In this episode, featured not-expert is Utpal Nadiger. Utpal is a co-founder at Digger, but perhaps more notably, a life-long cricket fanatic. He has played semi-professionally in India and continues to play club cricket in the UK as of May 2024, and has also co-founded The Cricket Revolution, which is a product for cricketers to leverage to get better at the sport.
One striking theme underlines Utpal’s remarkable life-journey thus far - his belief that when faced with making an important life-decision, the outcome that guarantees the most fun is the best option to pick. We discuss:
What it takes to make it as a professional cricketer (generalizable to making it at a pro-level of any sport out there)
Applying for and getting accepted for a Masters of Sport-Biomechanics at one of the top universities in the world in that field - Loughborough University, UK
Living, conducting research and playing club cricket in the UK
Applying for Founders’ Associates positions and what that entails
Spearheading growth of a tech start-up company as its co-founder
Using a simple “optimizing for most fun” at each decision level in life to get best results
In keeping with our theme of learning from someone just two steps ahead instead of an expert. I’d like to emphasize that it is not lost on me that I’m making most generalizations that are broad at their best and ill-advised at their worst. Having said that, my goal is merely to highlight that there is a possibility that answers to seemingly infinite philosophical questions such as “how to make life-changing decision accurately” can in fact be as simple as just doing the thing that’s most fun.
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Resources:
3. Ready Set Do instagram
Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro and background
(00:03:09) Exposure to cricket as a kid - the obsession begins
(00:06:14) What it takes to go pro at cricket (or any sport)
(00:10:01) Balancing an engineering degree with cricket
(00:12:19) Getting certified as a stand-in conditioning specialist + COVID
(00:16:01) Ideating and building The Cricket Revolution
(00:18:47) What problems did The Cricket Revolution solve?
(00:21:40) Masters in Sport Biomechanics at Loughborough
(00:27:26) How to get accepted for a Masters in Sport Biomechanics
(00:29:23) Experience of living, conducting research and playing club cricket in the UK
(00:35:52) Path after graduation - STOA MBA bootcamp
(00:41:12) Competing against elite UK grads for employment in the Startup space
(00:42:59) Getting hired as a Founders’ Associate
(00:47:48) Accepting position of co-founder at Digger
(00:50:04) Exposure to the Bay Area and the US
(00:52:02) Looking back and forward
(00:55:52) Outro and gratitude