Hi, Here are suggestions for improving participation as well as comments on the course in general. Just about everyone in the MET has a background in education or technology or has experience in instructional design. The consequence is that, as individuals, we have a lot to start with in most ETEC courses. In this course […]
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I found ETEC 522 quite challenging yet extremely helpful for my daily work. The course content and interactivities along with venture pitches and the experience shared by all, furthered my understanding of ventures in educational technology and gave me some really good “food for thought”. In addition to improvements around navigation and usability that have […]
Continue reading Course wrap up Posted in: Venture Forum
Elevator Pitch: Shakespeare in Minecraft Elevator Pitch from Chelsea Woods on Vimeo. Venture Pitch: Shakespeare in Minecraft Visit the website: http://shakespeareinminecraft.wordpress.com/ Chelsea Woods ETEC 522: Ventures in Learning Technology University of British Columbia Dr. David Vogt July 30th, 2012 Pain Point 3D virtual games are teaching our children to become engaged, collaborative, inspired individuals, […]
Continue reading Shakespeare in Minecraft: A Venture Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello Chelsea,
I think your venture presentation is very strong. As a prospective investor I feel that I would really need to be convinced to support a gaming venture. I am not very pro educational game, because most are time consuming to foster within the classroom or I feel they do not necessarily improve a student’s learning experience.
Your venture pitch is well laid out and you have covered every essential element. I find that the pain point and solution segments are particularly well elaborated. Also your biography is impressive and as an investor I feel that would be an important element. In retrospective, It makes me think that I could have further elaborated on this aspect in my own venture pitch.
The fact that you have already begun your website and identified the present lacks helps to determine what you are seeking, and what you need as an investment.
The only element that might also be important for an investor that you could have included is perhaps provide more concrete examples of advertising (either links on the internet, or a short video, or graphs etc). Otherwise it is a great presentation – you have really researched your subject very well and it shows that this subject is passionate for you! Kudos!
Marie-France
Thanks Marie-France, great idea to put in advertising samples, and it would have been easy to do. Thank you 🙂
Chelsea, your venture brings two diverse concepts and brings them together in a unique way. Fascinating concept! Not sure how you propose to deliver on investor’s returns, but I’d buy in just for the social cred. of being involved with anything Minecrafty! Perhaps designing some unique Minecraft ‘stages’ that others could ‘purchase’ access to and then co-create performances within these ‘locations’. Just thinking of options, from my limited Minecraft experience.
I agree that the potential for huge returns are available within the Minecraft environment, but not sure the market would be there for a Shakespearean venture, since this will limit the potential client base. Just wondering how you came up with the concept and do you have ‘proof’ that it is a viable, marketable product?
Helen
Hi Helen, Great idea to create and sell Minecraft/Shakespeare stages, although it makes the social cred take a hit. I was thinking of it as an open collaborative development venture, but making it more private and selling the product would certainly be an option. I suppose there could be elements of both: when stages got to a certain state of quality they could become proprietary and be moved out of the ‘free’ development zone. So many possibilities.
I came up with the idea because I was trying to think of what specifically could be developed to support Minecraft, and I happen to love Shakespeare. Were the venture to be developed, I would want to expand to other subjects, so that it could be an academic base for multiple learning areas. The proof is in the number of teachers blogging and testing Minecraft for education, in the Massively Minecraft group, and in MinecraftEdu. The test will be in whether Minecraft sticks like lego or fades like GI Joe. It would need a solid team of developers, though, I could not do it alone.
Thank you for your feedback!
Chelsea
I’m Lisa Allen, President and Owner of the Educational Technology Experts (ETE), a global consulting firm that specializes in providing analytics, recommendations and training of educational technology to educational institutions. This pitch is requesting the venture’s first year operating costs of $300,000 as an investment in the company. Youtube Elevator Pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9m3qq63Z8 Venture Pitch Paper
Continue reading The Educational Technology Experts (ETE) Posted in: Uncategorized, Venture Forum
Hi Lisa
Your venture sounds interesting however I wasn’t able to view your elevator pitch due to your privacy settings.
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for letting me know – all fixed now 🙂
Lisa
Thanks Lisa. I can now access it.
Valerie
Hi Lisa,
I can definitely see the potential in your venture and I think it fills a gap in the education system. I thought you did a good job describing the service in your written venture pitch, both to the educational and institutional customer.
Before I would invest, I would like some additional information on your marketing plan, and how you determined that you would need three consultants to begin with. I also wasn’t sure whether you would be focusing on the educational or institutional market first. Would you be pursuing them equally? Would your focus be elementary or secondary, or both?
Deborah
Thanks for this feedback Deborah – you’re right, a more comprehensive “plan of action” would have been a good thing to include in my pitch.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hey Lisa,
I like the idea and think it be great once it’s implemented within schools but getting access to schools will be difficult. I think district contracts with companies like G&T (Grand & Toy) & Staples will not let you anywhere near the financial outflow for continuous spending from departments. I love the point you make that we are educators not technological experts, which is so accurate. I think technology use within schools will continue to follow the pattern, ‘Hey I want what that guys got’ and that person goes and gets that device from and for their own departments funding. For the future I would suggest planning how you will innovatively gain access to public school department heads, and school spending. Good luck.
-Regen
Thanks for these comments Regen, I think that you’re right when it comes to public elementary and secondary schools. With higher education and private institutions though, I think they’re much more open to bringing in consultants. Perhaps that is where my “consulting firm” should try to gain entrance into the market.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa
I enjoyed watching your elevator pitch. You present the advantages of your venture very clearly. I can see the potential in your idea and agree there is a need for this in the school system. I was left with a couple of questions; Most districts employ their own IT staff so why would schools go outside of this? Would districts allow schools to go outside, as most schools have to choose goods and services from district approved lists?
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for these comments – and great questions. Not working in the public school system, I don’t really know how they contract vendors… that being said, perhaps my consulting firm can gain access into the private educational market to start and build credibility there? I think the biggest issue with IT staff is that they don’t have that education theory background – and that’s what sets this consulting firm apart from the IT staff.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hello Lisa,
Here are some comments on your venture pitch and your elevator pitch:
Elevator pitch
It is difficult to say all that you want in a one minute period, so it sounds a bit as if you are rushing to say it all quickly. A suggestion might be to make a simple powerpoint presentation outlining the main points, and then use this presentation to read out from on your computer as you are filming yourself.
In one minute you do manage to summarize the essence of your venture however.
Venture Pitch paper
You present a very strong paper here. You outline the need and the solution quite well. You establish your marketing possibilities expertly and it shows your paper is well researched. If such a company was looking to hire I would be interested . . .
As an investor, you certainly have convinced me that it would be a worthwhile project to invest in.
Well done!
Marie-France
Thanks Marie-France,
I agree, in hindsight a powerpoint presentation would have been more effective for the one minute pitch!
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I liked your venture plan and how you specified the growth projections. Here are my comments.
Elevator pitch message
The need for The Educational Technology Experts (ETE) services is clearly outlined in the introduction – piqued my interest with the question at the very beginning. The solution is well explained but I would have been persuaded about the success of the venture if I got a clearer sense of the ”uniqueness or differentiation” characteristics of the service provided by the venture.
Marketability
While I see understand the importance of having these professionals advise school administrators, given the arguments and stats about the market, I wasn’t convinced about market opportunities for this venture. Just stating that the government of Canada and BC spend 5 -7 and 4.5 billion in the next 3 years” doesn’t necessarily mean that money will be allocated to a service specific to what the venture is proposing.
There was no mention of competition and that made me a bit nervous despite the specific growth figures (although long-term – 5 years)
Venture Plan
Your venture plan is very well structured and clearly laid out. It includes details plan – revenue and expense processes are very clear and outline promising prospect for the company therefore convincing the investor on ROI.
Thanks,
Leonora
Thanks Leonora,
It’s hard to pin point the competition since “consultants” are everywhere and the information out there is quite vague. You’re right though, it would have been good if I had included that information in my pitch.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I completely understand the challenges of pinpointing the competition. I had the exact same challenge – the main competition for my venture is corporate training companies and there are myriads of them.
Enjoy the rest of the summer.
