the fanatic fans, this would be, you know, very important, but there are fans who are, you know, rather casual fans and how do we push the utility of the tokens even further? And that's where we are creating, you know, the metaverse or the quick words as we are calling it, right? Where if you are a token holder, then you can literally make some decisions for your team in the metaverse, right? You can behave as a team owner. So look at the real world and wherever you have the, you know, the notes of decision making, let it be, you know, all the way the cricket council, who's the scheduler versus, you know, the cricket board of a country who's deciding, which is the team going to participate, whether they participate or not a team owner is decided, you know, who are the 11 player going into the field, the team management who's deciding what is the strategy in a particular game is going to be. If you are the token holder of that particular team, then you can make these decisions for your team, right as a community, right? So that is where we are pushing it. And the next phase of it is really building the metaverse, right? So we have, you know, some digital collectible cards, like, you know, the stadia cards, stadium cards, artifacts, and so on. And eventually, what we plan to do is make it, you know, open court, and invite the designers, the developers from the community who can then build, you know, 3D structures on them as well. And once you do that, then you can even consume the content through that, right? A lot of sports content, the live content is being captured in the, you know, VR ready format right now. So while that's being done, there is no infrastructure, no platform where you know, it can be ideally displayed, right? So the long term vision for this metaverse or the cricket verse is that you can have your avatar and you can have your car and you drive down into the stadium, which has been built by, you know, let's say the third party developers or designers, and you buy, you know, some popcorns and pizza and whatever you sit on and now you're watching the content in the 3D format live, right? So that's kind of where we're going with it. Of course, it's going to take time for us to, you know, execute on the vision, but yeah, long story short, that's what we're trying to do. It's a very interesting area. And for example, I was at Web Summit and one Roblox Roblox chief officer was there, I think it was regarding music, and he was telling how concerts are a big thing right now in Roblox, and they can sell the fans merchandising through the concerts, they are free, for example, concerts are free, but when they buy merchandising and all that in the platform, it's different. So the things are in motion, in a sense, even without using VR, in a sense, also in this world. I was also curious to know a little bit of where you are in terms of your startup adventure in terms of number of employees, funding milestones, customers, where are you right now? So we are only three months old right now. And we are seven, you know, seven of us full time on this project. And we have other nine people who are working with us, you know, as either interns on a project basis. In terms of the product itself, our first module, which is a tokenization module that's ready, that's sitting in the React environments ready to be deployed. We have started working on the game mechanics, game economics, we have found a designer who's, you know, designing the assets and sort of the NFTs for us as we speak. In terms of the partnerships, we have signed one team and we are in conversation with several IPL team, Indian Premier League teams, and also the cricket boards of the world. In terms of funding, we have closed one angel round, we were lucky to, you know, have it oversubscribed. There was a lot of enthusiasm from, you know, our close network family and friends as well as colleagues and so on. So we closed one, you know, angel round, and we'll be looking to, you know, raise a seed round early next year. So yeah, overall, that's where we are in our journey. You're still in the beginning of your journey, of course. Yeah, very beginning of the journey. That's correct. In terms, one of the things we are trying to achieve with this founder spotlights is also to give advice to those who are also starting. Do you remember the beginning of your journey as a startup co-founder in terms of difficulties, challenges you discovered that you want to share that could be good advices for those who are starting? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, that's something which is very important. And I guess everyone keep kept saying it, but like, you know, only when you actually do it, then you realize how important it is. So just to give you a little bit of background before, you know, jumping full time into this journey, I was with one championship, I was heading there consumer products, right, which was a D2C revenue stream. And I was looking into, you know, this space and following this space quite closely, the innovation that's happening in the sports and crypto in the metaverse kind of space with, you know, music, entertainment, social, you know, all sorts of different elements. I started, of course, feeling, you know, a bit of excitement, because I buddied up with Rahul Singh, who's my, you know, co -founder, knew him for 20 odd years, we