Acquisition project | Probo
Introduction:
Probo is an Indian online opinion trading app. The app allows users to trade yes / no on upcoming and trending events in sports, politics, stocks etc.
Founded in 2019, Probo is in the mature scaling stage with a topline of close to INR 100 crores in FY22-23.
Game Flow:
- When a user finds an event as per their liking, they can trade either yes or no as an opinion
- All trades are worth Rs 10, and you can buy as many trades as available in the current market i.e Probo matches users saying yes to users saying no.
- If the odds at which a user selects yes is 7.5, it means that the user will get Rs 10 if the selected event wins ex:
India to win the match against Pakistan, yes 7.5 means the user wins Rs 10 if he trades the yes at the value of 7.5.
As this app falls under real-money gaming, it is not available on the Play Store but is available on the Apple Store.
Ideal Customer Profile:
After speaking to 15 users of the App, I have identified two core ICPs for the Probo app:
Sports Enthusiasts:
These users earn well, are passionate about sports and are willing to bet on their opinions. Globally, the participation of sports enthusiasts in betting on their views about the outcomes of events is over 50%, and it is expected that Indian consumers will show a similar trend in the future.
The betting industry in India is unregulated, with only shady online books and local bookies taking up most of the market. After the revision of the GST rule, the most prominent global betting platforms, Betway & Bet365, exited the Indian market, with Stake.com being the only international player still operating; however, they do not have a mobile app. This showcases a clear gap in the market for a sophisticated and secure product.
These users make a decent income and consume social media and sports in their free time. These users are present across all geographical regions of India.
Parameters | Ideal Customer Profile 1 |
Profile Name | Sports Enthusiast |
Age | 25-40 |
Goals | Proud of the ability to analyse games, predict outcomes, earn money on the side. |
Income Level | 8,00,000 to 20,00,000 |
Gender | Male |
Location | Location agnostic |
Companies | Business, IT, Government Services, Self Employed, Startups |
Marital Status | Both Married and Unmarried |
Where do they spend time? | Social Media, Sports |
Pain Points | Unregulated industry is not organised, access is difficult, social taboo |
Current Solutions | Fantasy Gaming Apps - Dream 11/My11Circle, Stake.com, Unorganised Betting |
Real-money gamers:
Real-money gaming makes up over 80% of the Indian gaming industry, with Apps like Dream 11, Zupee, and RummyCircle boasting a user base of over 10 Crore Indians.
These users earn less than INR 8 Lakhs per annum, with students, gig workers, and entry-level employees making up the majority of them. They are focused on making a quick dime and are always looking for a legitimate online way to make money.
These users come from all geographical regions, with Tier 3 cities making up more than 45% of these users.
Parameters | Ideal Customer Profile 2 |
Profile Name | Real-money gamers |
Age | 18-30 |
Goals | Kill time and earn on the side |
Income Level | 0 to 8,00,000 |
Gender | Male |
Location | Location agnostic |
Companies | Unemployed, Student, IT, Admin Services, Gig Workers, Entry Level jobs, Self Employed |
Marital Status | Both Married and Unmarried |
Where do they spend time? | Social Media, TV |
Pain Points | Looking for the next game to earn money, learning curve of skill based games |
Current Solutions | Fantasy Gaming Apps - Dream 11/My11Circle, Cash games apps - RummyCircle / Zupee |
Total Addressable Market:
Probo app has a very high synergy with other real-money gaming apps. Technically, these companies operate in the same TAM; however, the adoption of juggernauts like Dream11 is quite high, making acquiring these users equally difficult, significantly reducing the SOM.
Total Population: 140 Cores
Total Users with Smartphones: 60 Crores
Adoption of Mobile Gaming: 75~80% | 46.5 Crores
Adoption of Real-Money Gaming: 35~40% | 16.5 Crores
Serviceable Available Market: As the tech product can be serviced to everyone at once, there is no difference between TAM and SAM
Serviceable Obtainable Market: As it is difficult to acquire users already engaged on other apps, we have taken an estimation of obtaining 1/3rd of the market first, i.e. 33% | 5.5 Crores
I have also used a similar approach to finding the critical TAM Metrices for the two ICPs mentioned above.
