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By Mark Coker 05.19.07
TiECON 2007, the big technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., kicked off yesterday.
The buzz on the expo floor was about Silicon Valley gaming startup Elementeo and its precocious 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar. “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game which he believes will change the way kids learn chemistry.
The conference featured keynote presentations from the likes of Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures) and Tim OReilly (Web 2.0 thinker), but the young Samar better represented the theme of this years conference: The New Face of Entrepreneurship.
VentureBeat interviewed the diminutive executive at Elementeo’s TiECON booth. Like other charismatic Silicon Valley CEOs – think Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison or Marc Benioff – Mr. Samar exudes confidence, vision and a passion to change the world. He’s more articulate than many CEOs four times his age.
Click here to see VentureBeat’s video of Mr. Samar delivering his elevator pitch.
Samar argues that textbooks are boring and kids would rather spend their time battling enemies, blowing things up with bombs, and yes, even giving their opponents lead poisoning. So he created a fantasy role playing game that combines the rapturous teenage joys of competition and carnage with the exciting properties of the periodic table of chemical elements.
Here’s how the game works: You command an army of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts represented within a 66-card deck (the fire and brimstone card at left is for Sulfur, for example). Your opponent has his own deck with the same number of cards. Your goal is to battle your competitor and reduce his IQ down to zero. Pit your oxygen card against your opponent’s iron card, for example, and you learn that you create rust. Score one for oxygen. Kind of like rock-paper-scissors, but with chemicals, dice and 66 impressively illustrated cards featuring monster-themed caricatures of chemicals.
Samar would kick my butt in this game. At least I’d probably learn more about chemistry in an hour of game play than I learned in my high school chemistry class a couple decades ago.
Like all good Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Samar was taking orders at the show even though he won’t start shipping product until he either receives his first 2,500 orders, or he closes a decent round of funding, whichever comes first. As of Saturday, he had already booked 450 pre-orders.
Elementeo’s initial seed funding, which was used to design prototypes, came in the form of a $500 grant from the California Association for the Gifted.
Now Samar says that if he can get $100,000 in funding, it will help him achieve his goal of $1 million in first year revenues by the time he graduates eighth grade in June 2008 (Unlike most Silicon Valley companies, Mr. Samar’s fiscal year ends at the start of summer vacation).
So what happens once the company secures funding? Will Mr. Samar and his team follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who famously dropped out of school (in this case, Lawson Middle School in Cupertino) to pursue their ventures full time?
“We’ll still be in school, but we’ll be richer,” joked Mr. Samar’s 13-year-old team member Daniel Tan, his big smile exposing a mouthful of braces.
Samar’s sister, who at age 11 serves as the company’s vice president of sales, jokes that after they’re rich, they can hire someone to do their homework. “Just kidding,” she emphasizes.
The company is considering an online version of the game, as well as extending the brand to include games for biology, math, and other school subjects theyve identified that have boring textbooks.
TiECON 2007, attended by 3,800 people, concludes today (Saturday) at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Meg Whitman of eBay keynotes at 9:00am.
Mark Coker is a contributing writer for VentureBeat. He’s founder of Dovetail Public Relations, a Silicon Valley technology marketing firm. He has no clients among the companies mentioned in the story, nor among their competitors. More on Mark at http://www.linkedin.com/in/markcoker
[] [Hat tip to venturebeat for this interview] []
thats just terrific stuff :)
Agreed with Dave, Im bummed that I only came for my panel. Ill certainly take the meeting to hear the pitch!
[] am gobsmacked at how professional this 13 year old is! Anshul Samar has his sights firmly set on the big time and can deliver a pretty damn good pitch. []
Anshul is the son of my friend.
He is smoother than many older entrepreneurs in the way he communicates and carries himself. He has got a great future a head of him. This whole product is conceived and designed by him. The deck is really beautiful to look at and the game is very interesting. It is a quite an amazing effort from the 13 year old kid!
[] 13-year old CEO :) Check it out at http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/19/elementeos-13-year-old-ceo-highlight-of-tiecon/. Definitely check out the video, very []
[] article from slashdot.org, http://slashdot.org/articles/07/05/19/2327222.shtml which points to http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/19/elementeos-13-year-old-ceo-highlight-of-tiecon/#more-12504. Its about a 13-year old boy, or should I say CEO who dreams of making it big. Theres a []
Best of luck in your venture.
He speaks VERY well!
