We have data to show that kids who play our games improve their math skills substantially. We have anecdotal data (that sounds so much more scientific than “email from players”! ) that tells us adults who play our games improve their math skills.
Seriously, if you are over 13 years old, when was the last time you thought about multiplying fractions? When you studied for the SAT?
Our next games expand your knowledge of math, social studies AND English vocabulary (even a little Spanish and Nauatl thrown in).
Who doesn’t want to be smarter?
Our problem is getting people to know about our games. I’ve tried presenting results of our work at international conferences (watch video here) and I’ve published results on my personal blog that gets over a million visits a year, showing students who played Fish Lake improved test scores by 30%.
How do we get players?
We have a couple thousand players, but nowhere near as many as we would like. We find them from Facebook, twitter, blogs like these – because that’s the kind of advertising we can afford as a start-up. In other words, it’s free.
We attend some conferences, and do some game demos, which are pretty effective in getting people to play our games, but it’s tough to get many events in because we’re a small company and all of us are doing two or three jobs. We tried ads on Google and Facebook, but those really didn’t pay off for us.
We even entered that contest American Express had to give an ad during the Super Bowl to one small company. (We didn’t win, and I know it is un-American to admit, but I didn’t even watch the Super Bowl. I know the team with the under-sized balls won. Interpret that however you like.)
We’re doing a podcast!
So, Maria and I will be doing a podcast. Each week will have 3 segments – work, life and random. We selected 30 minutes as the ideal time based on asking my daughter, Jennifer, who listens to more podcasts than anyone we know. (I meant to say, “We convened a small expert panel”.)
We’re very open to any ideas about marketing, podcasts or standing on a street corner in a sandwich board shouting,
“Try our games, they’re awesome!”
Scratch that last one. Maria has informed me that we don’t have the budget to pay her to stand on the street corner in a sandwich board. Her current fee for that is $1 million.
Podcast-land, here we come.
[If you have any suggestions for podcasts, marketing or any other user recruitment – holler in the comments below.]
I recommend you look into a website called libsyn for your podcast. I currently use for my podcast they are great and easy to use. I also love the fact that if you decide to stop using there service they will redirect your RSS feed to the new location.
Best,
Rony Roche
Thanks for the tip. I will check it out for sure.