were together in the undergrad university. So he was in the domain of sports, I was also in the domain of sports, and we would, you know, always just bounce off ideas. And somehow the word leaked. And, you know, we started getting some inbound response from the investors. And at that point, we thought that, okay, you know, there's definitely something in there. And, you know, there is at least, you know, some sort of validation of the domain that we are picking, you know, to do with. And at that point, I had a conversation with my boss was, you know, CEO of one championship telling him that, you know, I am exploring something and, you know, might be a quarter. And so before, you know, I would jump, you know, full time into this. So just wanted to give a heads up. And he was, of course, very happy, very supportive. But at the same time, he told me that, you know, if you can spend another quarter with us, that would be great. That was in, I think, September, second week, September, third week, I went to him, and I told him that this has to be my last week, you know, the excitement is at a different level. And, you know, if we do it now, then we'll do justice with the opportunity. If not, then, you know, probably the opportunity won't exist at all. So it just happened like that, where, you know, and again, he was very supportive of that. He said that, okay, you know, I realized this a lot about, you know, the conviction and, you know, the momentum. And if you're feeling that, then, you know, glad to, you know, let you go and do your own thing. So that was kind of the start. The momentum is very important in these type of things. When you choose the momentum, you better go for it to not let the opportunity pass. There was definitely momentum. And then there was, you know, the team, I think the second important part, because I was able to find, you know, my co-founder was, you know, we were exactly on the same page in terms of what we wanted to do. But the third thing was very importantly, the ecosystem as well, right? Everyone around me, including, you know, the colleagues in one championship, my ex-boss in McKinsey & Company, you know, some of the senior partners and the people that I was speaking with, you know, the fellow co -founders, they were very supportive, you know, they're like, you need to do it, you need to do it now. So matter of fact, we close our, you know, angel round like immediately after, because people would see, you know, there's an opportunity and they believed in, you know, us as a team to, you know, execute on it. And yeah, I mean, that's how the journey started. There was no looking back after that. And in terms of challenges, what were the first challenges you come up with that appeared that you tried to solve that could be a good way to see how going through a startup is really? Yeah. So I think the first challenge is, of course, to commit yourself full-time, right? Because you're just so used to, you know, receiving a salary at the end of the month and, you know, having that, you know, comfortable lifestyle. So first, it's about changing that mindset, right? Do you really need that paycheck, the next paycheck, or you can actually do without it and you can build something on your own. But once you cross that hurdle, and once you make a call that, you know, you're jumping in at full time, then I think the second challenge becomes, you know, gathering a team which is equally passionate about, you know, what you are passionate about or what you are set out to, you know, build. Because, of course, as a founding, like as, you know, co -founders, two of us were sharing the same vision, and we were very excited, but to pitch it to, you know, someone else who's, again, you know, on their own journey in their life, find that person who's, you know, equally passionate and equally excited and willing to, you know, contribute. Of course, you know, doing all of that on a bootstrap, you know, kind of a budget, right, is, I think, the second, you know, second challenge. As a co -founder, I think that the job is to, you know, keep pitching. It's a sales job, like you keep pitching, you're meeting the investor, you're pitching, meeting the partners, you're pitching, you're even hiring the employees or, you know, gathering that core team, you're pitching. So wherever you go, you know, you're pitching. So that's kind of, you know, need to have that mindset. But I think, yeah, I mean, once you have that core team, that's the most important thing, the second most important thing, you know, in the sequence. And once you have them, and once they see where you're going with this, then, of course, they become your ambassadors, right? Your core team becomes ambassador, the advisors, they become the ambassadors, the investors become the ambassadors, and then it's kind of like the snowball effect from there. So you must define well that your strategy since the beginning, what you really want to do, and then try to communicate it in the most engaging way you can for that pitch. And then you can use the same communication strategy with the hiring people, investors, you just explain what you really want from the idea, right? I mean, it's not that straightforward. So there are a couple of things that are happening. Akshay, I think we lost you. One of the problems of being completely online is sometimes we lose