Leonora
Hi Lisa,
You were braver than I was for your elevator pitch – couldn’t get myself in front of the camera. I found the elevator pitch to be somewhat disengaging however as you were not looking at the camera, but rather reading somewhere off to the side – losing eye contact. I did think that your voice had good variation in pitch and tone though.
As for your venture pitch, it sounds like a great idea. The service sounds extremely thorough from needs assessment to implementation, and I thought it very smart of you to note that consultants were experts in both education and technology, so that you would retain credibility from all sides of the market. I also appreciate how you are careful not to disparage educators by explaining that teachers and admin are experts in education, but not necessarily technology. I also think that the public would appreciate how you are careful to note efficiency and effectiveness – ensuring that private business is accountable with public funds.
As for your numbers, the costs that you mention sound reasonable, but it does seem that you may be missing a few expenses such as office space, equipment etc.
gillian
Thanks for your comments Gillian,
In hindsight, a powerpoint presentation would have been better for the one-minute pitch (especially since I am not the best public speaker in the world).
Cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for sharing your venture with us. I quite liked your venture idea and I think you have done a good job in trying to deliver as much details and specifics as possible within 1:11 minutes. It is very challenging to be able to pin point the core ideas and being able to present it. You did very well in that matter in trying to convince your investors. However, as an EVA I am a bit picky in the presentation itself, I would find it more convincing if the presenter was looking at the camera providing some eye contact and at the same time adding a smile would definitely boost up the atmosphere of the pitch. Other than this, I think you have did a good job.
Keep up the good work.
Karon
Thanks Karon,
I appreciate your comments. It’s sometimes difficult to smile when you’re nervous! 😉
Cheers,
Lisa
Hello Lisa:
Your venture, Educational Technology Experts, is a great idea and similar to my venture proposal for professional development in educational technology. You have good personal presence in your elevator pitch but focusing in on the camera once in a while would have relieved the “scripted” feel to the video. You identify clear pain points and explain your market expectations well. As the venture leader, you sound convinced of your product’s value. Great job. You mention the need for investment based on labor and advertising. I wonder if you are short-changing yourself here. What about office space, equipment, travelling costs and internet access? Will you have a team to support you? You may have provided answers in your venture pitch but I am just analyzing your elevator pitch here. The first half of your elevator pitch seems aimed at convincing your clients rather than your investors. I think your investors need to here this same information but somehow it needs to be clear that you are directing this at them rather than your clients. Good work!
Tim
Hi Lisa, great concept, and certainly an area where schools need support. The school I am currently working at brought in EdTech Audits, and they provided us with recommendations for development and areas of strength. I would have liked to hear more about the structure of your reporting process and how you will ensure that your people are experts, and provide useful recommendations to your clients.
Great idea!
Chelsea
Private consulting is a great idea for offering professional development for teachers. I would actually prefer to take PD from someone in the industry rather than a colleague teacher. I seem to get more out of the presentation as they usually provide real examples of work that they are doing. The difficult part might be to find, train and keep qualified staff that can relate to teachers and education and try to turn a profit doing so. I know we spend quite a bit of money on PD and some of it gets wasted in my opinion. I would want to make sure we are getting the most for our money and think that most schools are the same. If you have a great product and teachers like it, the word will spread quickly.
Good idea! I can’t wait to see what sessions you have lined up.
Dennis
Lisa,
Very well done, especially with the paper. You have obviously thought about gaps that exist in the current educational systems. As for the venture pitch, I was a little disconcerted about not being “looked in the eye.” I know that camera work can be daunting, especially for 1 minute.
Coming from both secondary and middle schools, what would your primary focus on implementation be??
Cheers,
Todd
Hello, I am Sherman Lee, CEO of cDesign. I work with a team of dedicated instructional designer and corporate training strategists in partnership with Level-5, a video game company to put together this course design tool that does not only let you create, but also guide you through instructional best practices. Launching into the $130 […]
Continue reading Hello, I am Sherman Lee, CEO of cDesign…. Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello Sherman,
Very clear and well laid out Elevator and Venture Pitches. Your slides are easy to follow and presented neatly. I like your idea of creating a partnership with other companies and not rivalries.
One critique I might add is that I would have like to have seen you present more of your future plans and go beyond just the first year outlook for C-Design.
Good work,
Donna
Hi Donna,
In hindsight, I do want to project more into the future of cDesign. Stepping out of my CEO role play for a bit, while I was writing up my venture, I question my source of information. Since this is not a real venture and we don’t have budget to work with, I didn’t have real market information from surveys. From that standpoint, I reserved to saying that I will make 1% of the market in first year because of the lack of information on resistance and saturation point of the market. It would definitely be interesting to know though. If this venture was real, I would conduct a survey before I even do this pitch.
Thanks for reading 🙂
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
I think you presented your company very well. I was happy to hear your voice and see your picture. However, the power of video presentation has become evident to me in this course and might be a consideration for “next” time (I am guilty of NOT doing that myself). Other than that I think your idea has GREAT potential and you were very clear on your “ask”.
Thanks for sharing your idea,
Ronna
p.s. I would invest!
Hi Ronna,
Thank you for investing in my venture! I have to thank Dragons Den and Kickstarter for my “ask” section. I was too shy to do it at first because I have never really pitched before and I am very used to just letting people offer whatever they think I am worth, but my boyfriend, who’s a web design freelancer showed me a couple of real pitches and coached me through the process he would go through when he is doing a pitch. I think it really helped me.
I agree with you 100% on the video part. I regret not doing it but I was in a toggle of between doing a video feed or just voice over. The funny story behind this stems from the project I worked on in my company. I had to come up with an introduction to our teaching program to our business partners and originally we thought, you know, since our core project group know the project inside out, it would be good to film one of us in the intro instead of hiring an actor or getting upper levels to do it. That proposal was rejected and marketing explained that the age and voice of the person has a lot to do with the buy in of the user. And the comment was my team was pretty young so it would deliver a stronger message if we have someone older doing that. Anyway, that was my rationale of not putting my face on there. Looking back though, there are a lot of young venturers so I think I was thinking too much about what the marketer said to my team.
Thank you again for investing in my business 🙂
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
As a potential investor I am very interested in what CDesign has to offer, though I have a few questions as well. Your pitches were very well organized, clear, and professional. As Ronna said, it would have been nice to see you speaking a bit. You highlighted some key points that give strength to your venture, in particular the information about expected retirements creating a gap in the next few years drew me in. I also liked the use of word clouds.
I am curious, however, about what you mean by interactivities – does cdesign include templates for games? discussions? What other types of interactivities? As well, in your information about the potential market you mentioned that the first number was simply for one corporation – were the national and North American numbers also based solely on one corporation? If so, what are the larger possible market numbers. My last question comes from the suggestion of partnering with large lms providers – do you think that your competition would be willing to work with you when cdesign could replace large aspects of their company?
I would be curious to see the answers to these questions, but am encouraged by your pitches and would be a strong potential investor!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Thank you for your interest in cDesign. My team certainly put a lot of effort into creating this web application. The interactivies cDesign delivers include games, quizzes, puzzles, quests and simulations. Our game development partner, Level-5, offered a lot of expertise in terms of presenting challenges to users in many different ways. If you are interested in seeing some of the samples of Level-5 interactivity, you can definitely refer to their well-known role playing game series – Professor Layton. The only difference is, our users will get to be a part of the game design and twist the professional game interface to fit their own content. Imagine how this could help engage learners and how much more effective this would be in a classroom versus our ordinary course authoring software.
My first number for the potential market was for a single corporation. The second number is the total of all corporations within Canada. In other words, if we reach ALL corporations (which, of course would be a HUGE success) we would be dominating the $18 billion market nationally. This is the same for the North American market.
Partnering with large LMS providers is actually quite possible. I think cDesign threatens not the LMS providers but the corporate training consultants. LMS is a tool, and the corporate training consultants does what cDesign offer, but at a much higher price. The partnership between LMS and cDesign is one that would take over consultation firms. I see that we will have a challenge in regards to building the trust in our potential client. As some of our potential customers express worries for not having a real person to talk to and put together courses for them. Although our forum and ongoing support to our customers is in place, I propose that a trade show presentation and trial versions be distributed to show the ease of this tool. If anything, cDesign only make LMS more powerful and appeal to the unexplored market of smaller companies with too little resources at this time to even attempt eLearning on their own.
