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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
When brothers 12-year-old Shravan Kumaran and 10-year-old Sanjay Kumaran registered their own company in December 2011, little did they know that they would become the youngest entrepreneurs in the world. Nor did their parents.
"We wanted our own company to showcase our products. I have always been telling my father that I would like to start my own company. Then, we developed the game "Catch me, cop" and before submitting it at the App store, we started "Go Dimensions", says Sanjay.
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
Sanjay wanted the word 'Go' in the company. But Shravan "wanted to add some cool idea into "Go" and that was how he added "D to Go and made it God. Then, we called it Go Dimensions."
"After registering our company, somebody said we were the youngest entrepreneurs. Then, we googled and found that all the other entrepreneurs were more than 14 years! It was cool to be the youngest entrepreneurs in the world," the brothers say in unison.
Sanjay always wanted to be the CEO of the company, so, his elder brother made him one and he became the President! After registering the company, they celebrated with a cake and pizza!
But they informed friends only recently about the company. "We wanted to have more apps on our website before telling them so that they can enjoy all."
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
Initiation into computers
Shravan was initiated into the world of computers at the age of 7 when his father Kumaran bought him a PC.
"When I was working from home, Shravan used to stand behind me and watch me. That was when I bought a computer for him. Then I found that he was picking up everything very fast. "
Seeing his father make Power Point presentations, Shravan also started doing that at the age of 7!
"I started playing with it to see what all are there in it. I feel it is quite cool playing with it and programming."
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
Soon, Sanjay was also making Power Point presentations and by the time Shravan was in third standard, both of them were learning Q-Basic and Java from their father.
"Seeing their interest, I taught Shravan programming and watching that, Sanjay also picked up. Like all kids, they got interested in mobile phones as well. Soon, instead of playing games, they were building games. Then Android came and they started working on it," Kumaran spoke of how the kids started programming.
"Our father told us that we could do much more than programming like creating new things like games, applications, etc. When we got an Android SDK, we started creating test apps like the calculator, map and quiz apps," the brothers say.
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
By the time they got the Mac book and i-Phone, they were on their own experimenting and playing with it by learning from books.
"When we got an i-Phone, we thought of making apps in life style, games, convenience and education. These are the areas we enjoy the most. We must have made around 40-50 apps for the i-phone."
The brothers work in tandem. "Both of us get ideas on apps and then we discuss and proceed with it. We have only one Mac Book, so when I am studying, my brother works and when he is studying, I continue with what he has done. We have never had any problem understanding each other," Sanjay says.
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
Shravan says though he is a better coder, his younger brother is better than him in graphics.
When asked whether the boys miss growing up like other kids playing, Kumaran said, "They are not forced to do anything. They love doing this and that is why they are doing it. I only channelised their interest in computers to programming. Many kids spend their time on computer chatting and playing games which I never encouraged."
"No, we don't miss anything. We also play like other kids," the brothers shout.
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
The App Store of Go Dimensions
"Catch me, cop" was the first game they developed before starting the company Go Dimensions. "The inspiration was the most popular cops and robbers game played by all kids."
The brothers say this game was mainly downloaded in China and there were 2500 downloads in the first 2 weeks.
Catch me, cop was followed by "Alphabets Board," which they released in February, 2012. "It is for small kids to learn the alphabet. This was downloaded in China and the USA. We got very nice reviews."
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
The inspiration for the third app, Prayer Planet came when the kids wanted to pray when they were in a flight on the way to the US. "This is for praying to God when you are travelling. It has symbols of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. You select any symbol and it plays a religious song and you can also see images and then, you can pray."
The fourth one is, Colour Palette "which is the most popular along with Alphabet Board. We thought small kids can learn colours after learning the alphabet.
Altogether, they have had 10,000 downloads. "Downloads are free. We don't think it is nice to ask people to pay for the apps. We program and make apps not to make money but because we enjoy it."
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Meet the world's youngest entrepreneurs
Dreams
Sanjay and Shravan wish to build a good quality, affordable tablet. "Our tablet will be customised for all age groups. For 60 year and above, there will be books that interest them. For those who are interested in best sellers, it will be available. We would offer books that youngsters prefer as well. Also, we will have all subjects for students in all classes. If you click the chapter "Geography", you will get all the chapters there. Also, if you can't go to school one day, whatever is taught will be recorded in the cloud and the cloud will transmit the data to your tablet."
With Steve Jobs as their inspiration for innovative ideas and Bill Gates as inspiration for his business ideas and his work for charity, their dream is to make Go Dimensions a big company.
"We want to study at Oxford and Harvard and then build our company."