the video conferencing situation. So let's see if Akshay will return. I don't think so. Oh, now I can hear you. Yes. Sorry about that. My laptop gave up on me. Oh, no problem. It's a normal problem in today's world of video conferencing. You were saying about the message. Yeah, I mean, the key message, it's an evolving thing, right? Your vision is evolving. And as you're having more and more discussions, you're doing more market research, you're understanding what others are doing, your own vision of the product that you're trying to build is evolving as well, right? So it's an ever evolving piece. So there is no one kind of key to all the locks, depending on who you're talking to, you tailor your pitch, and then you move from there. Of course, makes sense. I was curious, also, in terms of your path to here. You have a lot of experience. You already told us some of your experience, previous experience before your startup. Did you imagine yourself when you were growing up in India there, creating something like this, being involved in something so, in a way, global with the possibility of being so global like this? How was your path through here? Yeah, so, I mean, I come from a typical middle-class family in India, right? My dad was in the service, he was in a national bank, and we had the resources that we had, and we tried to do the best that you could do with that. I grew up in this town where I am right now, not a very big town. And then the first sort of change came when I cleared the national examination, IIT Zahe, and reached to IIT Madras, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, which was kind of like a world of opportunity for me, right? Because growing up in a small town, and that all those kind of opportunities, options are available. And when I went there, there is someone who's playing guitar, there's someone who's playing soccer, there's someone, you know, who's debating. And I was, you know, all I had done until then was, you know, just playing vanilla, you know, my textbooks, and, you know, studying and that kind of thing, right? So, a lot of learning happened there, a lot of, you know, broadening of the horizon happened there, understanding what kind of opportunities exist happened there. From there, my first job out of university was, you know, with an energy company called Halliburton. And I was headquartered in Egypt, in Cairo. So that was my first job, that was the first location, it was the first time I was actually going out of, you know, the country. Then I was 21 years old back then. So that was the next chapter where, you know, it really opened up and the key learning I had, you know, during those five years with Halliburton as a field engineer in Africa, you know, sapsara in Africa was that no matter where you go, people are same, right? It doesn't matter, you know, which country you are in which continent you are in, which language they're speaking, and what food they're eating, it's people, you know, fundamentally are same, right? And we're all humans, right? Yeah, so that happened. And then I spent about three years in UK, I was taking care of business development and sales for this company, same company, Halliburton of our Nazi, you know, business. And similar theme came out, right? But it grew a lot more in confidence there. Because so far, I was in Africa. And, you know, of course, it was the operations, very hands-on kind of work. But when you're able to, you know, sell the multi-million deals to the clients, right in a very matured market like UK, that boosted, you know, a lot on the confidence side. And while I was doing all that, I had a couple of my own startups back in the day as well, which was more the education side, something which is also very, you know, close to the heart. So I think the idea was always there that I had to do, you know, something of my own and, you know, use all this experience that I've gathered, you know, to put it, put it on work. Did my MBA from NCR after that 2014, where the oil price was crashing, took a step back and, you know, went to the school, joined McKinsey from there. The idea was that, you know, a lot of execution and, you know, hands-on kind of, you know, operating work has been done. But now I need to, you know, understand how really the strategy operates, right? How the companies are deciding on the directions and so on. What are the kind of discussions that are happening in the boardroom? So with that mindset, I joined McKinsey, you know, spent three years there. It was amazing time and amazing, you know, friendships with the colleagues. And at a certain point in time, when I felt like, you know, now there is enough sort of, you know, strategy experience and I can, you know, go back to, go back into an environment where I can apply both my execution and strategy, you know, skill set. I chose one championship. It was, you know, the Rite Stage at that point, Ritesize. It was headquartered in Singapore, which is where I was, joined them. And from there on, of course, the idea was that, you know, need to do something in this space, right? And figure out an opportunity that is big enough, right? And also can leverage my, you know, all my experience, which was a really global experience in different countries to, you know, at work. And from there, you know, of course, there were a few different ideas and zoom down on this