Flintobox is an India-based company that produces educational activity boxes for children. Based on a theme, the company makes resources for Early Child Development on a monthly basis. The company follows a subscription operational model and delivers the boxes straight to a child’s doorstep.
History
Flintobox was founded by Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijaybabu Gandhi, and Shreenidhi Srirangam. As young parents, they realised the growing trend of TV addiction in children and the urgent requirement for activities to get their children engaged with. The idea of Flintobox was then born. After a few test runs, they invested their savings of close to Rs. 10 lakh to establish the businessin September 2013. In October 2014, they raised USD 300,000 from leading angels GSF Global, Globevestor, AECAL, and Mauj Mobile. Mauj Mobile already owns three app platforms, namely, AppyStore, Gamesbond and Mobango. The investment primarily went into scaling marketing, operation, and product development capabilities. The company began operations with designing products for 4-8 year olds and is currently widening the target to 2-12 year olds. The name Flintobox originates from flint, a sedimentary rock, which can generate sparks when struck against steel.
Membership
Flintobox offers three subscription plans, which customers can upgrade or cancel at any point of time. There are 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month subscriptions available. The company looks at teaching children several concepts over the period of their subscription. Currently, Flintobox has more than 5 lakh subscribers. Subscribers of Flintobox also receive a digital feed of parenting tips and weekly activity ideas to do with children through the Flintobox App.
Product
Flintobox started off in 2013 with products for 4-8 year olds. Each box contains 3-4 play based activities that bring about overall development of the child. It is educational and is designed by child development experts to make learning more engaging and healthy for kids. Each month has a new theme based on which all the activities are designed. Flintobox has a tie-up with International Institute of Information Technology in Hyderabad to design developmental games that can help with a child's motor skills, creative thought process, and overall psychological development. Flintobox targets at getting four main activities inside every box that makes a child create, explore, play, read, and sometimes a bonus activity is included. In December 2015, Flintobox announced that it was expanding its product line to include products for children between the ages of 2-3 and 3-4. The new products have 7-9 activities inside each box. The boxes have toys themed around topics like wildlife, vegetables, colouring, outer space, numbers, and others - all aimed at 12 development needs in children. At present, Flintoboxes are shipped across India. The concepts are ideated and designed in-house, but manufacturing is generally done by suppliers. Bengaluru and Chennai contribute to over 30 percent of Flintobox's revenue. End of 2016, Flintobox began producing activity kits for 8-12 year olds that deals with everyday science concepts.
Promotion
Flintobox operates on a complete ecommerce model. There are no offline stores. Orders and purchases are made through the company's website and app.