The Gaming Issue

Speaker 0: Hi. This is the podcast, and I'm your host, Sourav. I'm joined by my co host, Sidhar Jain, who's the cofounder at Tico and is also an angel investor. Today, we are thrilled to host Anirud Pandita, who is the founder of Loco and Pocket Aces. Loco started off with an aim to democratize gaming entertainment, and PocketASIS is one of the leading digital entertainment companies in India with channels like Filter Copy and Dice Media.

Anirudh himself is an avid gamer and has done his MBA from MBA in finance from Wharton. So he has an experience in finance, marketing, as well as gaming. Through this conversation, we aim to understand what Anirudh's views are on web 3 gaming or gaming in general. Before moving on, Deco members or guests appearing on the podcast may own assets that we discuss here. Nothing we say here is a financial advice.

And all the opinions mentioned here are our own and do not reflect the views of any organizations that we belong to. With that, let's jump right in. Anirudh, I mean, we have been talking to various guests on this podcast, but your background is strikingly different from all pretty much almost everyone that we've spoken to. Can you just walk us through your journey?

Speaker 1: I think when you were saying that I worked in marketing and in finance, and actually when you start a company, you work in every single different area of company building in general, whether it's HR, finance, marketing, product, tech, you work in every single one. I've also had the, notoriety of, you know, actually acting in content or as I say, acting badly in content. So I have a book in every single different sphere of company building and, no, doing all of them, you realize how bad you are at each one and, you gain more and more respect for the sector specialists. You know, my b

Learned a lot about life through sports, learned a lot about life through watching television. So, you know, I always say whatever your parents are telling you not to do, or, you know, there might be some value in building businesses in that sector. But, but yeah, you know, went to school, did undergrad at the University of Illinois where I really learned how ventures are built, saw that innovation based ventures could actually make it out. I think before that, you know, India, there was always this licensed Raj culture. Right?

And I think we are now lucky to live in an age where, you know, companies like Flipkart and so on have really set a good benchmark for what just normal, you know, people can do. And I think for me, that happened in college and seeing, you know, Mark Marc Andreessen and, written the browser on the Illinois campus, Max Levchin from PayPal was there. So I was from there. And so you got this confidence that, yeah, even you could pay something. And after I worked in, banking and private equity, I learned how businesses are created, how they deny, how Caprichem, how kids play a part in that, how bus

And then you have kind of these giant multi decade, multi baggers, whatever word you want to use for them, but businesses that really stand the test of time. So, so really, really great education. And then, yeah, I went to Wharton after that and started Pocket Aces and then, and then Loco. With both those companies have been at the frontier or forefront of seeing consumer behavior, especially with regard to entertainment change in India. And, it's been an unbelievable journey.

And as someone who's been an avid gamer to say that I now watch games and help other people watch and stream games for a living is amazing because then you can, as Buf