Our product “makes practice fun”

-AbhijeetVijayakar, Brainnook.com

As a kid I always wanted to play while learning but that time such type of options were not available, but today children’s are quite lucky to have entrepreneur like Abhijeet Vijayakar who founded www.brainnook.com ,India’s first online, educational virtual world.

Brainnook.com not only allows children to play games in a virtual world setting, but also allows parents and teachers the ability to see their performance relative to other students. It “makes practice fun” for children through syllabus-based games in an online virtual world setting, and keeps parents and teachers informed about their progress through SMS and email reports, and online control panels.

In an exclusive interview Abhijeet told Webneetch.com about his upcoming product Brainnook.com and how it will make children more active and intelligent and that to by just playing games.

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Founder detail:

Name: Abhijeet Vijayakar

Age: 33

Qualification:

M.S. Computer Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

B.E. Computer Science, VJTI, Mumbai University, Mumbai

Entrepreneurship coursework at Stanford University, California, USA

Work experience :

• Lead Engineer and Technical Director at Electronic Arts on the Sims series of games. More than 100 million copies of this game series have been sold worldwide. Location: San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley), California
• Graphics Engineer at Beatware Inc, a Web animation startup acquired in 2004. Location: San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley), California.

Your strength area:

• Product execution
• Product vision
• Team leadership, goal setting and achieving deadlines

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Website Detail:

Website Name: http://www.brainnook.com

The tag line or punch line of the site: BrainNook is India’s first online, educational virtual world. Our motto is “Practice made fun.”

When did you launch your business:April 2009

Short information about the business :

Nunook Interactive designs, develops, markets and publishes high-quality gaming experiences for children, teenagers and adults. We are currently developing BrainNook.com - India’s first online, educational virtual world. Our product allows children to play online educational games in a virtual world setting, and simultaneously keeps parents and teachers informed about their performance through SMS and email reports.

We also operate an entertainment-focused casual gaming portal for Indian audiences worldwide, Nunook Casual.

We believe deeply in the potential of games to provide enriching interactive experiences to audiences in India and across the world.

Target audience: Children in the age group 8-13 years, in India and across the world. Our product is available in two versions:

1. A subscription-based online version for use from home
2. A version to be installed in school computer labs

Monthly visits (page views, if any) on website. Our website has not gone live yet since we are developing the product.

Future/Expansion plans: Expand BrainNook into a dominant international product in the online edutainment category.

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Company Detail:

Company’s Name: Nunook Interactive Pvt Ltd

How much did you invest to start this business: A few lakhs so far.

Source of funding: Personal funds.

Number of employees: Less than 10.

Number of branches: 2

Phone: 99620-12357.

Office Address:

• Registered Office: Mumbai, India
• Development Centre: Chennai, India

Email ID: abhi@nunook.com

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Interview(Q & A Round):

Q: How did you start your business? What made you to think to enter into a business?

After working in the US for several years, I wanted to use my skills and experience to create a product company in India. I believe that the high value that Indian families place on education can be combined with their desire for high-quality entertainment, to produce a successful product that is both engaging for children and educationally relevant for their parents.

Q: Tell us in detail about your business, your idea and how it can benefit others?

BrainNook is India’s first online educational virtual world. Our product not only allows children to play games in a virtual world setting, but also allows parents and teachers the ability to see their performance relative to other students. We believe the transparency and control that we offer parents and teachers, combined with the engaging nature of our online virtual world, is a first in the Indian or global marketplace.

Benefits: Our product “makes practice fun” for children through syllabus-based games in an online virtual world setting, and keeps parents and teachers informed about their progress through SMS and email reports, and online control panels. We believe this is a “win-win” situation for both children and parents/teachers.

Q: What are the important things which differentiate your business from other? What is your USP?

We believe the transparency and control that we offer parents and teachers through reports and control panels, combined with the engaging nature of our online virtual world for children, is a first in the Indian or global marketplace. Our product is designed for use in networked computer labs in schools, as well as for home access.

Q: What is your revenue or business model?

• Subscription sales to parents of our online product for use from home
• In-school installations of our school-targeted product

Q: What are your expansion plans and where do you see your business 5 years down the line?

We plan to expand rapidly within and outside India. We have specific targets in terms of revenue and number of customers for the next few years. That information is not public at this time.

Q: What were the biggest challenge(s) you faced in your journey as entrepreneur till now?

Out biggest challenge has been finding people with the right attitude and talent to work at our company. Creating a software product of the complexity of BrainNook takes a large amount of creativity and independent thinking. Our company philosophy emphasizes lack of hierarchy, open criticism of ideas, and involvement of all employees in all aspects of the product. We have been lucky to find some outstanding people after a lot of interviewing.

Q: What is the biggest mistake you made as an amateur entrepreneur?

I am still making mistakes as I go. My biggest mistake so far has been to be over-optimistic about what is achievable with limited resources. I’ve realized that it’s better to create a small, high-quality product rather than a large, poorly-implemented product.

Q: What you want to say to the new entrepreneurs or the one who wants to start his/her own business?

Get out of the “salary mode of thinking” as soon as possible. In a typical job, if you do your work reasonably well, you get paid at the end of the day irrespective of whether your company is doing well or not. As an entrepreneur, your individual performance is irrelevant if the business is floundering. You are accountable for the results of the overall company in a way that you may not be used to.

Q: Who is your business idol and why?

Most successful business people are worth reading interviews with. Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky write very readable and thought-provoking articles on technology and business. I’m currently reading the book “Founders at Work”, which has interviews with several technology entrepreneurs, mostly from Silicon Valley. I recommend this book as a way to get a close look at the early stages of many successful companies.

Q: What’s your ultimate business and life goal?

I am currently 100% focused on making this company as successful as it can be. Once that is done, I may have time to think of longer term goals.

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