Kidosphere, India's first Mobile Apps Site for Preschoolers, Launches today

We at YourStory.in caught up with Brij Singh, founder of Kidosphere, a publisher of iOS(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and Android apps for preschool stage kids, on the occasion of their launch.One of the apps listed on Kidosphere, Hindi Alphabets – Consonants, is among the Top 10 Apps at TechSparks 2011 App4India.

Brij, how did Kidosphere happen? Walk us through this journey.

We have been doing apps for kids for some time now. Which later resulted in us working with children book publishers such as Pratham, Tulika, Karadi Tales and more. Kidosphere is an extension of that work. More and more parents and teachers were hinting that they would love to see a community site where they can explore apps dedicated to pre-schoolers. My two daughters and their friends did play a big part in shaping of this site's experience. Our goal is always to be able to wow kids while taking them through edutainment experience.

How many apps do you currently have under Kidosphere?

We have roughly 25 apps under Kidosphere banner right now. Some are available on App Store, few we are tweaking based on early inputs from parents and teachers.

That's the direction we are going in. Once volume hits a certain number and there is enough to categorize logically, we will be doing that. At the same time we are giving discounts to educational institutions (using App Store discount mechanism) and also giving free coupon codes to parents/teachers.

How do you plan to market the platform?

There is no direct marketing at this stage. Most of the marketing is done via word of mouth and that is working very well for us. Parents and teachers download our apps from App Store. Sometimes they reach out to us for more information and they use that information to share it in their own community.

Any tie-ups that would help you outreach to the target community?

We are talking to lot of preschool schools - both in US and in India. We will be increasing distribution through that channel.

Most apps on Kidosphere are currently for iOS, any plans of diversifying?

Absolutely, we have lot of apps queued up for Android. Android development is hard for two reasons - receiving payment is still difficult as Google Checkout is not supported in India, and Android is actually three development environment ( Smart phone, 7 inch and 10.1 inch). Windows Phone is also our major priority, but we are struggling with both metro design and are waiting for market to be ready before we put serious head count on that.

How big is the team at Kidosphere? Any plans of hiring?We have a young team of 11 designers and developers. Team is mostly based out of Koramangala, Bangalore. We are looking for folks excited about the preschool market. We are also talking to investors for seed stage funding to take this to the next level. Apps leveraging Indian content and languages is another big area we are focusing on.

Where is your market predominantly based out of?

Since distribution is primarily via App Store, most of the downloads are from US. Major markets are US, UK, China, Singapore and Malaysia. It's interesting to note that even Hindi apps are getting more downloads from Singapore compared to India.

Please check out http://www.kidosphere.com and make education fun for your kids!