🏸 Acquisition project | Hudle

🏸

Acquisition project | Hudle

Hudle - Sports Venue Booking App

Why Hudle for Acquisition Project

Guideline - Choose a your own product/company as you would have the maximum context about it as well as access to users.

Current Company - American Express

Current Product - Enterprise AI/ML platform

Challenge with the current Product - It's an Internal platform for American Express colleagues, so NOT really an ideal fit to apply growth concepts like - revenue, acquisition, retention, monetization etc.

Challenges with choosing credit card as a product from Amex -

Majorly a physical product, app/web account just a means to use the actual product
Tried to reach out to colleagues from India marketing/growth teams - realised access to internal data and strategies is not easily available.
No access to users - Being a financial giant, getting you hands on user data in not even an option. It's against the company policy. Had to rely on people from the public domain which is equivalent to any other product in the market.

Rationale behind picking up Hudle -

Easy access to users, personally in touch with 30+ users
Easy access to company strategy and numbers via a friend who works in growth role at Hudle
Avid user of the app and personally believe that the opportunity to grow and excel in this domain is huge.
Product/Business is still in it's very nascent stage, lot of opportunities to grow and scale.

Index

Problem Statement
Brief about Hudle
Understanding the Market
Understanding Potential / Existing Users
Potential and Target ICP
Understanding the current Acquisition Strategy for Hudle
Acquisition Strategy for Hudle

1. Problem Statement -

Devise acquisition strategy for Hudle to increase monthly downloads/bookings from 2.5k/20k to 5k/30k by assessing the currently deployed acquisition channels, identifying whitespaces in them and detailing out existing/new distribution channels that helps us to achieve the target.

2. Brief about Hudle -

It is a mobile app that enables sports enthusiasts to find and book more than 40 sports in more than 1000 venues across the country. Their mission is to empower athletes, sports enthusiasts, and teams by providing convenient access to high-quality facilities for their training and recreational needs. Whether it's booking a soccer field for a weekend game or reserving a tennis court for a practice session, Hudle.in offers a user-friendly interface and a comprehensive database of sports venues pan India.

Company Specifics	Details
Founder	Suhail Narain (May 1, 2018)
Legal Name	Hsquare Sports Private Limited
Headquarters	Delhi, India
Employee Count	11-50
Last Round	Series A

Business Specifics	Details
Revenue (GMV) Self Owned Venues (70) Managed Venues (930)	40 Cr 8 Cr 32 Cr
MAU Web Mobile App	45,000 4,500 40,500
Monthly App downloads	3000
# of monthly bookings	20,000
% earned per booking	6-8%

3. Understanding the Market

Industry Future - In India, the market landscape for online sports venue booking apps is dynamic and competitive. Several players, including Playo, Hudle, Cult Play, KheloMore offer platforms for discovering and booking sports facilities. These apps capitalize on the growing demand for convenient access to sports venues, driven by increasing urbanization and a rising interest in fitness and recreational activities. With the market poised for further growth, Hudle is placed nicely to scale it's business multi fold in the next few years.

Competitive Landscape -

Screenshot 2024-03-30 at 6.09.53 PM.png

Highlight - The fact that none of the players in the market are spending a dime on acquisition and still growing rapidly is a sign of tremendous demand waiting to be fulfilled.

‼️ All market values have been calculated from a bottom-up approach. Numbers are extrapolated basis the current market landspace in Delhi NCR region ‼️

PlayO - the market leader is doing around 110Cr in annual gross revenues.

TAM

Total Addressable Market (Users) - 1.4 crores

Total Addressable Market (Annual Revenue) - INR 20,160 crores

SAM

Serviceable Available Market (Users) - 28 lakhs

Serviceable Available Market (Annual Revenue) - INR 4,032 crores

SOM

Serviceable Obtainable Market (Users) - 4.2 lakhs

Serviceable Obtainable Market (Annual Revenue) - 604 INR crores

Rationale -

TAM - Reasonable Tax payers in age group 22-60 X 14,400 yearly spending appetite for fitness/sports
SAM - 20% of the TAM - lot of potential of scaling within tier1/tier2 cities itself.
SOM - 15% of SAM, remaining 85% split between Gyms/Yoga centres, multiple competitors in the space and unorganized market

4. Understanding Potential / Existing Users

🙋🏻‍♂️ Questions Asked to the users -

Demography - Age, Gender, Location, Income Level, Relationship Status

Fitness Mantra - Gym, Exercise, Yoga, Running, Cycling, Sports

Frequently used Apps - Sports/Wellness/Fitness Related

Food Habits - Spend on healthy food eating

Source of entertainment - Consuming Content, Eating out, watching sports, travel, hanging out with friends etc.

