Priyanka is the CEO of Traveller Kids, an edutainment startup building a global brand of games for kids. Over the last 2 years, she has built over 30 games that are selling across stores and in schools across the country.
Q Tell us more about yourself.
I have been born and brought up in different cities and did my schooling from various schools in India and abroad, followed by my MBA in marketing from Pune. I was 24 when I quit my job in digital advertising and wanted to do something on my own. Few months later my co-founder and I came up with the idea of Traveller Kids.
I am not married yet and have had no interaction with kids for the longest, so when I started Traveller Kids it was difficult for me to identify a 3 year old or a 6 year old. However after spending so much time testing games with children, selling to their parents and teachers, I have learnt a lot about them. It's a whole new world - and there's so much to offer to children around us. After looking at the market, I have realized our kids deserve better exposure to good quality products.
Q What is Traveller Kids about?
Traveller Kids makes high quality fun educational games that can be used by teachers in schools as teaching aids or by kids at home. We also have a subscription service wherein a child receives a Country Activity Box to learn about a new country every month. Most of our games so far teach geography, travelling and English. We're now designing more games on Maths, Science and other topics. We plan to venture into global toys market next year.
Q What was your inspiration for starting up?
Kids in India don't get to travel much, so we decided to make them learn about different countries and travelling through a subscription of Country Activity Boxes which included activities, books and games. Turns out that our Indian market isn't very open to subscriptions. While selling subscriptions we identified another problem - lack of good quality, well designed educational games at affordable prices in India.The same old games that we played as kids are the ones stacked in shelves today as well. That's when we decided to design fun educational games for kids to be used at home or to be used by teachers to engage kids in schools. Teachers are always looking for new ways to teach kids and to keep them excited. That's where we fit in - our games are designed to make classrooms more fun.
Q Message to all SHEROES out there.
You have to be really patient - it takes time for things to shape up. Dreaming big helps, but take one step at a time to ensure each job is done really well. There are NO shortcuts.