Leaders

The integration of Science and Technology has revolutionized almost every sector and field ensuring both extraordinary results and engaging experience for the audience and stakeholders. However, we as a country still have a long way to go, when it comes to integrating everyday sports with technology. Keeping the same in mind, Prachi Gupta, Co-Founder, Eyeplay Sports Technology, has been trying to infuse the latest technology into our everyday sporting experience. Eyeplay enables players to record and build their sporting profile, while also making it an engaging experience for the viewers.

Eyeplay also provides the feature of Virtual Coach to raise sporting standards making a player’s and her coach’s job easy by progressively guiding them to improve their game. In an exclusive interview with Women Entrepreneur, Prachi shares her early experience and background, the story behind the inception of Eyeplay, and much more.

Take Us Through Your Early Educational Journey & The Prior Industry Experience That You Bring To The Table. What Are Some Key Business Lessons That You Picked Up Along Your Journey?

I hail from a small city called Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Throughout my childhood, I was an academically focused student who topped my district in the 10th board exams, and cleared IIT-JEE in the first attempt. However, my interest in electronics made me forgo my admission offer for another branch at an IIT to pursue electronics engineering at one of the leading state college. Yet, my IIT dream stayed with me and I went ahead to complete Master’s degree from IIT Delhi with the highest CGPA in Electronics and Communication discipline.

My corporate journey started with C-DOT where I got the opportunity to work on mobile network technologies starting from 1st Generation to 4th Generation more commonly known as LTE, where I saw from close quarters the making of the telecommunication revolution in India. Later on, I worked for organizations such as Mindtree, Philips Semiconductor, and Sasken. Being part of the journey of Mindtree from its early days, I was inspired by their hiring and business strategies which enabled it to be listed as a high growth company, something which I aspire for Eyeplay in future. At Philips, I learnt what it meant to be a people-centric company owing to its empathetic culture and supportive policies, which helped me raise my kids well without ever feeling professionally compromised.

Sasken gave me a wide functional exposure and enabled interactions with cross functional teams including HR, PLC, Admin while still being in touch with the technology. I believe, all these experiences had prepared me for managing a technology-led, customer-centric, startup at Eyeplay. However, it was at Inveno, an Ed-tech startup, where my startup journey and hands-on skills got tested and refined. It readied me mentally to be resilient in the face of adversity. It also taught me how important it is for an entrepreneur, to be a people person who understands the team and their strengths well - something which I now incorporate, in my day to day work.

What Motivated You To Venture Into Entrepreneurship And Co-Found Eyeplay Sports Technology?

How does the firm intend to revolutionize the everyday sporting experience through its products and technology? I had been a casual athlete during school & college, my husband and two children are also very active in everyday sports. My son Arnav, even went on to represent India in Jr. NBA Global Basketball championships in Orlando, USA.

"Actively seek out new opportunities and new learning experiences, we can learn a lot even from our mistakes"

I used to travel with him for his Basketball tournaments and have seen his journey from a close quarter and realized the burning need for a quality product that makes the life of a player and an observer (a parent in my case), fun and exciting. I also met many coaches and got an insight into the problems they face in giving good quality feedback with video evidence for their training sessions. This gave birth to the idea of Eyeplay where we have tried to create a simple, affordable, and easyto-use platform for sports video recording & analysis enabling players, coaches & scouts to collaborate & take their sporting experience to a new level.

What Are The Various Roles & Responsibilities That You Currently Shoulder At Eyeplay Sports Technology? What Are Some Of The Most Challenges You Have Faced As A Cofounder And How Did You Overcome Them?

As the co-Founder, my responsibility is to oversee operations, (accounts, finance, legal) and customer engagement. However, being in a startup, I usually carry out multiple roles. I adorn the hat of an end-user (player) while defining product use cases & features, a critic while reviewing the design and the codebase, a tester while experimenting with the newly developed or incremental feature set, and a people manager during hiring, setting up the team processes or during connecting with them.

I also invest my time in learning new skills related to entrepreneurship and doing market research to keep a track of sporting trends in India and the existing products in this space, globally. I bear the responsibility of keeping the team bonded at each stage, a skill that I have learned from my corporate years. This role became essential during the pandemic where we had to navigate a complete shut-down of sports facilities and entirely re-worked our strategy – from a hardware-equipment based model for smart venues to a player-centric software-based solution.

What Advice You Would Like To Give To Young Women & Girls Aspiring To Become Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs In The Future?

As women, we develop a strong sense of emotional resilience because of being on the other side of the gender divide as well as managing multiple aspects, which helps us to foster deep empathy with our team members. We can use it to forge excellent long-term relationships and be better humans. Family forms an integral part of our professional growth.

It helps us stay rooted, and motivated and enables us to analyze all the situations holistically. It is crucial to take time out of our busy schedules to spend some time with family. I Actively seek out new opportunities and new learning experiences, we can learn a lot even from our mistakes.

Prachi Gupta, Co-Founder, Eyeplay Sports Technology

Having around 17 years of software development experience across product design, project management, learning and development, and so on, Prachi Gupta is trying to enhance the overall sporting experience by infusing it with technology through her organization ‘Eyeplay Sports Technology’. She also holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from IIT-Delhi.