[] Venturebeat has a neat little story about Anshul Samar, 13, CEO of Elemnteo, presented a unique teaching concept. The idea is to teach Chemistry through a type of game kids already like, in this instance a strategy game. The idea in my opinion is rock solid. Theres no better way to learn then to have fun and no one understands the game concept better then the kids playing them. With the added ethusiasm Mr. Samal brings to the table it sounds like a winning combination to me. []
[] Neste link você pode ver um vídeo do menino sendo entrevistado (inglês). Dá pra ver que ele é bem articulado e ele pode até não conseguir realizar o sonho agora, mas ganhou muitos executivos em matérias de articulação e deixou tantos outros impressionados. []
how much of it is parents doing all the work and thinking behind the scenesI wonder. It is easy to make a game, who pushed them into venturesomeone has to know something, and it comes after you already worked for long time. i never heard of VentureBeat. Is this viral marketing of this place? Hoo hu
While the speaker is very engaging and the idea seems sensational there are several problems with this idea and its adoption.
Firstly, card games that teach chemistry (and other school subjects for that matter) already exist. There are several on sale in the US and one in the UK that Elementeo mirrors closely. (look at links at the bottom of the post)
While these card games are not as in depth as Elementeos might be, they certainly wont face the same resistance to adoption that Elementeo will surely face due to its gameplay structure. Despite having a steep learning curve to play (something that textbooks definitely dont have) the Elementeo game revolves around combat with terms such as armies. Remember the backlash and mass-banning of Pokemon throughout schools? Interestingly this occured not because of the content, but because of the violent gameplay, something wich Elementeo is counting on to differentiate its product from existing ones.
All in all, Anshul Samar has done an impressive amount of work that surpasses many other thirteen-year-olds. However, textbooks do teach, and it is up to the teacher to make it interesting.
This is sweet. I used to hate chemistry back in high school and college. Ill keep checking on this game to see what becomes of it. Heh, I just may buy a copy! =)
as a high school junior who took chem last year and how has many friends taking chem this year and struggling in it. I see a true market for this product. I would have liked to have had something like this when i was taking chem.
KFS-
Its good that there are other card games out there already for teaching. This validates their market to have at least come competition already which validates the idea.
I agree that the game theme elements could be tweaked just a little bit. Ive always been a fan of games where you try to get a high score as opposed to reducing your opponent to zero.
Now we just have to wait for one of them to learn a programming language
[] Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON []
This is ludicrous. One point I would make, is most kids do not like card gamesonly the some geeky fraction of them enjoy card games.
I tend to think those geeky ones would prolly rather learn real chemisty rather than a baby version of chemisty you would learn from a card game.
[] aquí que en la conferencia tecnológica Tiecon se presento la empresa de Anshul Samar que a sus solo 13 []
Imagine your teacher giving you a homework; 30 mins of Elementeo at home. Im sure a lot of kids would love that :) And parents will love playing with their kids instead of teaching them or helping them out understand their homeworks (boring).
Brian, theres plenty of people who play video games and computer games who are not geeks. Theres also plenty of people who play card games and board games who are not geeks. That sounds to me like your own preconceived notions of what kind of person someone is who plays games.
Im pretty sure most people learning chemistry would enjoy this a great deal. Obviously, I would not suggest this be used in replace of actual learning, but it would serve as a great introduction or supplement to classroom learning, IMV.
And in terms of the violent content or whatever, I personally think theres a lot worse card games kids can play. Pokemon, MTG - all those advocate spending enormous amounts of money (from a game perspective) to get the best cards and are about on the same par as drugs for a lot of people who play them and get addicted.
And in terms of violence, I guess no ones looked at TV, the movies, or video games lately. Or maybe we ought to ban chess from schools. Thats also strategy and defeating an opponent.
Good idea for a product!
smart kid - good luck (i just watched the video)
one thing i thought was .. what do his parents do and how its kinda cool they got him lined up to look at the world like that so young, that you can make things up that are creative and helpful and possibly profitable:) good for them
Yknow, those type card games were around when I was a kid, and I didnt know a single person who liked to play them and that was with the games considered cool amongst those circles at the time. The whole card game genre has a not-frickin-cool factor about it. Add in that its educational (mm, cmon, how many kids shout, YAY! for anything moderately educational?) and I think you just have: an adolescents wet dream, some over-enthused parents, and some investors suckered by a smooth talker. The cool kids will just cheat anyway, screw trying to learn :P The product is mediocre, but the kid appears to have some kind of future with his talky talky.
Philip, I didnt ask about the the mom, but I met his father - hes a vice president at Oracle who was previously involved as a founder of his own prior entrepreneurial venture.
Good initiative from a smart kid!
Only shows that entrepreneurs median age will keep decreasing, and people like these are certainly going to inspire more kids (& parents).