Please let me know if there is any other point that is still cloudy, I would be more than happy to clear those up for you.
Again, thank you for your interest in cDesign.
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation in the pitch is rather neat as I am sure you worked very hard on it. The voice over was very clear, the graphics and fonts were good. I was really looking to see the founder/CEO/Executive Director. I am not sure who is speaking. The CEO speaking in person to me would show more credibility and would give the potential investor your commitment for your venture. You also did not make mention of the management team. I might take a negative inference based on the fact that the CEO was unwilling to talk about the team.
Nevertheless, there’s potential for Cdesign, I think it needs more information though on the target and global market for me to think about investing.
~Shawn
Hi Shawn,
First of all, thank you very much for your time in reviewing my venture. It is my regrets that at this time a lot of our team members are still tying up other work they have with outside companies, so their identities were not to be revealed.
(jumping out of the role play for a second, I actually put down a couple of big names for the executive team, but I was thinking that this video would be loaded onto YouTube and I took a step back and deleted all of them. In hindsight I really should have asked David if we could or could not role play all the way in a new venture like this. I was concern about privacy and freedom of information issues even though this is a school project. I was thinking a bit too much).
I will definitely take your advice to heart and make an appearance in my future pitches. Perhaps I will ask my executive team to give a speech too to build trust with interested investor like yourself!
Sincerely yours,
Sherman
love your spirit Sherman! All the best!
~Shawn
Sherman, you have carried the CEO role of your company well!!!
You have outlined your company direction, product and vision clearly and directly. The market potential and partnerships will certainly help with your returns. I found your option to turn competitors into partners quite interesting.
I’m not familiar with how corporate training occurs, but your venture indicates that LMS may be a possible opportunity for improved distribution. For smaller corporations, your product combined with an LMS delivery system would appear to give your product a competitive edge.
I would agree with others that have already commented that having your ‘presence’ in the venture and/or elevator pitch, even for a portion of the presentation, would help investors gain ‘buy-in’. As it is, your venture is worthy of investment, your personal pitch presence would make it a sure thing.
Helen
Good evening Helen,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign. Corporate training is usually on a very tight budget and because most of the knowledge is sensitive to changes in company targets and direction of the year, many of the training is not built to stay. Therefore making training a very expensive aspect to sustain should it be constantly contracted out. Of course, we are then left with only subject matter experts to come up with courses, which, as I have mentioned, is not the best way because they have no or little pedagogical knowledge. Hence, cDesign leverage on the fact that corporation would spend money on the migration over to our company in exchange for a long term saving.
As I have said to other investors who had mentioned my lack of presence, I will definitely present myself more clearly as the CEO next time. I like your idea of presenting at least for a portion of the presentation. I will keep that in mind.
Thank you for your investment!
Sherman
Hi Sherman
I thought that you had an excellent venture concept, which was well researched and supported. I really liked how you addressed the fact that your competitors offered similar products in terms of the tools, but that you had the advantage with actually providing the training and experience.
The market would appear to support the growth and development of such a venture, especially if you could move into the North American Market.
As an investor I was interested by both your elevator pitch, and venture pitch, and would like to move on the next step of seeing the full-scale venture plan and implementation.
I would agree with others that you could work to carry a little more weight and emphasis in your voice, but you were clear and easy to understand.
Great Work.
Dave
Hello Dave,
Thank you very much for your investment in cDesign. I agree 100% that if I make an appearance with my team, we would probably have drawn more people into our venture. I look forward to contacting you and going over the full-scale venture plan and implementation. It will definitely be even better than what you have viewed so far as our team has learnt from the pitch experience and made improvement to the overall planning.
Looking forward to prospering with you in this venture!
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation is clear and effective, however, it would have been nice to see your enthusiasm rather that only hear it.
As for the company, I am curious about the partnership with level-5 and what their stake in the company is. Is this a contract agreement with them or is it a business partnership/subsidiary? I think knowing the answer to that would make me understand full what I would be investing in.
I would be interested in also seeing an early version of the program and how the templates and system works for the actual users. That would definitely convince me to invest my money.
Thanks,
Kenton
Hello Kenton,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign, and for your further inquiry in our business structure. Hopefully I will be able to provide you with a satisfactory answer to our vision here.
cDesign and Level-5 is in a business partnership. Level-5 is actively developing the next game in the Professor Layton series. In this partnership, cDesign has made an agreement to provide them with pedagogical expertise in return for their animation work for our project. A lot of the templates are results from the development of the new addition to the Layton series.
We can arrange a time for you to either come to our headquarters or connect with you through gotomeeting, so we can show you the power of this program.
Talk to you soon,
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Your presentation is engaging and its supporting data is well researched. It’s fresh to see a venture that targets corporate training. This market is significantly larger and more willing to spend money than the K-12 and post-secondary markets. Kudos for having this big vision. As for investing, it would help if I could test out a prototype. I also have several questions/concerns:
1. You said that there are a wide-range of tools developed after surveying educators world-wide. What are some of these tools? How are they different from (or better than) your competitor’s existing ones. (It’s hard to visualize without trying it hands-on)
2. Different companies have different needs. How does it recommend best practices if the needs are different? A “one size fits all” solution to instructional design does not make sense. Please clarify.
Assuming these questions are properly addressed and cDesign has moved beyond proof of concept, I am willing to invest financially.
Colin
By the way, thank you for sharing this wonderful concept with us.
Hello Colin,
Thank you very much for your interest in cDesign. You are correct that the corporate training market has a greater potential than the K-12 and post-secondary markets, and the spending power of these corporation is, to say the least, amazing.
In regards to your questions, here is some clarification on my stand points:
1. Aside from the typical tools such as assessment makers, calendars and reporting tools, cDesign also offer a built-in lesson planner. Teachers can either plan using their own tools and then build the course directly into cDesign or they can choose to build starting from this lesson planner. The lesson planner guides the user through the essentials in a lesson plan, such as objectives and assessment model.
Another tool that I would like to highlight is cDesign’s reference engine. This reference engine allow the user to search and bookmark any internet resources and even import it directly into their lessons! This tool also help with the citation of these sites (this is done automatically when you import the material), which would avoid any copyright issues. This citing engine can be tweaked should the corporation have different rulings on external reference usage. This function is similar to what you would find in safe search in search engines.
2. Certainly, ‘one size’ does not ‘fit all’ in instructional design. Recommendations are set as default unless the user make changes to it. One of the tools that the users have access to is the instructional design standard tab. This tab allow the user to input any executive decision on how their courses should be structured. For instance, if my corporation decide to have no interactivities at all or have 30% interactivities throughout the entire delivery time, all you need to do is type this into the system and away you go. This tab also serves as a guide to help standardize courses within the same corporation, so that learners have a common structure to go by even if the courses are developed by users from different departments with different expertise.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can help clarify, I would be more than happy to connect with you.
Sherman
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I think this is an exciting venture–one that I am interested in investing.
Hi Sherman,
I’m glad to see a venture about corporate instructional design. Your venture pitch is fantastic and very nicely presented! It contains strong reasons supporting your venture, simple images and not a single word was wasted! This is the most effective use of wordles I’ve seen. Your tone of voice and speech rate were great. Your enthusiasm and confidence are clearly evident!
What concerns me about this venture is that it seems to negate the need for knowing learning theories, applying multimedia instructional design principles, differentiating skills vs. knowledge, targeting the level of learning objective (Bloom’s taxonomy) vs. the degree of proficiency, knowing how to motivate students or engaging them with a hook and so on?
The idea of combining all of this with game design templates seems like a lot, given that game design alone is complex, never mind using it for instructional purposes. The only way out of all of these issues would be to have thorough instructions at every stage of course development. Even then, would the “designer” understand what they are doing? Not to mention that graphic design has an impact on instructional effectiveness…
There is certainly a great advantage to using the subject matter experts and forming partnerships with LMS companies, but I’m not certain this is the best way. I would have to see how the program works in different situations to be convinced to invest. I think your marketing plan is realistic with a start of reaching 1% of the Canadian market share. However, I would have liked to see references indicating the legitimacy of the data. I like that you would be listening in on discussions in the forum to obtain user and educator feedback.
Once again, I think that your pitches are presented very professionally.