Social Influence - Office / Society events around sports and fitness

If NOT a Hudle user (or a competitor app user)
- Monthly budget for fitness (to gauge the Appetite to pay)
- Thoughts on playing recreational sports for physical and mental fitness
- Any experience of playing or booking sports venues - online competitors vs offlince channels like calling the facility directly from google. What are the pain points here ?

If a Hudle user
- Choice of sport & Frequencey- Badminton, box cricket, football, swimming etc.
- Primary reason for playing that sport - Spending time with friends, Fitness, Killing free time, meeting new people ?
- Thoughts on trying out new sports
- Acquisition Channel - How, why and when did they download the app ?
- Monthly Spend - frequency of use X avg transaction amount
- Bookings - adhoc vs elite monthly pass
- Playing Group - Individual vs Fixed group vs join new/unknown people
- Participation in the community - joining groups, chats/banter etc.
- App Features - Overall Experience, Encounter with Referral Programme, best and worst things about the app.

💡Key Insights from 13 user calls (Avg age 32)-

Walking 10k steps / Occasional Running / Exercise at home / Heating healthy is the dominant fitness mantra.
Growing awareness about fitness/wellbeing in the youth and hence a visible appetite to pay for sporting activities.
Visible adoption of the culture of playing sports as an alternative to traditional fitness.
Primary driver for playing competitive sports - spend time with friends and have a great time while also keeping themselves fit.
Group sports seen as an Antidote to loneliness when moving to new cities - proven way to make new friends and attain a sense of belonging.
Organic search and WOM are the two primary source of acquisition for Hudle. Not even a single user (out of the 13) was onboarded via referral or paid ads or partner integrations. Natural Pull for the product - hence clearly the product has attained PMF and is ready for early scaling.
Solid loyalty and repeat rates of booking for all competitors.
Primary sport - Badminton
- Why
- - Relatively lower dependence on # of people required
  - Equipment friendly - racquets/shoes easily available
  - Cheaper as compared to some other sports like swimming/box cricket/football/table tennis
  - Relatively higher # of establishments ensuring availability
Only a minority of people regularly dabble in the community space
PlayO is the dominant player in Bengaluru and south region
Hudlle is the dominant player in Delhi NCR region

5. Potential and Target ICP

👨‍💼Potential ICPs

	ICP-1	ICP-2	ICP-3	ICP-4	ICP-5
Who	Students	Early-mid working Professionals	Parents	Regular Players	Seniors
Possible Types	High School College			Amateur Athletes Sports Enthusiasts	Retired folks Senior working professionals
Gender	Any	Any	Any	Any	Male
Age Group	14-23	21-45	32-55	14-32	50-65
Location	Tier1	Tier 1	Tier 1/Tier 2	Tier 1 / Tier 2	Tier 1
Income Levels	< 10k / month	25k-3L /month	50k-5L / month	5k-2L / month	50k-5L/month
Lives	Hostel/PG/Family	Flatmates/Couple	Family	PG/Flatmates/Family	Family
Fitness/Sports Monthly Budget	Nil	upto 3k	upto 3k	upto 5k	upto 10k
Do they follow sports	Follows 1-2 sports religiously. Growing interest in e-sports	Follows 1-2 sports religiously and the rest casually.	Doesn’t get much time to follow favourite sports, keeps themself updated on the latest	Follows 1 sport very keenly and other sports casually	Follows 1 sport casually
Views on Playing sports	Enjoys playing a variety of sports. Usually plays in school/clg premises or housing colony	Enjoys playing selected games. Increased awareness about physical/mental health	Used to play sports before starting a family, would like to get back at it. Only plays during corporate events	Serious about a particular sport and want to keep training to improve.	Rather prefers yoga and walking
Frequency of playing a sport	7-10 times / month	4-8 times / month	0-2 times / month	20-25 times / month	0-2 times / month
Opinion on trying new activities	Would like to, but does not have adequate resources	Keen to explore new sports outside of routine ones if the right opportunity strikes	Not really	Not really	Not really
Pain Points	does not have enough cash handy to splurge playing in professional settings.	Cannot commit to the daily hustle of gym Does not have a group to play with (loneliness) - dependence on people for group sports Does not want to invest heavily in equipment for one off sport events	Don't get enough time to play leaving family at home Wants to get their kid exposed to multiple sports and seek professional training for a particular sport.	High Cost of booking Near by / Residential Facilities which are availble for free are not maintained enough to train properply	Apprehensive about playing high agility games

