Cool kid alert: Teen entrepreneur Anshul Samar, age 14. This fiesty entrepreneurial spirit will be one of the key speakers at tomorrow’s Second Annual Teens in Tech Conference, sponsored by Sun, Microsoft, HP, and others.
Anshul is the founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire, Inc. He has created a fantasy role-playing chemistry board game, Elementeo: “Our aim is to combine fun, excitement, education, and chemistry, all in one grand concoction! We don’t want to create a fantasy wizard world or create a boring education textbook world, but combine the two where fun and learning come together without clashing!” [more]
MSN recently featured Anshul in “Whiz Kids: 10 Overachievers Under 21” (thanks to newstab posters garbanzobean and anmdavadi). How did he get started? In in his own words:
Entrepreneurship is cool, and so is chemistry! Both have lots of actions, reactions, explosions, experimentation, and most importantly, the joy and excitement of creating something new! Creating a company has been on my mind for a long time, but it was only in the 5th grade when the idea of a chemistry based card game struck me. I must have created and thrown away dozens of prototypes to get just the right concoction of education and fun. … Elementeo is a game where you create compounds, combat elements, and conquer chemistry… A game of battle, chemical reactions, and powerful scientists… And a game that kids, teenagers, college students, teachers, scientists, parents, and grandparents can all play and have fun.
The excitement Anshul has poured into his maiden entrepreneurial voyage (the game will be released this month!) is evident at his company’s homepage which is very much written in his voice … and in this video from Mark Coker of VentureBeat, taken at the 2007 TieCon conference in Silicon Valley.
Here’s to his motto of “Create, Combat, Conquer!”
Desi kids…spelling bees…perfect SAT scores…ivy league admits.
Wow! Loved the kid. Couple of points though – 1. With 100k financing he intends to generate 1 mil in revenues in one year. Great ROE? 2. From here and also quoted in the post – “Creating a company has been on my mind for a long time”. I feel so old now! 🙂
I hate him already.
=p
Sandhya: Minor correction. I am sometimes known as “Amdavadi” on NEWS tab at SM. Andavadi has a whole new meaning…. not that I have anything against eating eggs. As a matter of fact some folks I know actually could lay some eggs… Ha Ha 🙂 Let us revisit and see where this whiz kid is say, five years from now, shall we. The so-called child prodigy can easily get burnt-out in there late teens.
mad props to this kid, hopefully the next generation of desis won’t all be finance bootlickers
Also, check out the “other Indian” at number 5. Seems way more substantial to me.
“Also, check out the “other Indian” at number 5.”
Whether you’re talking about Garrett or Anshul, I think they’re both kids to be proud of; what they’re doing is way cool and we need more entreprenurial spirit from young people.
He had an idea for a chemistry based board game when he was in 5th grade!!!! Hell, I did not even know what chemistry was at that age, for that matter I did not know anything when I was 10. Suddenly I feel my life is useless and I have not achieved anything 🙁
So you know that post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all of society through some cybernetic miracle connects to and is run by one person with a highly advanced overlord brain and how that’s his/her sole reason for existing? Yeah…somehow I’m glad I kept my childhood intact.
Another Guju partaking in the entrepreneurial spirit.
RS: I am not sure Anshul Samar is Gujarati. You almost sound like you have an issue with so-called “Guju” folks?
Good to see another Jain peep in the house.
Anyone have the email address for Alchemist Empire, Inc.’s human resources department? I need to send them my resume.
It is such a visually appealing fun game. As a chemistry teacher, I would love to bring this game to my class and embed it with my regular instruction. Thank you for this post!!
13 · DesiInNJ said
Holla back Jain peep.
I love reading stories like this, no matter where he is from. I wrote a column some time ago, with 100 ‘learnings’ from a lifetime of starting companies. I would love to see his in 30 years. Oh, you can find my list here if anyone careshttp://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2008/02/12/100-attributes-of-successful-entrepreneurs-now-an-e-book/