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you very much for your advice and interest in cDesign. It is very true that ultimately the understanding of learning theories and principles is very important to delivery the most effective lessons. At the same time, corporations that cannot afford instructional designers and only has enough time to enlist subject matter experts into a training project can definitely use this tool. It takes years to build that professional grasp onto the concept of instructional design and what cDesign offer is a fast track for those who do not have a starting point.
cDesign is by no means there to replace professional instructional designers, but it is there to provide a solution which may not have even existed given a corporate structure usually would bypass anything they cannot afford to go for the less costly.
However, I do appreciate your comments, Dan, as it will help guide cDesign towards betterment. From your suggestion, we will try to make our design guidance as clear as possible. We will also consider providing a more accessible route for users to contact us for assistance if required.
We hope to draw your interest in the future, once we have deployed cDesign and be able to present to you more solid data.
Should you be interested, please subscribe to our newsletter at http://www.cDesign.ca (this is fake… kind of want to just complete my role play).
Cheers,
Sherman
Hi Sherman,
Thanks for clarifying how your services would be used. I’m ready to invest in your venture.
Cheers,
Dan
HI Sherman,
I too really appreciated your elevator pitch and venture pitch. You were enthusiastic, the presentation was crisp and clear. Like others I would have liked to have “met” you in the elevator pitch, but I wasn’t too concerned about it being video. – the way you presented on the venture pitch would have been adequate. I also think you could have slowed your delivery just a bit in the elevator pitch – it was perfect in the venture pitch.
I was enthused to go on to view the venture pitch by your elevator pitch and remained very interested in investing in your venture. I think you would present well to in the corporate world and this would also encourage me to invest in the venture.
Some of the previous posts have made comments I would have made too, so I won’t repeat them. I did think that it really is a solution for supporting pedagogy of online learning without having to have professional instructional designers and would mean that much more could be achieved in an organisation without the time and wait for the professionals. I don’t think this concept is limited to the business world…
It would have been good to see some of the designs and screens that cDesign uses (but it was a hypothetical).
I certainly would be considerig investing after these pitches.
Denise
Hi all, If you’re interested in a venture dealing with postsecondary science, have a look at my venture pitch and proposition, both available here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/dubienetec565a/2012/07/29/etec-522-venture-forum/ Cheers, Dan
Continue reading Hi all, If you’re interested in a ventu… Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for sharing your pitches! I can recall back to my high schol science days and you describe exactly how it was, and I never pursued much after that. Your pitches are very well put together and I think would be of interest to the market targeted. I think Youtube will give you some solid competition as there are many videos on there that relate to some of the content of your proposal.
Thanks,
Jon
Hi Jon,
It’s too bad you got turned off of sciences. Sometimes it’s the teacher’s own fears or negativity that cause students to lose interest. That’s why one of the values I highlighted in my venture description was the need to instill confidence. A lot of the time, science students are just as afraid as anyone else of making mistakes in the lab, and proper instruction and the right attitude can change that.
I mentioned that YouTube videos are a threat. However, as I said elsewhere on this page, my videos would be done professionally, with proper safety procedures and with a pedagogically sound foundation.
Thanks for your comments!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
These are excellent pitches. For your venture pitch, I especially felt the effectiveness of the SWOT analysis. Certainly as CEO I trust that your knowledge and expertise of science is strong. I’m glad you touched on your experience in science education as a teacher’s assistant in chemistry labs and courses and also as an instructional designer of multimedia courses for high school in a variety of science subjects. I’m most impressed that as an investor, you have assured me with the financial analysis. You argue that the aim is to sell 200 modules in the first year for a gross profit of $180 000, and to achieve an increase in sales of 30% for the following year and renewal of licenses starting in the third year.
Allan
Thanks for your positivity Allan!
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for sharing your venture pitches. It is difficult for me to comment on your venture as I have an extremely limited science background. You sound like you are very qualified to act as CEO and your background would bring credibility to investors. Your PP was not very fluid as I had to click through the various slides and so I would be maybe try to create a timed PP or use a different program for your pitch.
Greg
Hi Greg, thanks for your comments.
Ideally, I would have experimented with a variety of media for the venture pitch, but I wanted to see what I could do with PPT. Also, as I explain in a lower response, the extra clicking was purposeful. It was meant to break up the pitch into sections that were easy to search through for someone who wanted to repeat certain parts. With more content, the purpose of this format would have been more evident, but it’s still something I wanted to try. A nice alternative that I saw was Voicethread, and I’ll be experimenting with that soon.
Cheers,
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
A very well thought out and laid out venture. You provided the viewer with evidence of a need in the system, a solution, your credibility, sound financial reasoning and possible issues with the venture. I think you covered everything comprehensively. I agree that there is a need in the market, but also agree with the threats you listed. YouTube and professor reluctance might cause the venture problems. Consulting with a marketing specialist might provide some insight on how to present your product in a way that could overcome those possible threats.
Overall, a very well written venture.
Janet
Hi Janet,
The thing that I feel this venture needs the most is what you mentioned: someone with experience in marketing. It would take a lot of skill to know how to approach just the right people without offending them by saying that their courses need to be improved. In the institutions where I make sales, I would follow up and see how well the students perform. If the results are strong enough, I could prove that my materials add value to the course content. The institutions could use this information in ther own marketing and attract more students.
Thanks for your comments!
Danielle
Hi Danielle
I think there is definitely a market for this idea. Your venture pitch did a great job of leaving me wanting to know more. You establish some credibility with the description of your background. I would need to know more about the competition after your product differentiation. With the wealth of open educational resources available investors would need to be convinced that the quality of your learning material far exceeds what is freely available on the web.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your interest! Here’s information about my competitors and ways in which my content would be different.
Brigham Young University offers fantastic simulations, but the licenses are more expensive than mine. BYU’s forums are not used at all for discussion, whereas I would strongly encourage forum use for collaborative purposes.
MIT offers free courses on a lot of experimental science topics for graduates and undergraduates, but in my venture, I would cover more topics and I would be showing links between theory and practice. MIT also doesn’t appear to have any place for students to communicate, but they may have a forum for active classes.
There are a lot of experimental science videos on Youtube, but they may not be pedagogically sound, and there may be safety issues if the videos are created in an amateur fashion. They would not cover the same amount of material as I would and my material would all be in one place, eliminating time lost in searching for necessary information.
I hope that helps!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
In your pitch you establish that you’re well qualified to lead this venture and clearly describe the need for students to prepare for labs. I was left questioning the need for Prep Labs as I wonder how well received by institutions this idea would be. I don’t have experience in post secondary science courses but understand that some if not all institutions require that students attend each science course for a total of six hours weekly. Lectures account for three hours per week and labs for the remaining three. Does lecture time includes preparation for labs? It’s hard for me to imagine that students go into labs without being required to prepare. These questions sent me to your venture proposal looking for answers.
Reviewing your proposal answered my questions and convinced me that your idea is well thought out with benefits to students clearly defined. You outline the requirements for a team of professionals and suggest that office space may be needed. You also note the requirement for a lab. Your cost estimates may be low as they seem to include only wages not equipment purchases or rentals, and rental of office space, lab space, and insurance. You also address obstacles to the marketability of the venture but it’s not clear how you will meet these challenges. With a cost of $900.00 per module you’ll need a convincing marketing strategy that clearly defines the benefits of Prep Labs to institutions. At this time I would not invest in this venture.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Thanks for responding. The cost for the licenses in my venture is on par with that charged by Brigham Young University, where site licenses cost between $850 and $1050 for an unknown length of time. Considering that a Teaching Assistant’s salary is about $4500 per semester, the licenses don’t cost very much for the value they would bring.
Given that this venture would be just one project launched by my company, the costs that are unaccounted for would be taken care of using funds that I have accumulated. The cost estimates that I made are strictly related to this venture, but the remaining resources could be used for other purposes within my company.
As for marketing issues, I would hire someone for that purpose. There are a lot of administration and accounting tasks that would need to be taken care of by people trained specifically in those fields.
Even if these arguments are not enough to convince you of the worth of my venture, I thank you for presenting these points, which allowed me to discuss them in greater detail.
Thanks again for your comments.
