The two started the company from the basement of their home in Virginia, with a product base that initially consisted of four games invented by a family friend William Keister (Spin-out, The Cat, The Horse and Hexadecimal Puzzle).
[1] ThinkFun was founded in 1985 in the basement of husband and wife team Bill Ritchie and Andrea Barthello, with the mission "To translate the brilliant ideas of the craziest mathematicians, engineers and inventors into simple toys that can be appreciated by boys and girls around the world.
ThinkFun has focused much of their attention on early learning products geared towards the education of young children with games such as Zingo, What's Gnu, Snack Attack, and S'Match!
ThinkFun was one of the first toy companies to move into the app market, and versions of its Rush Hour, Solitaire Chess, and Chocolate Fix games were launched on the iPhone, iPod touch, and Android.
The company partnered with the Bunge Cognitive Control and Development Lab at UC Berkeley, who have used brain imaging to measure the effects of gameplay on reasoning ability.