🎯 ICP Prioritization framework

	Who	Value to user	Ease of Adoption	Frequency	Appetite to pay	CAC
ICP-1	Students	High	Medium	High	Low	Medium
ICP-2	Early-mid working Professionals	Very High	Very High	Medium	High	Low
ICP-3	Parents	High	Low	Low	High	High
ICP-4	Regular Players	Very High	High	Very High	Very High	Medium
ICP-5	Seniors	Medium	Very Low	Low	Very High	Very High

Basis the above matrix, my target ICPs would be - ICP-2 and ICP-4

Core Value Prop for ICP-2 and ICP-4 (keeping in mind their pain points) -

Easy and convenient way to discover and book a wide range of sports and fitness options
A hassle free booking experience with intuitive features for scheduling, payments and communication
Connect with like minded individuals, teams to foster a sense of community in the world of sports and fitness.

6. Understanding the current Acquisition strategy for Hudle

👉🏼 Direct and Organic Search are dominant mediums for prospects to discover the product (validated through user interviews as well)

Marketing Channels
Channels overview
O
ä
All traffic
Dec 2023 - Feb 2024 Worldwide
75%
30.91%
25%
Direct
0.00%
Email
3.42 %
Referrals
1 .44%
Social
64.23%
Organic search
N/A
Paid search
0.00%
Display ads
a See full overview

Screenshot 2024-03-30 at 6.10.33 PM.png

👉🏼 Organic search makes up about 65% of website traffic.

👉🏼 Keyword analysis - use case / hudle brand / competitor brand / product -

Screenshot 2024-03-30 at 6.10.42 PM.png

👉🏼 Strong WOM (validated through user interviews)

👉🏼 From Venue Itself (discovered via user interviews) -

Prospect reaches out to the venue to enquire about booking over phone call or directly visiting and the venue manager asks them to download the app to book online.
Prospect visits the venue to play with someone else and encounters Hudle branding at the venue and decides to download the app themselves for future.

👉🏼 From Corporate/Social Events (discovered via user interviews) -

Prospect attend corporate/social informal tournament organised by his community and enjoys the experience, decides to download the app to play outside of organized setting
- Hudle Growth Marketer explained that they do host corporate events for a small service fee inorder to expose potential customers to their venues. They are only working on inbound leads as of now.

Word of Mouth and Organic Search are the major pillars of Acquisiton for Huddle

7. Acquisition Strategy for Hudle -

In our Market Research, it was evident that the market has a lot of growth potential and hence there is definitely vast leg room to acquire users faster

Channel selection framework-

	How it can help Acquisition for Hudle	Setup Effort	Flexibility	CAC	Lead time	Remarks
Organic	People searching on google / app store would discover Hudle	Medium	Low	Low	High	Already quite optimised. Keep improving SEO in new cities launched.
Content Loops	Blogs around sports / fitness / Training over web Social Media Channels - FB, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube	High	Low	Medium	Low	Not a lucrative option to win for this product
Paid Ads Performance Marketing + Physical Branding	Prospects discovers the product via ads on social media	Low	High	High	High	Increase quick discoverability
Referrals	Existing users seek value in extending the product to family/friends	Medium	High	Low	Medium	Loyal and frequent customer base that can be nudged towards referring
Product Integrations	Prospects discovers the product via a related product that they currently use	High	Low	High		Would take up quite some time and energy without giving the desired results.