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
I like your idea. I think you are very qualified to lead this venture, and I can see that design of lab & course supporting materials will have optimistic market out there. From an EVA point of view, I’d like to see a more fluid elevator pitch such as a video rather than slides. I’ve faced this issue myself, my tip is that you can use QuickTime Player to capture the screen while playing your PPT, and then you can export a video from the player.
For the proposition of your venture, I would like to know more information about the targeted market. Why do you eliminate the pre-secondary market from your scope? As I know, the content of K-12 education is more standard than the high education, that will make a larger group of users for your products at each release. The buyer is not clear to me too. I wonder if a professor will buy your modules out of his own pocket, or an academic board will be involved to make the purchase. I think different professors might have different style of teaching, so they would probably more like tailored materials rather than common ones. Has your venture prepared for customization? How does it impact on the business mode? On the other hand, if your buyers include students, will you sell your products by single module besides the bunch package? Generally, I doubt that students will prepare their lab works based on non-free materials, I’d like to see more details about differentiation and competition of this venture to alternatives.
Ping
Hi Ping,
Thanks for the information about video creation, but the use of PPT for the venture pitch was deliberate. When I was analysing pitches at the start of the course, I found myself having to replay the pitches over and over to get specific information. This way, the listener only needs to replay the sections that he or she is curious about.
It turns out that short clips made it easier to control the sound quality. I had to record many times before I could get prevent there from being loud static noises. For this reason, a video taping of me was definitely out of the question because the audio would have been impossible to deal with. I wanted a pitch that, at the minimum, had my voice in it, so I wasn’t going to play catchy music while showing the content. The pictures are not moving around either, because I want the listener focused on what I’m saying. In fact, both ventures are presented using a the principles I mention in the proposition.
Why not market this venture to the K-12 system? High school science labs are, by definition, supported by teachers, as opposed to higher education where students are supposed to be more independent. The problem I’m highlighting in my ventture description is that TOO much independence is given to the students. They still need some support. As for K-8 labs, I think the product would have to be targeted at teachers rather than students. Students of that age shouldn’t be asked to go through multimedia material on their own. I would have to come up with something that can be integrated into science lessons done at school and that also helps the teacher to learn the science better, given that the majority of primary teachers don’t have a science background.
As for the buyer, some profs may have a budget for teaching expenses, but none are certainly going to pay out of their own pocket. The main target is department heads who can get into contact with instructors, and together make decisions about purchases.
Customization is achieved by discussing different equipment that can be used for the same type of experiment. I would be doing research on different ways of teaching the same experiments. Organic chemistry equipment is fairly standard, and first year labs and courses usually cover the same material. Beyond that, there is more differentiation. To address this, some of the modules could contain more labs such that the instructors choose which ones are suited to their needs. The cost for producing more videos would of course be higher, but that’s why there would only be 8 modules released at a time – to figure out how the product is received, and to make more money to re-invest in creating the next set of modules. Students aren’t meant to be buyers. I believe I mentioned that in the last segment of the venture pitch.
Thanks for being so thorough!
Hi Danielle,
I don’t have much to add to what everyone else here has already pointed out. Just wanted to say that this is a great pitch and is clearly well-thoughout. I would invest.
Cheers,
Lisa
Thanks for the encouragement, Lisa!
Hi Danielle,
This is a good idea that could save colleges a lot of prep time and money. I really like the idea of establishing understanding of experiments before having students perform them, since it establishes students’ prior knowledge without the expense of using materials for the initial trial. As someone who liked to understand what her science experiments were about instead of just writing painstaking (and sometimes nonsensical) lab reports, I certainly could have benefitted from this product.
All the best,
May
Hi May,
There’s a lot of lab work that I did blindly. Luckily, as a TA, I got the chance to learn many skills that I didn’t as un undergrad. When you’re supervising other students, you realise just how much unnecessary stress the students feel. That stress doesn’t make them better scientists, and it doesn’t make students better at figuring things out on their own. Unfortunately, a lot of professors don’t understand this and think that the current way of doing things makes students more independent. As such, there is definitely a marketing challenge in showing how helpful this venture is. The solution might be to show a lot of facts and hard evidence of what the students need and what skills are sought by employers.
Take care,
Danielle
Danielle,
I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing your pitch and venture analysis for I believe it was well thought out and delivered. You have a solid idea based on experience and expertise within scientific community and have based the majority of your project on research-based evidence and theory. I appreciate that you have incorporated some of the theory and applications learned throughout the MET program and I t is evident that you are able to apply such to varying learning environments. Although you do mention the fact that videos are available on YouTube I think that having textbook companies and/or school-specific videos custom created will differentiate your product from that of the competition. I hope you further pursue this en-devour for I believe it is a worthwhile venture. Well done and all the best in the future!
Danielle B.
Thanks for your encouragement Danielle! Every time I create educational content, I try to see what research applies so that I can make it as effective as possible. There’s still a lot to learn!
The best to you as well!
Danielle
Hey all, Lets try this again. I accidentally posted the original to the ‘uncategorized’ section. I also just added a googledoc feature for my paper instead of embedding the whole thing in this message. Anyways, the youtube link to my elevator pitch is as follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXBKx-t77n4 And the googledoc link to my written […]
Continue reading Hey all, Lets try this again. I a… Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi. I tried to watch your video but it was listed as private 🙁
Hi Regen,
I enjoyed your video and thought you communicated the benefits of the venture very clearly.
This is an interesting concept, but I have some reservations about how successful it might be. As you identified, there is no doubt that more tutors would be required in your venture as tutoring will now be individual. Before making an investment, I would like more specific information on the current amount charged per student, and how you envision this would change when the new model is implemented. I presume the cost would have to increase. I also wonder how receptive the tutors would be to taking on additional responsibilities such as scheduling, and how they would react to being idle for periods of time without being paid. I think you might lose many of your current tutors.
In terms of marketing, you did a good job of identifying how you would spread the word within your current client base, but I would have liked some information as to how you plan to advertise to attract new clients.
Deborah
Hey Jody and company,
I just changed the video to be public. Sorry about this.
It’s viewable now. Thanks for your patience.
-Regen
Regen,
Thanks for sharing your pitches. Your Elevator Pitch was clear and concise. I liked your concept. Obviously it makes a lot of sense in terms of the benefits to the kids. I have my doubts about the viability though. I imagine Sylvan would have crunched the numbers. If they are going from groups of 3/tutor down to 1:1 they are going to loose significant revenue. I know that your argument suggested that would be short-term, but I wonder also about how many good tutors might find themselves out of work because they are too challenging, or don’t fit the image that the student was looking for. As a teacher, I know it is easy to become well liked, but that doesn’t make you a good educator. In a perfect world, where money is no object it would be great to see one on one, were the tutors are well liked and respected, but I am too skeptical.
I’m going to reserve my investment at this point to see the numbers on perhaps another tutoring service that does one to one.
David
Hi Regen,
I think you have some excellent ideas on how to better serve the needs of students requiring additional support outside of the classroom. This is a great market to tap into because there are always going to be students who need this kind of support.
Before I would invest in a such a venture, I would like a few more details about the platform being used and how Sylvan differentiates itself from the competition. I think it is also important for investors to know more about who in behind the success of a company. Confidence in a company’s management credentials and experience will improve chances of investment. I would also require a little more information on the return on investment. It might be an idea to offer the choice of tutors for premium account users in order to determine the viability of such a fundamental change in how Sylvan offers its services. This may also help prevent losses upfront.
Overall, this is a great pitch and a very worthwhile venture. But I would require more information before making an investment.
Danielle
Hi Regen,
I enjoyed your pitch – thought is was very smooth, concise, and your concept is certainly one which many students (and parents) would be very drawn to.
There would be a number of areas which I, as an investor, would require more information. I would like to know a little more about the foundation/management of the company, as well as what the pricing structure would be should this be implemented. Would this be more of a premium service, for which student/parents would pay? or would there still be a 3:1 students to tutor package available?
Overall, I think your idea is great, as there will always be students who require extra support, and the idea of 1:1 certainly falls within the whole concept of differentiated instruction.
Well done!
Smiles, Kim
Regen;
As one who knows very little about the tutoring world I think you have a good idea here. My main concern, however, is the cost and if it will make the company more money. I am sure it would benefit students but will it make money? I don’t know the Sylvan Learning system but I assume these small groups are ideal in that students can learn from each other and a tutor is not just watching one student complete their assignments. For some reason in my mind a one-on-one situation would usually be best, especially if is with a tutor you get along with and can learn from.
