Chennai:
Rohit Kuttappa was a budding bowler who played first division cricket in Chennai for over eight years. But a knee injury during six years ago led him to take up cycling as a part of the rehab programme which later sowed the seeds of an entrepreneur in him.
What started as a personal exercise became a group activity and later bloomed into a sports management company in 2009. “Initially, my brother, a college-mate and I used to cycle as a part of my fitness regime every weekend,“ recalls the 27 year-old who did his Master’s in economics from Loyola College in Chennai.
This attracted a lot of queries which later became a cycling group on Facebook called Chain Reaxion.
“But when the group of four grew to 150, we saw a business opportunity that could also activate people to take up cycling as a sport,“ reveals the first generation entrepreneur hail ing from a coffee planter family in Coorg.
“There was no motive to set up a structured business team and I had always wanted to do something with sports and when corporates as TI cycles approached us to host cycling events, we floated a fullfledged sports management firm,” adds the MD of CRX Sports Ventures.
Today, CRX hosts all major cycling events in the city including the 2013 Chennai Cycling event that saw about 4,700 people participating and even the 2012 International BMX tour of India that saw riders from across the globe joining.
Impelled by the success that came its way through the Internet and following queries from clients on helping them choose the right kind of bikes, CRX now has added two web portals to its portfolio — choosemybike.com and choosemybicycle.com.
“The idea is to promote a user-driven review portal which could also service corporates providing consumer insights,” says Rohit who completed his part-time MBA in marketing alongside.
Cricket and cycling apart, CRX is also focused on hockey and conducted the World’s largest hockey tournament in Coorg in 2012 that saw 220 local Kodava team taking part.
“It’s time to do something for our national game,” says Rohit who is now training for the first division league of Chennai Hockey Association.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Business/Tech / by K. Sreedevi, DC / May 07th, 2013
