The Story of Phrazzle Me!

Marcelo Montecinos , Canada

When the bulb went off in my head about this game, I knew I had a real winner on my hands. I couldn't wait to get it all together in order to have an end product. It was an extremely exciting period in my life and I am still excited about where it's going.

The idea of having a product teach a concept that would make people want to learn, and do so easily, has been driving me for years now. Getting past problems and obstacles and coming out of it with a better product, and the knowledge learned, has been very satisfying.

From having someone steal the original name and domain in order to try to sell it back to me later (which made me come up with a better name) to having too many orders (which made me look to outsource the making of it) has made me look at problems in a different light. I now enjoy having to come up with a solution to an obstacle.

I have always had good ideas but I never took one to completion as I am doing now. I saw a lot of my ideas done by others and become millionaires in the process. I took a lifelong experience and used it to invent a product that would help others not have to go through what I went through when landing in another country without knowing the language of that host country.

I like making a difference in people's lives. I gave up a successful career as a stockbroker to get away from the stress and in order to get up enthusiastically every morning. I am now doing something I love and truly enjoying my life. This invention has transformed my life for the better. I love innovating and will continue to do so until I die.

I can't wait to get this to licensing status and be able to start on some of my other ideas. I sometimes wake up at 3:30am with a completely innovative idea that I have to write down or else I can't get back to sleep.

I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1964. My whole family moved to Toronto, Canada in 1973. I didn't speak a word of English. At 9 years old, this could be a very shocking experience to go through. Children can be very cruel.

In ESL classes, SCRABBLE was used to teach words to the new students. I loved the game and so became an avid player and would take the dictionary home to learn new words in order to win the game since I have always been very competitive.

I learned English quickly. I studied and graduated in Finance. I became a stockbroker. In the year 2000, I started teaching English part-time to Japanese immigrants and students in Vancouver, Canada. I taught English in exchange for being taught Japanese.

I gave up being a stockbroker in 2001 and moved back to Chile where I became an English teacher. I noticed that English was much easier to learn since verbs in English only have 5 endings at most. Regular verbs only have 4: Not like the Latin-based languages that have 27.

These endings, in English, are modified by the auxiliary being used in the sentence:
To Be + ing
To Do and Modal Verbs + base form
To Have + past participle

These rules of the English language could also be implemented by way colours. This led to the idea that a game could be developed that would allow students to make phrases if words were given to them.

The options to the verb would be on the 4 different sides of the rectangular pieces (please see the picture to get a full visual explanation). The longer the phrase, the more points given.

On the standard version, there would only be two colours: Black and red. The harder-to-use words would be worth double, and they would be in red.

In the beginner’s version, the colour-coded method would be used with 4 colours. Colour-coded tips to make the rules of the language, and the game, easier. What a concept! Fun, beautiful and efficient!

I was really excited to have come up with a way to teach and learn English in a fun and creative way that would use feelings to encourage the learning process.

The idea of using sentiment as a driving force was very important: The game would take the form of a puzzle, like SCRABBLE, but would be forming sentences and questions, not words only. The student would lose his turn when the sentence was incorrect. This would make the student angry for missing a turn and curious as to the why.

The student would remember the answer and would make a correct sentence on the following turn. He would receive immediate recompense by way of points and that would make him very happy. The other students would pay attention in order not to make the same mistakes (fear): The learning process would be cumulative during the duration of the game and the lessons learned would stay since the player would use them over and over again to, hopefully, win the game.

The idea was good but which words to use? After reading the story of the inventor of SCRABBLE, I used the same method to choose the words for PHRAZZLE ME! : That was to pick up a book and start counting how many times a specific word was used for every 5 pages; how many times the word "for" was used in 5 pages, for example.

This led to a mathematical formula which was used to obtain the words that came to be what is now used in PHRAZZLE ME!

The game was then used many times in classrooms in order to perfect it. This process started in 2002 in Maria Elena, Chile.

Next came the difficult task of getting the Intellectual Rights. The U.S. Copyright office didn't want to, originally, give the rights because the rules of the game were the same rules as the rules of the language of English.

In 2004, after 6 months of insistence, I was given the rights. I was still very nervous, however, about the simplicity of someone being able to copy the game once the 800 words were given so I waited and saved until I had gathered enough money to launch it internationally via the WEB.The game went through many versions before ending up the way it is now.

The game was originally called PHRASE ME! but someone took the website so it had to be changed. The obvious, and better, name incorporated the words "phrase" and "puzzle" thereby giving the idea of the game all in one word: PHRAZZLE.

The website was launched in February of 2009 and has been getting more and more hits daily. The demand has been bigger than the supply so I was kept very busy making more by hand until China came to the rescue and now they are all made, professionally, there. The excitement of getting up every morning to see which country had bought a game overnight was incredible. I still get that same excitement today.

I am also very proud that no one helped me along the way. Even though I really wanted and needed it at points. I had to finance it alone. I had to learn quite a few things just by doing them: Big, unexpected charges at customs, having Gmail temporarily suspend my account for sending out too many marketing e-mails, how most investors don’t understand B2C companies and their structures, how China really needs to be pushed to give a quality product without mistakes, how marketing via Facebook and Google Ads is a waste of time and money, and , how to keep my head above water when my biggest cost is international shipping charges.

All in all, it has been a wonderful experience that gives me worries, challenges and many happy surprises on an ongoing basis.

The game has sold in 28 countries so far, has won 2 awards for innovation and has received the approval of the Ministry of Education of Nova Scotia, Canada (It had me jumping up and down for an hour).

I have no doubt of its future success and worldwide massification. Having a great idea is just the beginning...

Thanks for reading my story and please support me by buying one today.

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