São Paulo – When he created a videogame with educational games for children, some five years ago, business owner Marlon Souza, currently the CEO of startup Playmove, out of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, had no clue that he’d capture the interests of Arabs so fast. In the next few weeks, the first foreign sales deal is nearing closure for PlayTable, a digital desk with educational activities – and the first sale could be to Saudi Arabia.
Souza explained that Brazil’s economic scenario prompted the export plans to be moved ahead by one or two years. “Originally, we were planning to begin with Latin America; we even started getting our content translated into Spanish. Asia and other markets were to be explored only in 2018,” said the executive.
An invitation to Spielwarenmesse, a toy fair held in February in Nuremberg, Germany, sped up the steps that led to the foreign market. The event’s curators added the PlayTable to a shortlist of 30 most innovative products in the industry last year, thus giving Playmove the chance to show their electronic desk to prospective buyers from several countries.
They were impressed by the product Souza developed. According to him, “it’s sort of like a Playstation or Xbox with educational games for children 3 to 10.” A plastic desk-shaped structure underpins a touchscreen where the educational games are shown, covering subjects like languages, math, science and geography. Children are meant to play in groups of up to four.
“We have a team of educators to help develop the games. We look to develop cognitive processes, motor coordination and socialization,” says the creator, whose focus is on selling to government-run facilities such as parks, schools and libraries. “We also target hospitals and clinics. It’s even a good reinforcement for inpatient children. But we also sell to individuals,” he explains.
In 2014, Playmove began working on games development with third parties. Presently, it offers roughly 40 games, plus e-books available from its own e-shop, which curates the material and issues sales licenses. This way, product quality is ensured.
Once the company set its sights on foreign markets, it began getting the games translated. English and Spanish versions are available for many of them, and other languages are now in the plans. “Including Arabic,” says Souza. “Some Saudi executives came to us in Nuremberg and they liked our product. Talks are well underway and we might close the deal within a few weeks. We even opened an office in Dubai, UAE.”
Bilingual schools, which can use the English contents, should be early adopters. According to the CEO, the plan is to export the whole desk, which is made in Blumenau, where the company is based. Playmove’s partners include the commercial director Jean Gonçalves.
Playmove sold over 2,000 desks since PlayTable was created. It saw solid growth up until 2015, and then broke even last year. That made it turn to other countries, which should allow revenue to increase again in 2017, Souza believes.
Contact info
Playmove
Website: http://www.playmove.com.br/
Email: contato@playmove.com.br
Phone: + 55 47 3326-5116
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
