Nitish Mittersain, Founder and Managing Director, Nazara
Nitish Mittersain is the Founder and Managing Director of Nazara Technologies which is India’s first gaming company to go public.
Podcast
Overview
Today on our show, we have the Founder and Managing Director of Nazara Technologies, Nitish Mittersain. Nitish talks to us about his gaming company which is going public very soon and is going to be India’s first company to do so. Nitish started Nazara when the Internet had just started booming, he talks to us about his experience of being one of the first people in the industry.
Nitish started Nazara when he was still in college, he tells us how he has always been engrossed in technology and computers since he was a kid. His company is now operating in 64 countries and has 50 million users a month! He talks to us about Nazara technologies that own the World Cricket Championship, the most popular cricket game in the world.
Being a technology company, Nitish answers how he stays ahead of the curve. He explains that the competition is very high in this industry and one-hit wonders are many, so it is really difficult to stay dynamic in this business. He talks to us about virtual reality being the next big thing.
Nitish started his own company at a very young age and he shares his experience of being a startup entrepreneur, he tells us the basic mistakes one makes while starting a business and gives us very useful insights into the same. He tells us that his company is averse to debt and litigation and that is how he manages to stay “light” and be the best in his game.
He advises the young startup entrepreneurs to not chase money and focus on their product’s quality instead, “perseverance is very easy to lose,” he tells us.
Tune in to listen to this inspiring interview!
Profile
The founder and managing director of gaming and sports media company Nazara Technologies Ltd is one of those who may look back at the virus-induced, seemingly endless lockdown without too much regret. Globally, online gaming and eSports have done sportingly well and Nazara, which has added around 10 million new gamers over this period, is no exception.
One of its subsidiaries, media content company Sportskeeda, saw a 70% drop in revenue when mainstream sport was suspended in March. It quickly pivoted into an eSports news portal, adding 13 million users, a 2,000% spike, in just two months. Kiddopia, an “edu-tainment” application for young children (Nazara is invested in the company Paper Boat Apps), has grown four-five times, he says, though others, like fantasy sports platform HalaPlay Technologies, suffered because there was no live sport.
If 41-year-old Mittersain is busier than ever—and feeling somewhat content sitting in the outdoors on a weekend afternoon—it’s because his journey has been two decades in the making, from the time a tech enthusiast teenager left college with a commerce degree. Nazara today has business operations in 64 countries, with a portfolio that includes free-to-play mobile games, real money gaming, eSports and gaming subscription services. With over 100 million players in India, it has licensed mobile gaming rights to popular Indian characters like Chhota Bheem, Motu Patlu and Shikari Shambhu, besides games such as World Cricket Championship (WCC) and ESL India Premiership.
