Artificial ignorance

There are a few things that kids grow up being obsessed about – video games and sports are two such things. I grew up a sports fanatic, not so much a video gamer. Sports didn’t run in the household – neither my parents nor my sister are into it. Just me. Somehow both playing and watching sports has proven to be my favorite pass time my entire life. I grew up mostly watching the NFL, Tennis, Cricket, Basketball and some English Premier League. I played Basketball, Ping Pong (Table Tennis), Tennis and Cricket in school. I was so obsessed with Basketball, I was one of those kids who had a giant posted of Jordan in my room and I now subconsciously stick my tongue out on my way to a layup.

Although I never graduated beyond amateur high school sports leagues, my passion for sports never dwindled. When I got to Purdue, my first job on campus was as a lab assistant for the Purdue Computing Center (then known as PUCC). Although many fellow lab assistants warned me against it, I ended up signing up to be the LA over at Purdue’s Intercollegiate Athletic Facility because I wanted to be as close to the sports action as possible (the IAF is also where I first met  a 6’0″ freshman named Drew Brees who needed some help with his website and said he might be starting at QB the next year). Sports was always close to my heart.

A few years ago, I thought that it’d be awesome if I could spend all my time working on sports. Or technology in sports, because I am a technologist geek by trade, and I love technology. There are several deficiencies with the existing sports media market that have bothered me as a forever as a sports fan (I won’t go into details here). The idea of wanting to do something in this space started to brew in my head.

And then back in February, Fred Wilson wrote this:

…

- Hunches come from being a power user of the products in your category and from having a long standing obsession about the problem you are solving.

- Domain expertise to the point of obsession is highly correlated with the most successful entrepeneurs in our portfolio. …

The seed had already been planted in my head – I saw a problem, and this problem needed a solution. Then Naval Ravikant wrote this about passion-market fit:

… So the only way you’re likely to find product-market fit is if you’re almost irrationally obsessed with the market and if you’ve been working on it for a long time. Where the journey is the reward. Then, you’re likely to have unique insights (in the details) and consistent execution, through thick and thin, to find fit. Often, the best companies are ones where the product is an extension of the founder’s personality, which shouldn’t be a big surprise, since everyone is passionate about themselves.

I joined IGN last year because I saw a huge opportunity and a very nice product-market fit. But my passion for the sports industry far outweighs my passion for the video game industry. And so I’m joining Aaron Krane and the team at Hitpost, makers of the popular Sports+ app, as CTO. I get to work on disrupting the sports media industry for a living. I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more.

Thanks to all my friends at IGN who’ve helped me get better as a product manager and as a human. And special thanks to Andy McLoughlin for introducing me to Aaron.

Onward and upward,

@ai

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