Of course, his real test of being a ceo will be taking decisions during stressful and ambiguous situations. Learning from mistakes made will now be part of his lifeadvice from experienced people is also going to help.
I wish him Good Luck!
CURIOUS, youre looking at the webpage http://venturebeat.com.
[] 13-year-old CEO? http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/19/elementeos-13-year-old-ceo-highlight-of-tiecon/ « előző | hirbehozo — 2007. 05. 20. []
hmmmmm, sounds kinda interesting, but how exactly can a 13 year old run a business? he isnt legal.
Am I the only one who would rather 13 year olds be learning math and science, physics, and chemistry, CS, or even artsy stuff if the individual is not technically inclined, rather than learning how to be a salesman, and how to boss people around.
[] mny tnks to - VB []
WOW
thats phenomenal; hes thirteen, a short seventh grader who has a good deal of chemistry knowledge and how to play business.
theres a name to look out for: Anshul Samar.
Thats fantastic. What a great idea to have kids interact with learning.
[] and a passion to change the world. He’s more articulate than many CEOs four times his age. [ Via Venture Beat ] [ Watch Video []
[] From Digg. Only in Silicon Valley? One of the bigger news items at this years TiECON 2007 tech conference in Santa Clara, CA was the CEO of gaming startup Elementeo. The news? Elementeos CEO, Anshul Samar, is only 13 years old. []
[link]www.lost.eu/4aeb2[/link]
Actually, I would much rather have my child coming up with new ideas to make, market, and learn to sell a product than learn the essentials of who killed who in the battle of 1812. At least the kid will never have a problem providing for himself and will probably be much better at budgeting than most 30 year olds are.
KIP,
If you are responding to my message you are quite stupid. Since when is who killed who in the battle of 1812 something you would learn in physics, calculus or chemistry class ?
damn you middle schoolers. at least you were able to use one of googlepages templates on your site. bravo!
You are right Brian, it isnt, but that wasnt the point of my message.
The point was - this kid is learning very valuable life skills that other people dont learn well into their 20s and 30s. I wish more emphasis was placed on such skills. There is always time to learn about physics. And how much of high school chemistry class do most people remember anyway?
I completely disagree with you..that CEO skills are more important than math, physics and chemistry.
The only reason CEO skills are important at all is because this country values those skills. But anyhow in terms of learning..actually there is always time to learn physics hahahahahahahahahah
Not true at all..in terms of learning abstract thought such as math, physics, heck even computer programming, If you do not learn it at a young age it is very unlikely you will be capable of having the ability to learn it later in life.
Not true at all..in terms of learning abstract thought such as math, physics, heck even computer programming, If you do not learn it at a young age it is very unlikely you will be capable of having the ability to learn it later in life.
That may be what you believe and function within but that has got to be the most myopic statement I have heard this weekend.
Great idea kid but as usual tangents are abound!
No way dude,
Im a fourth year engineering student and I know a lot of people in the curriculum that are learning it better than me (i started college right out of high school). Heck theres a guy in the analog electronics class that didnt even graduate high school and now hes 35 and doing great in one of the toughest classes of the curriculum.
I will agree that the mind does have a better chance to learn with youthful vigor, but it all comes down to how badly you want it, and how much perseverance your willing to have.
So i agree with part of you, but I wouldnt say that its very unlikely
Very impressive. Thats an incredible accomplishment for those students. The only thing is, they ripped the code from googlepages for their website.
True genius sees with the eyes of a child and thinks with the brain of a genii.
[] VentureBeat » Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON Amazing demonstation of innovation, business accumen and educational gaming products (tags: business communication education elearning entrepreneurship finance games inspiration vc startups) []
This game is great as a mnemonic aid. The problem lies in the fact that it will detract from the purpose of the aid. To learn to synthesize the knowledge. The goal becomes to win a the game through memorization. Its not making learning chemistry easier. Its making memorizing basic combinations simpler. No synthesis. Just reactive learning.
[] VentureBeats coverage at TiEcon 2007 Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. []
[] VentureBeat » Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON The buzz at TiECON 2007 was about Elementeo and its precocious 13-year-old founder and CEO Anshul Samar. “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game. (tags: geny) []
This is amazing!
IMHO, it is our mind-set that stops us from perceiving kids and accept what they can do. Kids ARE better salespeople and negotiators than many adults. If you dont agree, just try to remember the last time your little one wheedled a game out of you :)
Kids can be very persuasive, persistent and articualte when they want - and almost every kid I know can be that when it is something they really really want. Looks like Samar and his team is enjoying what they do - one can almost feel the glee in their eyes!