ICP 1 | Sports Enthusiast | ||
Metric | Multiplier | Value |
Population | 15,00,00,000 | |
% of Sports Enthusiasts | 65% | 9,75,00,000 |
% with High Interest | 40% | 3,90,00,000 |
Ability to pay | 8% | 29,25,000 |
TAM | 29,25,000 | |
SAM | 29,25,000 | |
SOM | 40% | 11,70,000 |
| ICP 2 | Real Money Gamers | ||
Metric | Multiplier | Value |
Population | 12,00,00,000 | |
Mobile Gamers | 75% | 9,00,00,000 |
% of Mobile Gamers to play w real money | 35% | 3,15,00,000 |
TAM | 3,15,00,000 | |
SAM | 3,15,00,000 | |
SOM | 35% | 1,10,25,000 |
Core Value Proposition:
- Trade Opinions
- Bet on events you believe will come true
- Earn by monetising your opinions
- Just Rs 10 to play, enabling the entire spectrum of users
Designing Acquisition Channels:
Probo is currently in the mature scaling stage, which makes channel selection extremely important to drive scale; there are two opportunities that I have identified:
- Facebook | Meta: According to a recent study by Meta on the real-money gaming industry in India, 90% of users discover new gaming products through Meta, thus acting as a significant acquisition channel for companies. However, while researching, I found Probo's presence to be very limited on these platforms
- Product Integrations | Cric Line Guru: Predicting outcomes of sporting events creates many opportunities for product integrations with cricket-led platforms of India like cricbuzz, OTT apps, Google Sports however due to ease of execution, high synergy and extremely high overlap between user intent, I have chosen the app Cric Line Guru
Facebook | Meta:
Problem: | Scale customer acquisiton volume by driving high intent traffic from Facebook & Instagram |
Hypotheses: | Probo is not using meta ads to acquire users - the platform has a lot of very high intent audience groups which can be leveraged to acquire users at efficient costs |
I have designed two campaign frameworks to test, validate, and scale acquisitions through Facebook to validate this hypothesis for ICP 1
We will be conducting three simultaneous A/B tests to find the ideal way of scaling this campaign:
- Campaign Testing: We will be testing two campaigns with different goals
- Traffic:
- Conversions, Sign Up
- Ad Group Testing: Each campaign to be divided into 4 ad groups, based on different audiences with interest in Sports Betting, the objective is to understand which economic section of the population responds better to the campaign.
- People interested in high value goods
- People interested in medium value goods
- People interested in medium & high value goods
- No overlap
- Creative Testing: Testing two types of creatives based on
- Straight to the point, play to win.
- Create a nudge for users to use their cricketing knowledge
- Straight to the point, play to win.
ICP | Ideal Customer Profile 1 | Test A | Test B | Test C | Test D |
Audience | Age | 26-45 | |||
Location | All of India | ||||
Interests Inclusions | Sports Betting | Sports Betting | Sports Betting | Sports Betting | |
People interested in med & high value goods | People interested in high value goods | ||||
Interests Exclusions | People interested in high value goods | ||||
People interested in med & high value goods | |||||
Custom Exclusion | Existing Users, Negative Lists | ||||
Objective | Maximize Link Clicks | ||||
Bid | Cost per click | Start from 1 | Increase gradually | |
Product Integrations:
A number of products show a high synergy for integration with Probo. I have used the following framework to prioritise the Cric Line Guru App.
Channel Name | Time to go live | Tech Effort | Monthly Users in Volume | # of Users we can get monthly | New Users in Mo1nth | New Users in Month 2 | New Users in Month 3 | New Users in Month X | Parter's incentive to allow | Notes for Selection / Not Selection |
Cricbuzz | 3-6 Months | Med | 20,00,00,000 | 0.50% | 10,00,000 | 11,00,000 | 12,10,000 | 7,26,000 | Medium | As an advertising platform, it's easier to onboard crictbuzz, has high synnergy, contextuality and UX would be easier for the user to understand |
OTT Platforms | 12 Months + | High | 5,00,00,000 | 0.25% | 1,25,000 | 1,37,500 | 1,51,250 | 90,750 | Low | Low incentive to let user break the flow |
Google Search | 12 Months + | High | 5,00,00,000 | 0.75% | 3,75,000 | 4,12,500 | 4,53,750 | 2,72,250 | Medium | Very high synergy, similar to how searching for a sports match gives you a direct link to the OTT platform broadcasting it, a simiylar button which lets' the user directly come to Probo to share opinion |
Fantasy Gaming | 3-6 Months | Med | 10,00,00,000 | 0.75% | 7,50,000 | 8,25,000 | 9,07,500 | 5,44,500 | Low | Competing businesses |
Cric Line Guru (Selected) | 2-4 Months | Low | 50,00,000 | 2.50% | 1,25,000 | 1,37,500 | 1,51,250 | 90,750 | High | Cric Line Guru is an app that shows cricket scores along with betting ods, this is mainly used by punters betting on the unorganised market, the user base here has super high synnergy and highly likely to convert, as it is an basic app, integration should be quite easy |
High Synergy | Low Time to Market | Leverage to Negotiate | No Conflict
Product Flow:
The following diagram showcases the basic flow of the user from the Cric Line Guru App to the Probo App
Wireframe:
Here is a mockup of how the apps should look post-integration
End of the document
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