Until the age of 12, Addis Makonen grew up in Ethiopia, where he used to play “buglog” with his friends: a game in which a ball is attached to a pole with a string, and the goal of each participant is to kick the ball and make it complete a round. The opponent, standing on the other side, has to block the ball and return it to the other side. At the end of his military service, Addis went to Ethiopia and in the nearby neighborhood he saw children playing his childhood game, just as he played, and the experience gave him a nostalgic thrill.
Addis quickly realized that the nostalgic game could become technological and make Western children get up from their screens and do physical activity. The idea was to combine a physical game and an applicative-technological interface. And so, Addis built a unique model that is registered as a patent – the game is played physically but the score and the various data appear in the application. “Today Bogolog’s goal is to be in every home and educational institution in Israel and to turn the field into a new sport like all the known sports, combining innovative, competitive and action-packed technologies,” he explains.
At the beginning of his career, when he initiated the idea, Addis had difficulty finding financial assistance to promote the project. “All inquiries to raise capital for the development and promotion of the project were closed to me. To develop and promote the idea, initial capital is needed because the production, marketing and distribution expenses are high.
“The significant difficulty for an entrepreneur is at the beginning. The state, which waves the flag of entrepreneurship as an engine of growth, must financially support entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey. Especially entrepreneurs from the periphery. Many ideas evaporate because there is no initial aid for beginning entrepreneurs. The state is full of brilliant minds and must improve the entrepreneurial policy so that it brings support Beginning entrepreneurs”.
In the first phase Addis produced hundreds of units of the game and sold to private customers, schools and soccer teams. “It was a successful pilot, I realized that children love and spend hours playing the game. After the pilot, I participated in the program ‘The Sharks’ – the episode was broadcast in April 2022 and caused a crazy buzz around the game. The demand increased and people began to buy the game. On the day the episode aired, more than 30 thousand entered our website people to buy the Bogolog. I was very surprised.”
The buzz after the broadcast of the program also led to many inquiries from investors and marketers. “At the same time, we opened a site for pre-sale and many people bought the game in advance to get it first. Today, we closed a distribution agreement with sports and game marketing chains in Israel and around the world. The first inventory is making its way to Israel and will arrive next month, after that we will deliver the game to people who bought it in PRE SALE and it will be sold in physical and online stores.”
In conclusion, Addis says he shares his ambitions. “My vision as an entrepreneur is to turn Bogolog into a professional, innovative and unique sport adapted to today’s technological age. The goal is to create a generation of more active and healthier children with the help of our technology.”