I am interested to hear what management from Sylvan Learning would say about the venture and if they are open to it being an option for their students.
Dennis
Hey all,
Thanks for the responses thus far.
David – It is true that a well-liked teacher does not make that teacher good. Well said. I wasn’t thinking at the time about this, and now agree that this notion could become problematic.
Danielle – For the future I was thinking that if Sylvan could recruits teachers from local schools to become tutors then that aspect could differentiate themselves from other tutoring services. But looked at in general, there is really nothing differentiating it from other services besides the change to make the tutoring more personal by allowing students more choice as to how their experience will unfold.
Kim – You bring up some good questions for thought. Yes, there would still be 1:3 tutoring available, 1:1 just gives students more options on the way to making their learning experience more enjoyable/educational.
Dennis – Yes Sylvan would probably initially be hesitant with this idea, though it could stand to help them differentiate themselves from the competition and create a more lucrative business plan for the future. Differentiating, and personalizing the experience is the only justification for eventually charging more for tutoring rates and therefore making more money over time.
Thanks again all for the responses.
-Regen
Hello Regan:
You present a venture as an addition to an existing company and this makes it difficult to define the various aspects of the venture as they are mainly tied to this existing company. This also makes it difficult to convince new investors to believe you need funding for your proposal. You do a great job explaining and justifying the value and usefulness of this venture. You speak clearly and provide personal presence in your elevator pitch. I would like to know a little more about the number of clients you expect to add to Sylvan through this proposal as well as some revenue projections of existing and predicted new business.
Tim
Hi Regen,
Thank you for sharing your pitches and after reviewing your elevator pitch I have the follow comments.
I do not know much about Sylvan Tutoring but I assume that it is a face-to-face tutoring system since that is what the pictures indicate. You make a solid case for enabling students to hand select their tutors but it is not clear from the elevator pitch as to why this would require extra monetary investment. I wonder why they do not have a 1:1 system at the present and could it be that they want to promote small group learning? I think that it would be interesting for Sylvan to offer an on online tutoring service, which can work with the busy and varied schedules of youths today.
Technically speaking there are a couple of items in the presentation which I find distracting. First, the Ken Burns effect of zooming and panning often cut off parts of the pictures, Secondly, while wearing the shirt/tie was a great professional looking idea, I would have liked to have seen the buttons fastened etc. I work in a school where the students wear ties and button-down shirts so I might be more attuned to this.
Bridget
Hi Regen,
Your Elevator Pitch was more of a sales pitch for why someone should be interested in this service from Sylvan rather than a pitch directed to investors. It was also quite difficult to hear as the volume on your video was quite low.
Also, I don’t see the educational technology edge to your venture? As an investor I wouldn’t have been compelled to read onto your Venture Pitch, and even though I did I did not find answers to such questions as the ask, market share, ROI, or information on your CEO and Team. I understand that this venture would be an offshoot of the Sylvan chain but some consideration should have been given to these points to successfully complete the requirements of your Venture Pitch.
Regan,
This is a very interesting venture, and one that you did a very good job in introducing and developing. Interestingly enough, I am actually a past Sylvan tutor, so your ideas have highlighted many of the issues that I had with the program (even while I was sitting there working with students). Also, my brother-in-law is a sylvan kid (from many years ago), so I also know how much money is crammed into that system. My hesitancy is that, if the ratio was to drop to 1:1, or even 2:1, then the bottom line for financial income will decrease. Also, I worked with some good tutors who the kids didn’t necessarily like, and others who were horrible and the kids loved. Another fear is the favourite card!
You have a great idea, but I think that it could be much stronger is hashed out a little more.
Cheers,
Todd
Please take the time to view my elevator Pitch and Venture Pitch for 21st Century Online Professional Development (21COPD). Please note that this is a fictitious venture and the screen captures of the website and Moodle site are mock-ups and not actually populated. Here’s the link to my Elevator Pitch. I can’t seem to get it to […]
Continue reading Please take the time to view my elevator… Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Gillian. I’m supposed to look at your elevator pitch. I don’t see it linked here. Am I missing something?
sorry Jody – It was embedded when I posted it last night. I have linked it for you instead.
gillian
Hi Gillian,
I wasn’t able to locate your elevator pitch, so my comments only refer to your venture plan. I thought your document looked very professional; the logo and use of colour throughout were great! You did a good job outlining the competition for your venture and how it would operate.
I can certainly see the need for your venture to address the gaps you identified. I currently subscribe to an online service for PD in accounting and auditing that delivers four new segments every month. Have you given any thought to how much new content you’re planning to offer to your customers on a monthly basis?
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
Sorry about the video – it was embedded last night and then disappeared?? I have added a link instead if you would still like to take a look.
Thank you for your comments on my venture pitch – I carried the colours throughout the video as well. It sure was tough to stay within the 1 minute limit on video and 2000 words on the written.
As for your question – The plan was to have 2 webinars per month on emerging trends like new technologies – new tools or new strategies like flipped classrooms etc.
As for new courses … when I was doing the mock up for the Moodle page I had endless ideas – the hope was also to draw on ideas and submissions from the CoP – hopefully adding more than one new course per month – starting at a beginner level and then adding more advanced as people become more familiar with tools etc.
gillian
Hey Deborah,
I couldn’t find your pitch either, so the comments that follow are in regard to just your venture pitch. First of all, Great idea. I really think this will eventually take off but the part that scares me is the ‘who is the buyer’ section. The BCTF will definitely be supportive of this with their stance that PD should be autonomous. The one party that would be difficult to persuade is the District/BC Ministry of EDUC. As teachers I like the idea of anytime/anywhere for PD (especially if employees are at home sick on PD days and can’t get out) but I worry about the district allowing PD days to be conducted off of school property outside of the hours of 8-3pm.
Hello again Deborah,
Sorry I didn’t give any suggestions for the idea. So here they are…..
If you can get the District/Ministry on board then this idea is money-in-the-bank. Teachers will love this and it will revolutionize pro-d. You will also have to be patient to see what the BC Ministry decides on its idea to ‘mandate’ pro-d so that your told where to go, and do not have the option to choose your pro-d activity anymore. Good luck.
-Regen
Hi Regen,
(it’s gillian actually 🙂 – ). Sorry about the absent video – it was there … I swear! Anyway, I have linked it above.
I agree that the BCTF would likely be supportive of such a venture – even if it would compete with their workshops – as for the Ministry … you’re right on that one. IF I could get them on board – I’d be set. When I found out CEET was part of LearnNowBC and funded by the Ministry, I was surprised and a little more hopeful about getting funding from the Ministry for my venture. They are quite a busy little CoP and are launching a “university” in the upcoming months – you should check them out. I was also encouraged by 2Learn.ca – which is the Alberta PD website – which is funded by BOTH the union and the government as well as a few other partners. They have some OPD available, but nothing on the scope I was hoping to achieve.
The PD off school grounds is another concern that I had – my understanding is that there is concern with regards to coverage from Worksafe BC if you do your PD from home. I suppose teachers could do courses and attend webinars from the school – but where’s the fun in that? PD in PJs I say! – It looks as if Alberta has it over on us on this one as well as I have had colleagues in other MET courses in Alberta who have used their ProD to work from home on their MET projects.
Thank you so much for your comments. I hope you have a minute (and 4 seconds) to check out my elevator pitch.
gillian
Hi Gillian,
I think you have done an amazing job with your elevator pitch and venture pitch. I think this is a viable venture and certainly one I would consider investing in. Probably one of the main reasons I would just because the market research you have done!
What I also find attractive about your proposal is that it includes opportunities for both self-guided learning as well as an opportunity to take part in a community of practice.I personally prefer to have the choice. Sometimes I want to embark on a new learning experience on my own, and other times I would prefer to learn within a community of collaborators. I also think it is fabulous that you have included UBC graduates on your team. I have included the same on my team, great minds think alike!
As for marketing, I would suggest giving teachers an opportunity to trial the site in order to fully appreciate it. Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising.
