Hashcube: Gaming goes social

Deepan Chakravarthy and Ramprasad Rajendran had their first stab at developing a computer game when they were in Class 12, developing a "bouncing balls" game for a computer science project. That was just some fun, they thought, as they went on to become engineers and land jobs in the information technology sector.

Main markets: Asia Pacific and Central American gamers Differentiators: Speed of game development, focus on puzzle and trivia gaming Customers: 100,000 active users a month, 1.5 million in total Business: Social gaming First order: Online Sudoku, which got 2,000 users

They got to thinking about fun and games again over the past few years. "We wanted to do what we loved," says Rajendran, 26. Their first attempt at building their own game---- an online version of the wildly successful Sudoku ---- was not very successful. It got just 2,000 users. The duo started thinking of getting into the social media market. At the same time, they entered the iAccelerator programme of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, meeting fellow startups, investors and advisors.

There, Hashcube focused on building applications or apps for social networking sites such as Facebook. "We got 2,000 users almost overnight," says Chakravarthy. In a little over two years, the firm's applications have aggregated 1.5 million users, with 100,000 added monthly. "Their potential to attract over a million users with almost no overhead was a key reason to include them in our program," says Pranay Gupta, Chief Executive of IIM-A's Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Chakravarthy is modest. "The social gaming market is cluttered and competitive," he says. "A company like Zynga (which developed the hugely popular Farmville application for Facebook) has nearly 100 million users."

Hashcube's mentors say applications are different from internet search, where there is Google and then everyone else. "There is plenty of headroom for more players in this market and Hashcube has shown that it can grow and break even quickly," says Freeman Murray, founder of Jaaga, which helps fledgling entrepreneurs.

Hashcube, whose only revenues come from advertising, plans to add streams such as virtual currency, and turn out a new title every three months to reach 10 million users soon.

Most of its users are from the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. "We are trying to localise our apps, which should open up new markets for us," says Chakravarthy.

Hashcube was set up with just Rs 5 lakh in funding and has been able to get by thanks to its frugal founders (neither takes a salary). In the long-term, the company will need funds to grow. "There's a difference between a fun hubby and a successful business," says Gupta.

-Rahul Sachitanand