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Update: This article is part of the April Fool's Day Prank by ChessBase India

What is wrong with ChessBase India?

Amruta Mokal, Co-founder and COO, ChessBase India

I write what I am about to write with great understanding that there is no other option left. This forum I felt is the best place to share my feelings with loyal fans of ChessBase India about what is happening with the company. I should be in the board room discussing this with with my fellow co-founder and CEO Sagar Shah, but the truth is Sagar is unavailable most of the times.

While my better half is busy chasing spiritual bliss, the burden of just about everything has fallen on my shoulders and that of fellow team members of ChessBase India. There are three solutions that I can see at this point:

1. Shut down the company

2. Look for an investor

3. Sell the company

But before I delve into these options, the natural question to ask is - how did we reach this place? What went wrong with ChessBase India? Wasn't it going super strong in January, just a couple of months ago, when we completed 7 years of existence? For years you would have heard Sagar talk about how ChessBase India is something that is infused with a lot of passion from not just him and me but all members of the company. But let me tell you, at the end of the day you need a strong bottom line to sustain a noble cause. It's good to be passionate, but when pure economics don't work out and when your expenses start to exceed your revenue, you know that your company is in trouble. Here are a few examples of how Sagar's strategies have led us into complete chaos.

Doctor Chess

Sagar has great teaching skills and there is no doubt that Doctor Chess is a wonderful concept. He sits down with a player, whom he calls a chess patient and asks him/her about what is going wrong in his/her play. He looks at their games, goes into their psychology and within 15 minutes he is able to come up with some very pertinent points that can help these chess players improve and break away from stagnancy. This is a perfect idea to monetize. But instead it is available for free. 

Free chess clubs and Rs.100 memberships

While most of the chess clubs in India charge an entry fee, the ChessBase India chess clubs are completely free. They are open for all. There was some glimmer of hope when we introduced memberships in Mumbai. Maybe some revenue for the company. Turns out, that the membership fee decided was Rs.100 per year. And guess what...?

The cost of making a card itself is Rs.100! All the perks like playing in tournaments, simuls etc. are essentially given for free.

Death Match

Brilliant show - 1000 people rivetted to their chairs. Each having a headphone to watch the match with commentary. A boxing style ring - absolute top notch production. The ChessBase India Originals Death Match took chess entertainment to the next level. The budget for doing this event was Rs.10 lakh when we began. When the event ended, we realized we had spent Rs.35 lakh. For days before the event we tried to find a sponsor. Without success. Yes, we sold tickets - Rs.499 x 1000 - roughly Rs.5 lakh, but that doesn't event cover 20% of our costs. The vision was to show that chess can be a spectator sport. And yes it was well spectated, online as well as in person. But once again it was passion over logic. Isn't it ironic that initiatives like Death Match, actually led to the death of the organization that was trying to organize them!

The YouTube conundrum

ChessBase India has one of the biggest chess YouTube channels in the woirld. The current subscriber count is 1.17 million. However, if you look at our most popular video...

...You will see that almost all of them were shot several years ago. The YouTube space is now oversaturated with chess content. There are creators like Gothamchess, Agadmator, Hikaru Nakamura, Botez sisters, Anna Cramling, Daniel Naroditsky and several others who are creating amazing chess content. People don't have enough time to delve into what ChessBase India is doing. Another issue is how YouTube has brutally changed its algorithm and has started focusing on short form content - they call it the shorts. All of a sudden our 7000+ long form content pieces are no longer being discovered by the people out there. And the monetization of shorts is not at all easy. Not to forget a lot of smaller channels simply take our content.

What was one of the solid avenues of revenue for ChessBase India is now quickly drying up.

Sale of ChessBase products

When we started ChessBase India the thing that helped us to remain bootstrapped (self-funded) was the fact that people would buy ChessBase softwares from us. We have the sole selling rights of ChessBase softwares in India and neighbouring countries. Naturally this was a good source of revenue. When we launched, piracy was quite rampant. But over the years people started seeing value in ChessBase softwares and started buying original products. This helped us to survive. However, since the pandemic, the number of people who want to play chess just for fun has grown. They prefer browser based solutions rather than actually downloading a software and using it. While it is true that almost all of the GMs and professional players use ChessBase for their preparation, the number is quite small as compared to the people who like to play chess casually.

YouTube memberships

YouTube memberships is a powerful avenue to make money. For a channel that does live streaming on a massive scale the memberships can be a major source of revenue. There were points where we had close to 600-800 members. This was a solid Rs.1.25-1.5 lakh per month. However, in our bid to boost Indian chess this membership money now goes to HelpChess to support other Indian chess players. It gives us immense pride that Indian chess is growing at a rapid pace and we have 81 GMs but when your bank balance is running dry, you would hope that some of it could be utilized for strengthening our company than just giving it away for Indian chess.

ChessRanga

ChessRanga began with a lofty aim - to make high quality chess education free for all. Let's imagine you know nothing about chess, you can go to ChessRanga website and you find the course that teaches you the basics of the game and you begin the journey. However, it is another project where we will add immense value to the world of chess, but absolutely nothing to our bottom line. We have spent now lakhs of rupees on trying to develop this platform from a tech perspective. We have a few content makers who are being paid for the work that they do to build the content. So, we are pumping in the funds, but there is absolutely no way to make any revenue.

There are many more points that I can write about but suffice it to say that things are not good. We are a team of 15 ambitious individuals and there are salaries to pay each month. There are servers to run, there is rent of the office to be paid, there are other miscellaneous expenses. That leaves us in a situation where we need to change something. 

Where do we go from here?

As things stand we either have the option to shut down the company, sell it off or look for an investor who is not keen on quick returns. Shutting down the company would be very painful, because we have worked really hard for the last 7 years. So the right thing to do would be to either sell the company to someone who cares about Indian chess or find an investor.

What are our options?

Although ChessBase India is making no profit as of now, there is a lot of potential in the company. A smarter management board would definitely be able to run the company better and make more returns. There might be someone who is interested in the things we have built and sees ways to make things work. As of now these are the options we can think of:

Chess.com

Vishy Anand

Arjun Erigaisi

NODWIN Gaming

Yuzvendra Chahal

Nikhil Kamat

Samay Raina

You?

If you are out there and have enjoyed the work done by ChessBase India and want to help us out of the current situation that we are in, please take a moment to fill this Google Form. We don't know that you are out there, but you might be the saviour that our company is looking for.

Conclusion

I am a big fighter and chess has taught me to never give up. However, when you health is at stake, you really don't see a way forward. The every day stress was getting a bit too much. And when we finished our accounts for the year 2022-23 I realized that it was high time to make this tough decision.

I hope for a peaceful and stressfree life ahead.

- Yours faithfully,

Amruta Mokal

Co-founder and COO, ChessBase India

Update: This article is part of the April Fool's Day Prank by ChessBase India