Team DesIn GDC
IIT Madras
Team DesIN from IIT, Hyderabad aims to make toys. The scenario of the Indian toy industry is as follows: minuscule global presence, rising exports, government initiatives to support the industry. The Indian market is set to become the global toy hub by 2030 and the market is hugely unorganized. The team thought they would make use of this scenario to make innovative educational toys with 3M glass bubbles mixed with ABS. The team wanted to set this idea into motion and joined GDC. That’s when they realized that they were progressing at a very slow phase making shallow assumptions. Four weeks into the I-NCUBATE program, all of their initial assumptions and value propositions got invalidated.
When they were about to lose hope, they joined hands with a new mentor. This time, the team started once again with clear business ideas figuring out a niche, studying the competitors and listing out the pros and cons. In this process, the team found a niche of Indian toys that teach culture and heritage.
The team focused on building toys that provided more value to the parents and the kids. The team thoroughly studied their competitors, their offerings, their customer segments, and so on in order to stand out from the competition.
After doing some groundwork, the team believed that their customers would be the first and second generation of Indian diaspora parents with kids 8 and above. The team plans to
validate their hypothesis and then expand their reach to Indian residents as well.
