6 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN | FROM THE NEST Growing up in India, where the love of cricket runs high, Pratheek Palanethra ’16G developed a strong emotional connection to the sport. He eventually chose academics over the pursuit of a professional cricket career, but he always sought ways to combine his passions for both cricket and entrepreneurship. Enter freebowler, a startup he initially co-founded with a fellow student while pursuing his M.Eng. in technical entrepreneurship at Lehigh. The com- “As a part of our curriculum, as part of current events back then in the mid-’80s, we were introduced to Lee Iacocca, who single-handedly, as we all know, had revived Chrysler. And I was simply fascinated by what he did. It was a bit of a fanboy moment at that time.” pany developed a non-electric, portable ball thrower—the first of its kind—for individuals and teams to use for practices. Freebowler was born of necessity, Palanethra has said. While a student at Lehigh, he had recognized the need for a personalized bowling machine after racking up miles on his car to travel out of state for an hour of cricket practice. The experience was inconvenient, frustrating and expensive, he said. Shark Tank India In February, with business partner Vishwanath HK, Palanethra appeared on Shark Tank India to seek investors for the company, which has so far sold 1,000 products in about 15 countries. He and his partner were in the “tank” for over an hour, he said, though only a portion aired. “It was a great experience, but they grilled us to an extent that we didn’t expect,” said Palanethra, in a Zoom call from India. The experience paid off. Palanethra said one “shark” offered to invest $100,000 in the venture, which will allow freebowler to expand to additional international markets. He said the company saw a surge after the show aired, leading to other partnership and investment opportunities. —Mary Ellen Alu For the Love of Cricket Pratheek Palanethra pitches his bowling machine on Shark Tank India. ENTREPRENEURSHIP | ALUMNI ʼ16 Sanjay Shah ’89 MBA Founder, CEO & Chief Architect at Vistex discusses the American Dream and how he ended up at Lehigh, revealed below. PODCAST | ALUMNI ʼ89 ATHLETICS Tradition, Legacy and Winning The Lehigh football program took what it hopes is a step toward getting back to its winning ways by introducing Kevin Cahill as the 30th head football coach in school history. Cahill comes to Lehigh from Yale University, where he spent the past 10 seasons and was a member of the coaching staff for three Ivy League championships. During the interview process, Cahill said he was repeatedly asked, “Why Lehigh?” and he gave three reasons: tradition, legacy and winning. “You can build a program on those three things, and we’ll be leaning on those over and over and over again in developing this program to be winners,” Cahill said at a press conference inside the Cundey Varsity House.—Stephen Gross SCAN CODE TO HEAR THE FULL PODCAST FROM SANJAY SHAH ’89 MBA. MOHIT DAMANI / CHRISTA NEU
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