Colombo Chargers: You Don’t Need to Know Everything to Begin
This week on Raise The Bar, we bring you yet another inspiring conversation with two of the youngest franchise owners of the Sri Lanka Tennis Premier League (SLTPL), Avishka Silva and Ammar Inam, co-founders of Colombo Chargers. What makes this conversation particularly interesting to me is not simply their age or the fact that they chose to invest in a sporting franchise in their early twenties. It is what their story tells us about starting, making decisions and recognising an opportunity even when you don't have everything figured out.
We live in a world of constant distraction. There is more information, more opinion and more access than ever before, yet sometimes that very abundance makes it harder to know which direction to take. We spend so much time searching for the perfect plan, waiting to feel ready or believing we need to have all the answers before we begin. My conversation with Avishka and Ammar reminded me that sometimes what matters far more is the environment we build around ourselves. The relationships we form. The people we choose to associate with. The values we share. The willingness to learn from people who know more than we do, and the drive to take on something unfamiliar and work towards making it better.
Their journey into the Sri Lanka Tennis Premier League did not begin with years of franchise ownership or an elaborate plan to enter the sporting industry. It grew through friendship, shared interests, the right relationships and, importantly, their belief that they could contribute to something that was still being built. There is something refreshing about that.
You don't always need a perfectly mapped out plan to start. Sometimes you need the right people around you, strong values, the curiosity to keep learning and enough resilience to take on the challenge in front of you. And perhaps that is one of the most important lessons from this conversation: you don't have to know everything before you begin. You need to know what you stand for, surround yourself with people who strengthen that direction, and be willing to learn as you go.
Starting Before They Felt Ready
When Avishka and Ammar stepped into the inaugural Sri Lanka Tennis Premier League, they knew they would be entering a space alongside franchise owners with considerably more experience, stronger corporate backing and established networks. They didn't see that as a reason not to enter. Ammar captured it simply during our conversation:
“I don't think there was ever a point in time where I felt completely ready for something.”
Had they waited until they felt completely ready, he acknowledged, they probably wouldn't be sitting across from me having this conversation today. The beginnings of Colombo Chargers were equally organic. Avishka had been following the development of the SLTPL and witnessing first-hand the determination of those behind it to keep moving despite the challenges. As his interest grew, he naturally began sharing what was happening with Ammar, a close friend since their teenage years.
For Ammar, the opportunity brought together three things that already mattered to them: friendship, entrepreneurship and sport. It wasn't necessarily tennis alone that attracted them. What caught their attention was the possibility of contributing to something at its inception and potentially helping shape where it could go.
Talent Was Never the Problem
One idea surfaced repeatedly throughout our conversation: Sri Lanka does not lack sporting talent. What Avishka and Ammar believe is missing is enough structure around that talent. Growing up around friends who played tennis, Ammar had seen talented players come through the sport. The question for him was what happened around that talent. Were there enough opportunities? Was there sufficient exposure? Could players see a pathway forward?
That thinking has influenced what they want Colombo Chargers to represent. Winning, naturally, matters. They own a sporting franchise, and competition is at its core. But their ambitions extend beyond the result of a tournament. They spoke about creating stronger player profiles, giving athletes greater visibility and helping them attract the attention of potential sponsors. For a sport to become commercially sustainable, the athletes themselves need opportunities to become visible.
Talent needs structure. Structure creates opportunity. Opportunity creates exposure. And exposure can begin opening doors. For Ammar, the five-year measure of success is therefore much bigger than a trophy cabinet. He wants to be able to look back and say Colombo Chargers helped young players develop, inspired more young Sri Lankans to take up tennis and contributed towards creating a clearer pathway for those who want to pursue the sport seriously.
Six Hours at the Auction Table
Perhaps one of the clearest demonstrations of how these two-approach unfamiliar territory came during the SLTPL player auction. It lasted approximately six hours. They were working within a limited budget, competing for players against more established franchise owners and making decisions in an environment neither had experienced before.
