Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep189 – Jalal Shaik (Founder & CEO – GAMEFACE AI) on AI, persistence and M&A pitfalls June 27, 2024 rohitbhargava Podcast 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: [email protected]@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 https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep189_-_Jalal_Shaik.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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