Hi, Friends welcome to Gbapps, we will discuss a deep and highly researched business model of dream11 company.
We will discuss here the full story of Dream11 and which strategies used by Dream11 to become India’s first gaming unicorn with investment from Steadview capital.
OVERVIEW OF DREAM11
Someone said cricket is religion, it means cricket is the largest religions with more than 1.5 billion believers on the earth.
Especially in India for many people, cricket is equivalent to religious. Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the world and emerged as a billion-dollar industry worldwide.
In India many people love cricket and you must have seen many times your friends are predicting and arguing for winning, losing, which cricket will make more run, who will out etc.
After following this interest one man builds a company and this company is a fantasy sports platform Dream11.
Dream11 is a platform for earning money to invest in your favourite team of cricket, kabaddi, football, hockey, basketball etc.
This is one type of gambling but it does not come under illegal. the business model of Dream11 is also unique from other fantasy game.
JOURNEY OF DREAM11

This story begins in 2003 when Harsh Jain was completing his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania.
He used to play football fantasy sports since then he got an idea that people love cricket in India too much and there is no such type of platform for fantasy sports where people can enjoy fantasy sports.
From there he started planning to explore his idea. Harsh Jain shared his idea with his friend Bhavit Sheth.
Bhavit Sheth liked Harsh Jain idea and ready to work with him.
They started working on this idea from 2008 and finally launched Dream11 application in 2012. In starting Dream11 users were less than 1 million and this idea was unique and new in the idea.
No-one could predict the future of Dream11 but when they launched fantasy cricket sports so users of Dream11 was increasing rapidly.
In 2014 Dream11 had 1 million users and that number double in 2016.
After join came to India and internet services are being cheap their users jump a lot and now they have more than 50 million users.
Some people accused that Dream11 is a gambling app.
A petition was applied in the high court of Chandigarh after losing money by a man in fantasy game Dream11 but the high court said playing fantasy games online is not betting.
And this game comes under skill and knowledge and that’s thy this app is not a gambling app.
BUSINESS MODEL OF DREAM11

Dream11 is a fantasy sports game platform application just like any other online game application but a fantastic business model of Dream11 make this company differ from other gaming application.
First, let’s understand what is fantasy gaming?
fantasy gaming means you can virtually make your own team by selecting players around the world and compete with other team made by other people.
In a fantasy game, your team will be a win if your team players make more run and goals from your rival team.
This fantasy game is running in USA, Australia and many other countries from a long time.
The business model of Dream11 is also based on fantasy game and this is not illegal.
1.You can easily signup for free.
2. If you have Dream11 referral coupon code received from other users so, during the signup process you can enter that coupon and earn a certain bonus on signup.If you refer Dream11 app to others so you will also get a certain amount of bonus for referring Dream11 app.
3. You can make your own fantasy team for each and every match of your own choice from contestant teams with certain games norms of how many players you can select from each team and which include bowler, batsman, all-rounder etc.
4. when you are creating a team a user gets a certain budget and that can be used to select your player. Each player costs a specific amount of credits so you have to choose your player according to the given budget.
5. Once you finalized your Dream team with creating a captain and vice-captain of a particular team then next step to pay a certain entry fee and join the available contest. This is step is also a hotspot to earn most of its revenue for Dream11 company.
6. In Dream11 each contest has a certain winning amount and also a limitation to join the number of teams. You have to prepare your dream team before a certain deadline.
7. Then follow the running match by watching the real match and track your fantasy game that is updated in every 2 minutes.
8. Finally, the winning amount distributes among the teams, it decides by the based on the contest and rank positions of the team.
MARKETING STRATEGIES OF DREAM11
User Behavior:
Dream11 started to focus on user behaviour.
If we talk about India and cricket then those who love cricket always predict for winning, losing, wicket etc of the match.
So dream11 understand this and focusing on user behaviour since starting. It taught every businessman or entrepreneur to focus on user understanding and behaviour.
Extra Earning Opportunity:
If you are fond of sports so you can earn extra money with the help of Dream11 by investing in your own team.
This marketing strategy motivates its users to play this fantasy game.
And this is based on users knowledge and skill. This game doesn’t come under illegal criteria.
To Get Fame With Dream11:
This marketing strategy is amazing of Dream11 because in thus strategy they invite Dream11 winners in IPL post-match ceremony and give honour.
This marketing strategy of Dream11 motivates users to play fantasy game to famous also.
Dream11 also place hoarding of their winners that also shows the reality of Dream11 fantasy game and attracts new users.
This marketing strategy shows that to make your customer to your own advertising hoarding.
Always Ready to Do Course Correction:
It doesn’t mean that they have not to face challenges. They faced and they have done many course correction like a single match instead of a long season.
In starting they are focusing on the whole season and distributing the prize for that but as we know human doesn’t have the patience to wait for result and users always make attention on short span then Dream11 introduced to focus on a single match strategy.
This marketing strategy teaches us that if any policy that was introduced in the business is not performing well so we should understand the market and consumer behavior and go for course correction to achieve our targeted goals.
Work Hard To Get Success
You can’t believe that Dream11 founder has done lot’s of hard work with dedication to reach the peak point of Dream11 company success. Their founder Harsh Jain
Bhavit Sheth has knocked 150 doors of investors for investment in their company and then they got success.
This lesson taught us that if you are going to start your business so are you ready to hear no from many people. If your answer is yes, I am ready so you will achieve your goal.
Eliminate The Biggest Negative Factor Of Your Business
Maybe when you heard about Dream11 app, first thought must have come on your mind that this app is illegal or gambling app.
And this is a negative factor for Dream11 then they decided to become Mahendra Singh Dhoni as a brand ambassador of Dream11.
We all know about his personality which is mature, cool, positive, visionary and many more good things we can see into him.
HOW DREAM11 EARN?
Let’s take a simple example and understand how they earn by this Business model.
Let’s assume 20 users are going to play the particular fantasy game and investing 30 rupees each so, they are investing 600 rupees in the game.
Here the first person who wins will get 90 rs and second will get 60rs then 50, 45, 30 and so on. if we totalling the amount then that is 500 rupees it means 100 rupees are taking by Dream11.
Apart from this they also earned by advertising and merchandise.
FUNDING ROUND OF DREAM11
They have raised a total of $100M funding amount from 5 funding rounds and Dream11 latest funding that was raised on 9 April 2019 from a secondary market round.
SOME FACT AND FIGURES OF DREAM11
Type of industry: Fantasy Sports, Mobile Application
Headquarters: Mumbai, India
Headquarters Regions: Asia-Pacific (APAC)
APP Launched: On 1st January 2012
Funding Status: Late Stage Venture
Number Of Employees : 101-250
Legal Name : Dream11 Fantasy Private Limited
Company Type : Profit
IPO Status: Private
SOCIAL PLATFORM LINKS OF DREAM11
Website www.dream11.com
Facebook View on Facebook
LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
Twitter View on Twitter
Hope business model of Dream11 will help you to grow your business and helps to convert your idea in reality. You must read the case study of ZoomCar that will help you to apply your idea in the right way.