Market Leader: a board game about building a startup
Organisation
Market Leader
Role
Founder
Duration
15 to 30 min
Focus
Game design
Entrepreneurship
Strategy
100 cards
Problem
Most young people never see how a startup actually grows. I wanted a game where every turn is a founder's decision.
My role
Creator. Designed the game and playtested it with younger students at a community centre and with college students in class.
Outcome
Adopted by Sinhgad College of Commerce, Mumbai, for its Entrepreneurship Club and Business Start-up Skills course
How I built it
The board is a single track through five stages: Idea, Validation, Early Traction, Scaling and Market Leader. Each stage has its own deck of 20 cards.
Cards are either events, which move you or change your tokens, or choices, where you pick between two paths. The recurring trade-off is speed against resources: advance now, or build up tokens for later.
Where it is now
Sinhgad College of Commerce in Mumbai acquired Market Leader for its Entrepreneurship Club and uses it in experiential learning for its Business Start-up Skills course. Its Principal, Dr. Ritika Hemdev, wrote that it was "not merely an academic project, but a thoughtfully developed product with significant potential as an experiential learning tool."
Build smart. Grow fast. Become the Market Leader.
What worked
Keeping it familiar. Snakes and Ladders mechanics mean anyone can play in minutes, while every ladder and snake is a real business event: a viral campaign, a new investor, a competitor's launch, rising costs.
// Other works
Have a look at my other work
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Since June 2025
A student-led startup making calcium easier and more appealing for children: a diskette with calcium, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2 and magnesium, in chocolate and vanilla.
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Raigad: a two-month calcium programme for 200 students
2 months
May to June 2026
A two-month nutrition intervention reaching about 200 students in Raigad, tackling calcium deficiency with daily CalShield and structured health assessments.
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Director
© Krishiv Gupta 2026