Basis the above matrix, the best channels for acquisition for hudle are - Paid Ads and Referrals. Plus continuously optimizing for organic search to maintain this healthy channel of acquisition

1. Paid Ads -

Most Common Apps used by our target ICPs (max time spent per day as per user interviews) -

Instagram
WhatsApp (Interestingly, people thought they used WhatsApp more than Instagram but their screen time stats said differently)
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter

Basis this information, my plan is to run 2 adds (A/B test) targeting the following user segment -

User Segmentation Criteria	Values to use	Reason
Location	Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai	Strong presence of venues availableTarget ICPs live here
Age Demography	21-35	Target young working professionals
Gender	Male	Bold step : But as per the data of current users On huddle, the male:female ratio on the app is 87:13
Interest / Behaviours / Engagement Patterns	Follows sport tournaments or fitness content Badminton/Swimming/Football/Box cricket/ Cricket / Squash In new city for over 15 days	Targeting prospect customers
Device	Mobile	Target ICP spends maximum time on mobile
Platform	Instagram	Target ICP spends maximum time on Instagram
Medium of Ad	Post, Reel and Stories	Major engagement is observed in these areas

Mechanics behind running Ads on Instagram -

Metric	Numbers	Reason
Cost to acquire 1 user paid user CAC	80 Rs	30-100rs market range for CPI (cost per install) Some % might not book after installation, hence keeping the estimate on a higher side
Monthly Spend of a user	1,200 Rs	Validated through real data from Hudle Growth team
Avg Retention rate of a user in months	8 months	Validated through real data from Hudle Growth team
LTV (Gross Revenue)	9,600 Rs	1,200 X 8
LTV (Net Revenue	768 Rs	Avg commission rate per booking 8% 8%9600 = 768
CAC:LTV	1:10	80/768 \| Very Healthy CAC:LTV ratio

Note : Similar numbers for people buying monthly pass.

Instagram Add Snippets -

Group 10.png

Target ICP - ICP 4 (Regular Players)

This is mainly targeted for people to buy the monthly passes for their favourite game to play regularly at a reasonable price.

If this works for us, there is potential in scaling this add with a video format for specific games where we are seeing the most traction.

We can also show this ad in reels/stories for more engagement.

Group 15 (1).png

Target ICP - ICP 2 (Early-Mid Professionals )

This is mainly targeted for people for people to play with their squad or find their squad in a new city

If this works for us, there is potential in scaling this add with a video format showing a bunch of happy folks having fun playing the game.

We can also show this ad in reels/stories for more engagement.

2. Referral Programme -

WhatsApp Image 2024-03-29 at 11.00.12 PM.jpeg

Current Referral Feature is broken because -

Usage of Platform Currency is not clearly specified
No Nudge to a regular happy user to refer and bring new friends in their journey
No Tracking of referrals

Platform Currency - Hudle Stars ⭐️

Potential Referral nudge areas -

With in-app features
Through push notifications
Physical banners and branding at venues
Targeting followers on Social Media

We will be exploring With in-app features for now -

Identifying Happy Moments / Potential Referral Opportunities within the app -

When the user successfully books a venue to play a sport. (CVP of booking is accomplished)
When a user joins a group to play and another spot is left. (CVP of engaging in the community is accomplished)

Referral Journey -

Refer Nudge on Happy Moment - Display a banner with a CTA after successful booking, when the core value proposition is achieved.

User will be redirected to the refer page.

Referral Banner Placement

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Referral Banner Placement

Frame 31.png

Refer Nudge on Happy Moment - Display a banner with a CTA after successfully joining a group to play, when the core value proposition is achieved. This is from the community section.

User will be redirected to the refer page.

Referral Banner Placement

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Referral Banner Placement

Frame 27 (2).png

Introduce Variable reward - There have been numerous experiments in the world of psychology that tells us that humans are more likely to do a repetitive task which has variable rewards, else they get used to the usual reward and don't find it interesting enough. That's the same principle that scratch card features and social media algorithms apply.

Repeat Purchase & Transparency - By clearly communicating the use of Platform currency, we -

win customer's trust
ensure repeat purchase - user would have to book with Hudle to consume their hard earned platform currency.

Easy Tracking & Reminders - By clearly communicating the rewards and status earned on each referral, we

encourage the user to keep referring more people
ensure customer reminds his friends/family to use Hudle

Group 14.png

Wallet Amount on Home Screen

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Wallet Amount on Home Screen

Platform Currency Usage - Every time the customer opens the app, they are reminded about the stars that they have accumulated and it instills a sense of urgency in them in order to consume the expiring stars.

In conclusion, while Hudle maintains its focus on refining organic search funnels—the primary driver of acquisition—it can further solidify its market leadership in sports/fitness venue bookings through strategic investments in Paid Ads and a robust Referral Programme.