While I cannot deny the value of formal education, there is no doubt in my mind that being a manager, being a negotiator or some other adult role is also equally important to survival and success. That these kids are learning by doing these skills, rather than sitting around listening to other people who they have done it - is their way of learning. And I think thats pretty effective too.
Way to go, Kiddos!
-MC
[] Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game which he believes will change the way kids learn chemistry. (tags: chemistry education future) []
[] this kids amazing. Three kid corporate officers and one eleven-year-old marketing VP little sister. Must really help []
[] veterans. You should really watch this kid do his elevator pitch. But here are some quotes from the VentureBeat story: Samar argues that textbooks are boring and kids would rather spend their time battling enemies, []
[] VentureBeat » Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON When I was 13 the most I did was build a kick ass town in SimCity. Damn I suck. via /. (tags: chemistry business education children anshulsamar tiecon) []
[] For more info on what Anshul and his crack team of entrepreneurs are all about, see this Venture Beat interview. []
[] The heartwarming presence of 13-year-old Anshul Samar, CEO of Elementeo whose mission is to make something as banal as the periodic table of chemical elements, is making geeks heads turn at the Sta Clara technology conference TiECON 2007. Anshul and his team of kids have the wits, ambition, and the beginnings of (quite possibly) weasel-like behavior that will make you stop and gape in awe. Elementeo, his company, is about making school work as exciting as blowing up bombs and killing your enemies with lead poisoning. []
[] TiECON 2007 w Santa Clara w Kalifornii uwagę mediów, jak relacjonuje m.in. Slashdot i VentureBeat podbił trzynastoletni założyciel firmy Elementeo. Anshul Samar pragnie zmienić świat []
[] Anshul Samar es un niño de 13 años que diseñó un juego de química que usa tarjetas con elementos y compuestos, que tiene como objetivo enseñar a los estudiantes de forma divertida y emocionante. Anshul es ahora el CEO de su compañía Elementeo, y quiere posicionarse como el principal material didáctico en las escuelas secundarias. Cuando lanzó el sitio tuvo 400 ordenes de su producto en solo 90 minutos, de ahí que su objetivo principal es llegar a un millón de dólares antes de que acabe secundaria, es decir, en un año. Un consejo muy bueno del CEO: Create, Combat and Conquer. Video de la introducción del producto Video de la entrevista en TiECon En: Mercadotecnia, Internacional, Tecnología — May 21, 2007 []
[] what 13 year old CEO Anshul Samar confidently proclaimed at the Tiecon 2007 conference, he conceived a card game to learn the periodic table of elements.Mr Samar calls it injecting fun []
I remember Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and all other young stars who sacrificed their childhood for their careerhmmm..what happened? It backfired. I think this kid has a great future. But he should concentrate on his age and the age-environment instead of trying to be a 20 year old. He should give this business to his parents to run and enjoy his childhood before its too late. I kid you not, he will regret this if he continues this business.
Good Start! Even though the card games are existing , I hope that the concept Ansul had come up, is worth appriciation.
[] to deliver an elevator pitch like this on demand, youd have to back him to get it. Via VentureBeat. []
[] En svært energisk og driftig kar med klar idé om selskapets videre utvikling. Les reportasjen i VentureBeat og se Samars presentasjon i denne []
[] that for a lesson. As Im sitting here wondering what to do to lift my business, I found a post about Anshul Samar, a 13 year-old who is the CEO of Elementeo, a company in the business of, as he puts it, []
Did anyone else notice that Kim Jong-Il is on his Executive Team?!
I wonder if one of the kids featured in the article posted above under the name Ender if so, brilliant choice of a nickname. ;)
[] interviewed Anshul Samar which includes his elevator pitch in securing funding. It is without a doubt that this kid will be []
Thats awesome. America is the best country in the world for opportunity.
[] O seu CEO tem 13 anos. A sua irmã, de 11 anos, é a vice-presidente das Vendas. Os outros dois elementos da equipa também frequentam o Ensino Básico. O protótipo foi financiado com um subsídio de $ 500 de uma associação de prodígios. Eles procuram agora angariar um financiamento de $ 100 000 ou reunir 2500 encomendas, o que vier primeiro. Já conseguiram 450 pré-encomendas! «Samar argumenta que os livros de texto são aborrecidos e que os miúdos prefeririam ocupar o seu te» []
[] A large technology conference held in California over the weekend featured an unusually young CEO. []
Dunno why but I dont want this guy to loose his childhood for a game of more money and one-upmanship in the start up world. Childhood and Youth only comes once.
