Right values, right mindset, and hunger for knowledge are key to growth, says Trivikraman Thampy of Games24x7

Having people with the right values, the right mindset, and the hunger for knowledge is important while building a unicorn in the gaming business, said Trivikraman Thampy, Co-founder and Co-CEO of gaming startup Games24x7.

"I think we got very fortunate [that] we were able to identify certain people who had the right skill set," said Thampy, in a conversation with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma at TechSparks Mumbai.

While skills can be built over time, right values and right mindset are much more important, he said, citing the example of Saroj Panigrahi, who started out at Games24x7 as an entry-level engineer. Panigrahi is currently the chief operating officer at the Malabar Investments-backed startup.

Growth is also driven by knowledge, and this happens when you ask 'why', noted Thampy.

"You see a feature perform very well, user revenues increase [or] retention improve ... This [must be] always followed by a 'why' ... Why did this happen?"

Being hungry for knowledge, not being strongly opinionated, and being willing to throw aside the strongest-held beliefs in front of data are some of the traits that the company has looked for in people, emphasised Thampy.

Games24x7's offerings include gaming platforms such as RummyCircle and My11Circle. The company claims it has more than 100 million users and over 5.5 billion games have been played on its platforms till date. It last raised a funding of $75 million in March 2022.