My guest for Ep189 of The Startup Playbook Podcast, was Jalal Shaik.

Jalal is the Founder & CEO of Gameface.AI, a company that uses AI and machine learning to provide accurate and relevant performance insight for sports.

In 2022, Gameface was acquired for $33M by now publicly listed company, Slinger Sports after having only raised $1.2M in total funding.

Despite their success on paper, it was a difficult journey for Jalal and in this episode he opens up and shares a large part of the lessons and insights from his journey including:

• The ups and downs of the GAMEFACE.AI journey
• Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago
• How a deal with famous Indian Cricketer Virender Shewag, led to their acquisition
• Lessons learned (the hard way) through the acquisition process
• and much more!

Timestamps

• 1:48 Jalal’s background
• 5:53 Early exposure and learnings working for five companies that got acquired
• 8:36 The initial idea for GAMEFACE.AI
• 10:18 Going through Startmate accelerator
• 13:09 Challenges raising capital for an AI startup 6 years ago (before today’s AI hype)
• 19:09 Advice to founders currently fundraising
• 22:01 Challenges in the early days of building GAMEFACE.AI
• 25:12 Cultural challenges marrying his partner outside his family’s religion
• 34:10 Most important traits for founders to develop
• 35:35 Doing a deal with Virender Sehwag
• 36:21 Lessons and warnings to founders going through the acquisition process
• 46:39 Getting top talent to buy in to your vision

Our partners

A big thank you to Danny Bhandari and Adir Shiffman for their help with this interview!

Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:

Scendar 

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta

Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.
Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount

Links mentioned

Jalal’s links

• Jalal’s LinkedIn
• GAMEFACE.AI

People mentioned

• Jason Calacanis
• Nick Crocker
• Rayn Ong
• Danny Bhandari
• Kylie Frazer
• Adir Shiffman
• Niki Skevac
• Virender Sehwag

Companies mentioned

• NVIDIA
• IBM
• Arm
• VXL Technology
• Connexa
• NXP Semiconductors
• SMIC
• Australian Foundry Institute
• Startmate
• Telstra
• Cricket Australia
• FIFA
• Sehwag Cricket Academy

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Rohit@startupplaybook.co
@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)
/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)
@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)
My Youtube Channel

Credits:

Music: Paycheck

Other channels:

Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here

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