If my guess is right, his dad is Vipin Samar. Used to involved with security protocols at Oracle and few other companies. Unique idea. Good wishes for his success
Im picturing a brave new world in which there will be no books in our schools and no children, just products and salespeople. But I wonder if thats something we should be celebrating.
[] VentureBeat » Elementeo’s 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON What were you doing when you were 13 years old? I was still throwing rocks at my neighbor John Grinold. (tags: startup entrepreneurship) []
[] Heres a kid who has invented a cool chemistry card game Elemento and wants 100K in funding so he can make a million bucks before hes in high-school. Personally, I think his success lies more in the fact that at his pace, he could crash and burn three times over before hes even eligible for the draft. Therefore, I get the feeling hell be successful, if not this time around, the second, third, or fourth. []
[] at TiECON 2007, a big technology conference in Santa Clara, California. The article on VentureBeat is quite informative, and worth reading. I do have to wonder if his inclusion of his []
You go with it. You have learned much from this. Learn more. It took me 40 years to learn. Now I have two patents and a third on the way. Your ahead of the game.
[] Middle School, Cupertino, CA create a game of chemistry Elementeo. This is a video interview by VentureBeat with Anshul Samar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0iQhn5dYqE Will Anshul Samar follow in the []
[] sure if he is the youngest CEO out there but I think we found our newest YouTube star (thanks to VentureBeat for the []
Indians have a tendency to push kids to things that grown-ups are supposed to do, and burn them out in the process. There have been several young stars in India who did amazing things, but never lived up to expectation.
This bright kid should concentrate on his studies, and come up with something that would truly change when he would be matured enough to do that.
[] feel sad.. VentureBeat Elementeos 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON 13 years old boy is the CEO of his company. What have I done until now? __________________ []
[] Link zu weiteren Infos []
This is fantastic. I am working through a game to help people over 18 understand venture capital. I did not think of armies and reducing people to zero as that is not the VC way! It is great design and a fantastic pitch. I like the way he will not go into production without pre-orders of 2,500. Can we order on line?
I dont see this as the greatest idea ever. But I could easily see strategy computer games being morphed slowly into very educational games. Games like railroad tycoon or Civilization could easily inspire whole new groups of people to become interested in history. Games like spore could teach biology possibly.
interesting, but i doubt any angel will invest in a company run by a 13 year old.
[] to deliver an elevator pitch like this on demand, youd have to back him to get it. Via VentureBeat. []
as a homeschooling mom of a 13 &17 year old, I have to say this is fantastic. i wish you much success. you should market this to homeschoolers when you get it off the ground. This is just the kind of thing that alternative educators would be so interested in.
This is great. I have known him from elementry school and a yoga class as well as a young entrepreneurs class. And the way he explained it, this card game seems to be very educational. :)
[] chemistry fun for his cohorts at a recent Santa Clara (Calif.) entrepreneurship conference, reports http://venturebeat.com/2007/05/19/elementeos-13-year-old-ceo-highlight-of-tiecon/#more-12504. Even before the product is complete, he has 450 orders. Investment required: []
[] creation of a fantasy role playing board game that teaches chemistry. This is how his game works (from Venture Beat): You command an army of chemical elements, compounds and catalysts — represented within a 66-card []
[] Anshul Samar is the CEO of Elementeo, a startup company seeking to combine fun and learning. This article provides an overview the companys goals, video of Anshuls CEO speech, and a []
[] Samar is the CEO of Elementeo, a startup company seeking to combine fun and learning. This article provides an overview of the companys goals, video of Anshuls CEO speech, and a []
[] Samar is a 13-year old founder and CEO of Elementeo, a company operating on the field of education. Watch him deliver a very well articulated speech that should make any CEOs older than him []
[] great example is Anshul Samar, the 13-year old Founder and CEO of Elementeo on whom Venture Beat did a nice article []
This is a stunning accomplish for a 13 year, absolutely amazing. Imagine a world where we have many, many more of these teenagers around. The possibilities are endless
Seems like a very bright kid with a great future ahead of him especially if this is his own doing. I sure hope his parents arent secretly pushing this in the background. Its not like we need another example of overzealous Indian parents. I was appalled by the story of that 12 year old boy in India who was allowed by his parents (two doctors) to perform surgery just because the parents wanted him to be in the Guiness Book of World Records as the worlds youngest surgeon.
[] Read more. []
[] is the second company led by a middle-schooler of south Asian heritage. In May we wrote about 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar, who runs an educational gaming []
[] is the second company led by a middle-schooler of south Asian heritage. In May we wrote about 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar, who runs an educational gaming []