one because the excitement and momentum was there, you know, the alignment in terms of, you know, that me and my co-founder was there. And that's how we ended up here with DFX. It's interesting because you built on that. For example, I don't believe you would build something like you are building now with Brickverse and this company 10 or 15 years ago, right? It will be difficult because you probably didn't have by then the experience you have now. So building your experience, having the right experience, and then create something sometimes adds up to create something more robust, more solid, right? No, exactly. You're right. You're right. And it's not like we haven't tried, right? Back in the day, we tried, like on a, you know, education startup. It was a very simple thing, you know, connect the students to the tutors, right? The school students to the tutors. And this was 2007, 2008 time frame, which was kind of like, you know, pre-digital marketing era, you can say. Facebook was just coming in and, you know, even like no digital marketing was happening back in the day, right? So we were doing our advertising on the print paper, newspaper, and on the FM radios. And of course, it didn't go anywhere, right? Because that kind of network was not there. There were no people who could sort of, you know, advise us or at least we were not so open to, you right? So great learnings, but then we come to this place where, you know, we're super open to, you know, speak with the people and getting the guidance and, you know, leveraging on the network, right? Which were built over the time. So yeah, there were definitely some learnings back in the day, but now it feels like, you know, it was the right time and, you know, right moment to get started. We have three minutes until we leave. I would like to ask you in terms of future, where do you see the company going? What steps are you doing even to grow the company? Because I think the idea is to go outside India to be bigger than India, right? Yeah, correct. Absolutely. So what we're doing is we're focusing on, you know, our next module, which is going to be, you know, this gameplay, you know, after tokenization as a product is ready and we should be looking to launch it, you know, as soon as we have some of the partnerships crystallized, but we are already, you know, working on the gamification module. So that's going to be a big part of, you know, the customer engagement, user engagement for us. Beyond that, we start developing the metaverse and that is a plan for, you know, Q3 next year onwards. We're looking to, you know, raise some funding just for that piece. And then, you know, we start doing the SDKs, the software development kits, you know, make it open code and then, you know, invite the designers, incentivize the developers of the world to come in and, you know, start building it. So that's directionally where we're going. Now, of course, that's a bit of a, you know, high level plan on a, you know, on a, you know, week by week basis, month by month basis. We're looking to hire the team, you know, build a team as well who can execute on it. We're looking to build, by the way, a remote first team. So our company is going to be remote first. And yeah, I mean, how do you find these people who are, you know, super excited by what you're building and not just, you know, there to do the job, right? And build something, you know, iconic. I mean, I think that's the biggest challenge. Of course, hiring is a big topic. Actually, in the past few talks we had here on Cloudflare TV, that was a main topic, hiring someone that adds up, that wants to participate in what you're doing, right? In terms of final thoughts, in terms of challenges, right now you have in your company, you want to highlight for others to see, do you have some? Yeah, sure. So one thing is the domain that we are picking, it's extremely exciting. If you, if, you know, the people who are listening or, you know, going to be listening to this video, if you are not yet involved in, you know, the whole idea of bought into the whole idea of, you know, metaverse and, you know, gamification of, you know, our social interactions and so on, I guess now is the time. This is a very exciting time in the way that, you know, web 3.0 is not going to take over, you know, 2.0 as we knew it. So, you know, one thing is, you know, get started on your research and, you know, maybe, you know, start playing some of the games that are out there or even experience the, you know, the metaverses that are, you know, over there, there are a bunch of, you know, YouTube videos, which will really sort of, you know, tell you that, you know, how the future of the interaction is going to be, right? There's a reason why Facebook has changed their, you know, branding to meta and so on. And of course, the mainstream awareness is going to be coming, but if you could be an early adopter, there are there are massive, massive benefits that you can, you know, avail because... Actually, our time is up. So thank you so much and sorry for the short notice. No worries. Thank you. Thanks. Hi, we're Cloudflare. We're building one of the world's largest global cloud networks to help make the Internet faster, more secure, and more reliable. Meet our customer Findlaw. Findlaw is a Thomson Reuters company. 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