Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches But, Mom, I’m not playing games, I’m saving up to start a company
Published September 29th, 2007 in Daily Post
Santa Clara-based Playspan has raised venture funding even thought its founder, Arjun Mehta, is in the 6th grade. That’s right, the SIXTH grade! While you have been watching beer bubble in your garage, Arun has been starting a company.
PlaySpan works with games publishers to integrate eCommerce functionality so that they can sell merchandise as well as provide financial rewards for game play. It has also built community features. The company claims to have won 7 licensing deals with large game publishers in the MMOG category.
PlaySpan started in Arjun’s garage San Jose in 2006. Seed funding came from Arjun’s game challenge winnings at the 5th grade at Challenger School in San Jose. Today Arjun’s company announced that it has raised $6.5M in Series A funding led by Easton Capital land was joined by Menlo Ventures, STIC International out of South Korea and Novel TMT Ventures in Hong Kong. From here: Photo from TechCrunch.
The young man’s web site is here:
Check it out. Hank
Makes me have nightmares about Bitpass and VC Group Think. Mico-payment schemes have raised over $60M in the past seven years, not one of the companies has ever turned a profit, “the good idea that just wont die.”
I think its amazing that a 6th grader has thought up this company, but I do not understand how he is going to turn a profit. I tried to look at the website, but the only thing that loaded was the playspan logo, so I’m not sure if it was just a computer problem. Kudos to Arjun for starting this business!
Well if this 6TH GRADER has raised 6.5 MILLION DOLLARS, he must have some killer business idea.
I can see how he can a profit out of it, enabling gaming publishers to easily sell merchandise (and make profit) would seem very attractive to those publishers and Arjun will probably get a small commission or something
It sounds like the facebook of the gaming world. playspan has a really good business idea; it’ll work, provided the founder doesn’t hit puberty and get interested in other things. lol
The industry of selling items from multiplayer games is a huge industry that has a horrible dark side. The items that they are selling are earned through game play and will make the purchaser’s character better. At first you may think this is ridiculous, but people with extra money will fork up 50 cents for something that would have taken them 5 hours to earn.
One of my old teachers played these games and bought and sold these items. they acted as both a hobby and second job. One year, he made 17,500 dollars, 600 in one day. PlaySpan supports this kind of buy and selling. this is a real market place.
The Dark side of this is something called farmers. Farmers are under paid sweatshop workers (usually from china) that play these games and get items. These shops have all the Characteristics of a sweatshop. They are chained to the computer and work long hours in horrible conditions. This is extremely profitable. The workers live in places just as bad as the Walmart workers.
This kid makes me feel bad about myself. He is too smart for his own good and I wish I had his genes. I would love to meet this kid and hear what he has to say. Im sure his parents are super proud of their little millionaire
Wow, I wonder what I was thinking about in the 5/6th grade. I’m pretty sure it had very little to do with entreprenuership or making millions of dollars for that matter. Great Idea although I’m skeptical as to how the company will be profitable as well. Maybe it will though, its hard to say, but that’s the risk of the business. Everything’s a gamble especially when a kid is behind it.