Vishal Gondal is Founder and Director of India Games, India's first mobile gaming company. The company develops and publishes games for various devices (mobile, PC, console), platforms and flavors(Java, I-Mode, Brew, and Flash Lite). In Part I of our conversation Vishal talks about the early days of his company, the burn rate for running a start-up in India and the strategic acquisition by TOM, Macromedia and Cisco.

India Games was founded in 1999. The company went through various business models before finding success. Initially their business model was a services oriented company. They quickly changed their business model and and found success as a product company

In 2003 Vishal went to Marvel Comics and acquired the world wide mobile rights for Spiderman. They had to convince Marvel to acquire the rights of Spiderman. Their first break-through came with the release of Spider-man games. In three months they produced their Spider-man game and distributed in 62 countries in 16 languages. The game was a success.

The next few months saw India Games turn the corner and become a successful product company. After Spiderman's success India Games distributed and developed other Hollywood films like Buffy the Vampire, Star Wars, Oceans 12, Da Vinci Code and others. Besides content from Hollywood, they also use content from Bollywood movies, cricket and other areas.

Two years ago TOM, Macromedia (now Adobe) and Cisco acquired strategic stakes in India Games.

India Games has created its own Intellectual Property (IP) rights and today distributes its content to major telecom/mobile companies like Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, O2 and others.

India Games is located in Mumbai, India.

Vishal lives with his family in Mumbai. His wife Harpreet also works at India Games.

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