The resistance you mentioned would be interesting to see. I am not familiar with PD opportunities in British Columbia but from what I hear, a venture such as yours would offer teachers much more flexibility. I recall a classmate of ours in my first course in the MET program doing her final research proposal on online professional development opportunities for BC teachers. So I think they’re most certainly is a market for such a venture, and how you have presented it indicates to me that you not only have the knowledge and expertise as a CEO but you have also done your homework.
Well done!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for your time and kind comments; they are much appreciated.
The opportunity for a community of practice appeals to me as well and the research certainly supports the fact that if given the opportunity learners are more likely to put what they learn into practice if they have the continued support of such a community.
As for marketing, the site and its courses are free to all who subscribe and I would hope that through PD chairs and regular PD opportunities, teachers would be inspired to give it a try.
As for resistance … I believe that is the real pain point in this venture. I believe ProD in BC requires systemic reform itself. K-12 teachers are afforded only 6 days and in Adult Ed we are granted only 3 (some other districts afford their adult ed teachers 0 – which is atrocious). F2F proD simply doesn’t provide the opportunity or the time to offer much choice or application of what is learned and there is little incentive to go beyond what is paid. I could go on, but I am afraid I will just rant.
Thanks again,
gillian
Hi Gillian,
Wow, your passion will most certainly ensure the success of this venture! I really like your idea and it’s one I’d like to model for PD opportunities where I live.
I find that where I live, we are never truly satisfied with government or instituitionally led PD programs (even when they are very well done, lol! We are a bit spoiled!) So I think another important strength of your venture, which I should have mentioned in my previous analysis, is your team of teachers. No matter where your venture is marketed, teachers are going to appreciate and respond to PD that is based on experience on the ground. Once again, well done!
Danielle
Hi Gillian,
Thank you for sharing your pitches and after reviewing your elevator pitch I have the follow comments.
I like the hook that you created with the first slide stating that “it’s coming”. I found myself wondering what was coming but unfortunately, I could not quite understand the audio to hear what it was. I would suggest something visual be inserted along with BC education. Seeing as I did not quite understand this part I had difficulty is seeing the connection link between the change in education and the online PD. I suggest using an exterior microphone for improved audio.
The logo is great, well designed and catchy. However, the acronym COPD is commonly known as “chronic obstructive pulmonary disease” and is the first thing that came to my mind. In the education field this might not be a problem.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
Couldn’t agree more with your comments regarding the audio on my elevator pitch – but you have to work with what you’ve got … and unfortunately a crappy microphone is what I got. I tried to mask the pings and echoes with music – but apparently to no avail.
I didn’t think of the “COPD” connection you mention – I guess I should have gone with the lower case ‘c’ after all.
Gillian;
I think this is a great idea and would be a useful resource as some of us help plan PD for our staff and are always looking for solid resources. it is vital that your resources are free for teachers as I don’t know that I would pay for online resources, unless they came highly recommended by a colleague with the guarantee that they would work well for my plans as a professional development coordinator. I see the gap that you are trying to fill and don’t see any easy solutions. I don’t know if teachers will take time to complete even free online courses or modules because they do not have time, unless there are credits involved. If there is a way to offer these modules and have them fit directly into the daily routine of teachers or have them fit into their planning I think they would be quite useful. As mentioned earlier if the product is good, word-of-mouth will take the venture to the top.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Thank you for your comments. You bring up some very practical points and they are ones that I struggled with in outlining my venture. One conclusion that i came to is that the pain point is not just with available PD for BC teachers, but also with the overall approach to PD. I see a systemic flaw – in the lack of incentive for teachers to engage in ongoing PD. However, I saw this as more a political issue and not really appropriate for the venture plan.
Hopefully, enough teachers will be inspired if the courses are integrated into the standard PD opportunities provided by non-instructional days.
Thank you again for your comments.
gillian
Hello Gillian:
Count on me as an investor in your venture: 21COPD. I think you have made an excellent business proposition in both your elevator and venture pitch. You explain clear pain points and provide matching solutions that sound effective and relevant. You appear well researched and confident in your video presentation. I found the background music to be a little loud; somewhat overwhelming. It would have helped to have some facial presence in the elevator pitch. You could have provided some more market information such as potential client numbers and expected revenue that would have appealed to investor interests.
I think your idea of professional development in the area of educational technology is an excellent idea and needed service. This is very similar to my venture proposition so I have some biased interest here. Your venture pitch is quite thorough in covering all the aspects of a venture and your self-analysis using the cube analysis is effective and helpful. I like the hosesty in your self assessment regarding the “ask” and “return”. I had the same problem – couldn’t really find anything online that was similar enough to the venture while providing this information. In your competition section, do you not feel that the BCTF as they support and provide professional development would be part of your competition along with universities?
Overall, I think you provide a convincing pitch for a possible venture.
Tim
Hi Tim,
Thank you for your time and feedback on my pitches.
Your comments on my elevator pitch are very true – one I can explain due to technical deficiencies and the other – well … shyness. I included the music to hopefully cover up some of the feedback and pinging in the narration – it was hard to find a balance … I guess I missed it.
In reference to competition … I do agree that the BCTF itself could be competition which is part of the reason why I would target them directly as an investor. The BCTF PD offerings do not focus on 21st century skills, nor do they provide any online offerings. In regards to the universities … well, I suppose you can’t beat free.
Thanks again and I will have to take a peek at your venture – gotta keep an eye on the competition :P.
gillian
Hi Gillian,
I think your have a great idea here – there is definitely a market for some reliable, well-resourced PD that can be accessed cheaply (or freely as you suggest) from home! I think you would want to pitch this venture to your BC College of Teachers or to your school district and get them to put in the money to fund it and then run it for the members who are BC teachers or the school board’s employees. That would be the best bet – if I were on a board of either of those two groups, I would make the decision to invest in this venture.
I am currently at a private school that does little to no PD because they don’t put value in it (sadly) and therefore don’t budget for it. There are teachers working at my school who are completely out of the loop of what the current provincial focus is regarding educational, technology, assessment etc, only because they have been at the school for years and there has been no PD to keep them up to date. This would be something that this type of market could greatly benefit from were it a free resource available to certified teachers. Maybe something our annual fees could go towards paying for?
Another drawback someone else mentione din the comments above I think was the lack of motivation you might have for teachers to use this online PD even though it’s free due to lack of time. There are certain professional designations for which you need to complete a certain number of PD hours a year in order to maintain your qualification – perhaps if this were an endeavour taken on and supported by the BC College of Teachers you could be looking at a guaranteed market of users. This could be one of the places you could earn yoru PD points for the year, for example.
I think the focus here is a strong one – your venture pitch is a sound one – and that you could seriously think about presenting it to the key players and get a response!
Good job,
Sheza
Gillian,
All I can say is that, coming from another BC teacher, this should certainly be pitched to the BCTF! Really well done and well thought of. Where you thinking of Christie Clarke when you created this?
Cheers,
Todd
ID Network brings together elearning specialist contractors and prospective employers in a professional network. People are recruited and contracted for elearning development projects and the project is fully managed in a virtual work space. View the elevator pitch at https://vimeo.com/46539653 Read the venture pitch at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qc73POT9_EwM39WLrPU2EEnLFaf2XzIleETU5wiYEmU/edit
Continue reading ID Network – A Professional Network and Marketplace for eLearning Service Providers Posted in: Venture Forum
Hey Chris,
This is a neat idea. I never realized that a business looking to incorporate forms of e-learning could cost it so much. This idea reminds me of an ‘ebay’ style idea of shopping for the best, most beneficial company to build another company an e-learning platform. This sounds like it would work, but to be honest, I’m not educated enough within this field to say yeah or nay. I can’t even really generate proper questions to ask. I’m therefore still on the fence for this one. I’ll be thinking of this idea later though, and will comment again in the near future.
I like the artwork in the elevator pitch!
-Regen
Hi Chris
Thank you for sharing elevator pitch. Your idea is original and certainly would have a potential market. Your pitch was very well spoken, however, as an EVA, I would have liked to have seen you deliver the pitch to give me a sense of the person behind the venture. Giving investors a chance to see firsthand your commitment and passion for your venture might entice them to investigate your venture further.
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Hi Chris,
This is an interesting concept. Your video clearly communicated the nature of your venture, and while it was engaging, I have to agree with Valerie. It would have been helpful for you to appear in the video so I could see who was pitching the idea.