I was at the auction for part of the day, and something about the two of them stood out. They were remarkably calm. They weren't bidding too early. They weren't being drawn into unnecessarily high bids. From the outside, they appeared to know exactly when they wanted to move and when they were prepared to wait. But when I asked where that confidence came from, their answer wasn't that they believed they knew more than everyone else in the room. It was almost the opposite.
They entered knowing they didn't. “We didn't expect to know more than everyone else,” Ammar explained. “But we came into it knowing that we have something to contribute and we have a lot to learn.” That willingness to learn gave them confidence rather than taking it away.
Avishka was equally open about the learning curve. There were moments during the auction when the pressure of decision making narrowed his thinking. Looking back, he sees those moments as part of his growth. He also readily credits the more experienced people around them who offered guidance.
That, perhaps, says something important about confidence at a young age. Confidence doesn't have to mean walking into a room believing you know everything. Sometimes confidence is knowing that you don’t and being secure enough to learn from those who do.
Building a Team Within an Individual Sport
Their player selection also revealed another part of their philosophy. Tennis has traditionally been an individual sport, but franchise tennis changes that dynamic. Ability was obviously important, but Ammar was also thinking about how individual personalities would come together as a team. Discovering that four members of their eventual squad had previously trained together at the same academy gave them an existing connection to build upon. Their international player was selected with another consideration in mind: experience. As Pakistan's most capped Davis Cup player, they saw his value extending beyond what he could produce on court. They wanted their younger players to have access to his experience, particularly around mental preparation and navigating competitive tennis. It reflects a theme that kept appearing throughout our conversation: the value of the people around you.
Building Beyond the Tournament
Where the Colombo Chargers vision becomes more interesting is what they want to do when the tournament ends. They don't want the identity of the Chargers to exist only during competition. Their developing concept, the Chargers Collective, is intended to eventually create opportunities extending beyond the franchise tournament itself, including mentorship, partnerships and player development. Alongside it, they have begun creating what they call the Chargers Talent Development Circle. The premise is simple.
Avishka and Ammar recognise that they cannot personally provide every form of guidance a developing tennis player might need. Rather than pretending they can, they want to create a community of people who collectively might. If a young player needs advice about the direction of a tennis career, for example, the Chargers may not possess that expertise themselves. But someone within their wider community might. It is still early, and they are clear that proper structure and support will be necessary before these ideas can grow. Their longer-term ambition, however, is to eventually take opportunities beyond Colombo and reach players in different parts of Sri Lanka.
An Ecosystem Around the Athlete
The conversation inevitably led us to the wider changes happening around Sri Lankan tennis. The SLTPL arrives at a time when private sector involvement is also contributing towards physical infrastructure, including court reconstruction and improved floodlighting at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association. For Avishka, this is one of the most important parts of what is happening. A league can create excitement. A franchise can build a following. A tournament can attract attention. But if that attention contributes towards better infrastructure, greater player exposure, stronger development pathways and the ability to host more international competition, its impact can extend much further. That is the ecosystem they hope to see emerge. It will require more than Colombo Chargers. It will require collaboration between franchises, administrators, coaches, academies, corporate partners, athletes and those working at grassroots level. And perhaps that understanding is one of the more mature aspects of their approach.
They aren't positioning themselves as two young founders arriving with the solution to Sri Lankan tennis. They see themselves as two people willing to become part of building it.
Something Worth Building
At the end of our conversation, I asked what they wanted Colombo Chargers to have contributed five years from now. The answer returned to the players. Development. Opportunity. Exposure. A stronger pathway. More young people believing there is a future for them within the sport. There will, of course, be matches to win along the way. There will be business decisions, difficult auctions, sponsors to secure and mistakes from which to learn. But there is a bigger lesson in how their story has begun. Avishka and Ammar did not step into the Sri Lanka Tennis Premier League because they had everything figured out. They saw an opportunity. They surrounded themselves with people they trusted. They remained open to learning from people with greater experience. And they started. In a world where we can spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to find the perfect direction, perhaps there is something to learn from that. You don't always need the entire road mapped out. Sometimes you need the right people beside you, the right values guiding you, and the courage to take the first step. The clarity often comes while you're moving.
