Playing board games used to be a privilege that only the English-speaking enjoyed. Then MadRat introduced India’s first Hindi Board Game
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The founders of Madrat Games Pvt. Ltd came together around two years back. Their idea was simple: how about Scrabble that could be played in Hindi? Soon, they thought up Aksharit-a comprehensive Hindi Board Word game.
Aksharit is available in online and mobile versions. So far 20,000 units of the physical version of Aksharit have been sold, including a few lakh of digital versions of the game.
The three founders Rajat Dhariwal, Madhumita Haldar and Rajat’s brother Manujh Dhariwal started the venture with the initial investment of Rs25 lakh that they collected from family and friends.
The ‘Head Rat’, Rajat is a B. Tech in Computer Science from IIT Mumbai. He further studied MS. Computers and Electrical Engineering from the reputed Carnegie Mellon University.
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Rajat’s wife Madhumita Haldar also studied Computer Science and Engineering in IIT Mumbai. But her artistic heart drove her toward the animation industry, and she started her career at Rhythm and Hues, Mumbai. Still restless, she took up teaching as profession in the Rishi Valley School in Mumbai. Rajat and Madhumita both were teaching Science and Maths there till early 2010. The third brigadier of the group Manuj Dhariwal is a B. Des from IIT Guwahati. After his study, he worked as Interaction Designer at ITSME Srl, Milan, Italy. His rich and varied experience of healing various adult diseases like Senile Dementia through games proved beneficial to form MadRat.
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| Madhumita, Rajat and Manuj |
Aksharit is the brain child of Manuj who started working on designing a board game for Indian languages four years back. Along with his team, he studied the difference between English and various Indian languages and consulted several language experts, design experts and play- tested them with children and adults. Finally, in early 2010 the first Hindi Board Word Game, Aksharit was born.
Rajat points out that the greatest challenge for MadRat was the near-absence of a board-game culture in India. “There are hardly any indigenous board game design companies, so almost all the popular games in India are rip offs of Western games,” he says. “Having no set models to follow, we needed to do our learning from scratch. While this was exciting and challenging, the hesitation and the uncertainty of it all often got to our nerves.”
The MadRat team says it sailed through the initial hiccups with moral and monetary support from their families. Gautam Gandhi, Head-Business Development, Google India, also invested time in their project, and helped them network with the industry people. Saurabh Mehta, VP, Indavest Ventures also mentored them on business strategies and day-to-day operations.
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The MadRats were thrilled to land the Chattisgarh Government as their first client. The feedback from this first customer was so positive that they now have a presence in four governments and in several other large organizations. Governments use these games as language learning aids in their state run schools.
Rajat says MadRats have been direct selling their products to educational institutions and organisations since their inception. “We started by going to large organizations (with a progressive outlook & higher buying capacity) and decision influencers (not necessarily big buyers). Their feedback and pilot studies have given us a lot of credibility, spreading to others.”
The uniqueness of Aksharit has earned the team good dividends. Rajat’s advice to new aspirants in the field: the market is still in a nascent stage and not yet prepared to take on too many players. On a positive note, “The size of the market in Retail is around Rs200 crores. We are venturing in other unexplored markets where no concrete data is available, but it should be to the tune of another Rs500-800 crores.”
The MadRats also recently launched My Toy Factory, a unique space where children can make creative toys, break them to understand their working and take them home! It is one of the only retail space of its kind catering to the age group of 8-15 years. The team is planning to launch two more products in the coming months.
One of them is Concept Reinforcement Idea Board (CRIB) which is an e-learning tool with the potential to become the front-end of every computer aided learning program for Math and Science. Teeter-Totter is their next product in the pipe line. It has an action game that has players on the edge of their seats as the game pieces teeter totter on the edge of the board!
While board games are picking up in India, the MadRat team feels a shift is required at the mindset level. “Games, fun and play need to be seen as tremendous tools for boosting brainpower and family bonding. Their potential in corporate training and influencing behavioural changes is also great—we need to tap into it,” says Rajat.
We’re happy to let him have the last word.
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