The use of statistics in the opening of your venture plan clearly establishes the need for your service. As an EVA, I would have liked more information on who you were marketing to, e.g. would it be K-12 schools, post-secondary or corporate? Also, it would have been helpful to provide some subheadings in the report. I always like to jump to the financials (it must be the accountant in me : ) and they were difficult to locate without subheadings.
Good luck!
Deborah
Thanks Deborah. This venture would target the corporate learning world. There may be a market in post-secondary as well, but to begin with we would focus on private corporations.
Hi Chris,
Good job on your elevator pitch, you have proposed the problem, the solution and the specifics of what ID Network does in a less than 1 minute long pitch! You maintained a calm and convincing tone throughout your pitch, personally I really liked the way you illustrated your pitch. However, as an EVA I believe first impression matters and if I was to invest in your venture I would like to see the CEO do this presentation as I think this would convince me better and strengthen the confidence you have in your venture which would make me buy into your venture. The impression that your pitch gave me was that this venture is marketed to people in the workforce such as employees in a corporation and after reviewing your detailed venture pitch where most of your information and statistics was based on USA and as you indicated in your paper that ID Network is a global trend, will this venture also be marketed to the general public including students globally?
Once again, excellent elevator pitch and thanks for sharing!
Karon
Thanks for the feedback Karon. I just wanted to address your questions. Yes, although half of the worldwide elearning market is based in the U.S, this service would be open globally. We would charge the fee to employers (free for contractors).
Hi Chris,
Great job – I can tell you have done this before. Very professional – your pitch had a very convincing array of stats and other research to support your venture approach and give insight into the product your are selling. I was personally very intrigued by the costs and hours required to turn out a one hour module (I should be more accountable of my own time).
I was a little confused by the 5% fee. Am I right in assuming that the 5% is charged to the hiring company? For example if a contractor is hired for $100.00 the company that hired them is charged an additional $5.00? (pardon for my simple math, but I am an English/Humanities teacher). Did I get that right?
I can see some potential pitfalls with underbidding and undercutting on behalf of the contractors, but that’s capitalism right? Your self-reflection also noted the possibility of both contractors and companies going outside of the system once a relationship is established – I hadn’t thought of that – hopefully your platform will be enough to keep everyone on board.
Thank you for such a professional and enlightening presentation.
Hi Gillian. Thanks for the kind words. Yes, you understanding for the 5% fee is correct. An employer awarding a contract to a bidding elearning service charge you pay ID Network 5% of the total project. Perhaps it is low, but we would need to attract corporations to post their projects to get off the ground.
Chris:
I think you’ve developed a great concept. If you can develop your venture as a trustworthy middleman as you propose, I think that you can maintain a necessary buffering capacity that holds the two sides ogether that you wish to connect. Your elevator pitch is a clear presentation where you identify the pain points and relevant solutions. Your relaxed voice indicates your confidence in your venture but personal/facial presence would have helped to convince me of your authenticity. As others have stated, I am unclear on the 5% transaction fee and how that will generate revenue for your company. I’m also not clear on your target market. Is it global, continental or restricted to some local level? This is based on your elevator pitch and you may have answered this in your venture pitch. Great work.
Tim
Hi Chris,
Thank you for sharing your pitches and after reviewing your elevator pitch I have the follow comments.
I like the way that you set the stage with the concept that elearning is an integral part of education and you follow with the fact that it is a costly endeavor to maintain a department with all of the facilities necessary to operate. You had me interested at this point and continued to do so by then posing the question “What if corporations had access to a global network of learning design professionals on a project basis?” then answering it by introducing IDNetwork. I thought this was well done. However, when I look at this a practical venture it seems that it would take a lot of time and effort to match the training specific to a company. I can also see that companies might be concerned about information regarding their projects might be leaked by the elearning trainers who do not work directly for the company.
On the technical side, I thought that the visuals were great and the description was straightforward. One small adjustment would be to make sure that words on the screen match the words in the audio (example: staff training vs employee training).
Bridget
Hi Bridget
Thank you very much for the feedback. When I read your concern about companies wanting to protect their information from leaking it to elearning providers, I instantly kicked myself for not including a part in the venture pitch about the legalities of contracting through IDNetwork. I would include a non-disclosure agreement in the contract between employers and contractor.
I also believe that this concept would save people time in money. An employer could scan several portfolios and bids and make an appropriate match themselves. IDNetwork only provides the platform.
Thanks – wish I could have read your comments before I finished the paper!
Chris;
This is a great idea and I can see the corporate world heading this way as they want to know what they are getting for their money and still want a voice in how their products/education gets delivered. Many companies would like professionally produced training but do not want to front the cost of creating it themselves, or even know where to begin. They can now shop around for what they are looking for and contract someone to do it. Easy. I might be calling you up for some help on my venture. As others mentioned I would use your own voice as it brings out your passion and shows your competence as CEO.
Dennis
HI Chris, I found your pitch clear and appreciated the illustrations because they helped me visualize the somewhat foreign to me concepts you were discussing. I think the idea of outsourcing e-learning development is a fabulous idea, and love your idea of developers bidding for projects. I can see a lot of creative people flourishing in that context, rather than being assigned projects based on the needs of their employer. An interesting model that I will keep in mind as I think about how to make the best progress and bring the best out of people in the workforce. Thank you!
Chelsea
This is such a creative idea Chris,
You are absolutely right that e-learning is costly. My experience has definitely proven that.
I can see the potential for this venture as employers try to incorporate e-learning more and more in their workplaces while trying to save costs. Going to a pool of experienced individuals who can develop the content certainly makes sense and is appealing to corporations. I really like the idea of the portfolio – experts can showcase their work and make it easy for clients to decide.
Thanks.
Leonora
Chris,
As a visual person, I really appreciated your pitch, as I could visualize much clearer. I appreciate that you haven’t sugar-coated and recognized the opportunities for outsourcing and the incorporation of elearning into the business sector. Ah, money is what makes the world go ’round, doesn’t it?!
Thanks,
Todd
Hello and welcome to Speaking Visually, the online arts integrated modules that address the need for learners to develop 21st century literacy skills including: visual, critical thinking, and creativity skills. To learn more about this venture you can view the elevator pitch and review the venture pitch. Elevator Pitch Venture Pitch SpeakingVisually You’ll also find […]
Continue reading Speaking Visually Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Claire
I really enjoyed viewing your elevator pitch. The images and music were beautiful and held my attention throughout the pitch. Your idea is original and certainly would have a niche in our education system. One suggestion that I think would improve your elevator pitch would be delivering your pitch in person on the video. This would, I think lend more credibility to the CEO, and give investors a chance to see firsthand your commitment and passion for your venture.
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Thanks for your suggestion Valerie.
There’s much to consider in preparing a presentation. After viewing many of the presentations in the venture forum I have to say having video of the CEO does add credibility. To improve my pitch a blending of images and video of me presenting might be a good solution.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Your elevator pitch worked. Your proposal is so far out of my area of expertise, that I watched the elevator pitch three times before I caught on to what the venture was about (not because you didn’t explain it well, but because I am so unfamiliar with art education). That speaks volumes about your elevator pitch because even though I didn’t understand at first, it made me want to watch again and figure it out. In fact, it really worked because I went on to read your venture pitch.
Your venture clearly outlines a need in the art education market and identifies why your solution will meet that need in a unique way. You have a well laid out plan for marketing and the personal credentials you have outlined give me confidence that you can lead this venture. Your overall plan for development was comprehensive – I appreciated how you explained the proposed teacher to student ratio and at which points you would need additional teachers, admin and tech support. It is clear that your venture is well thought out and extremely organized. It was a pleasure to read.
I think this venture has real merit. After reading your proposal, you have me convinced that there is a need in the education system, but I am somewhat concerned that it might be a hard sell to school districts or students who may not see that need. Finding the right angle and venue for marketing it would be key to its success.
Overall, an impressive proposal.
Janet
Hi Janet,
I agree that generally speaking districts don’t pay a great deal of attention to art education. However, with the current trend toward personalized learning and the push for educational reforms, they are paying attention to options that contribute to students developing 21st century skills. I can see that a marketing goal needs to be to very quickly communicate that this venture goes well beyond offering art instruction and describe how modules are designed to aid students in gaining the skills they need for success in the conceptual age.
Claire
What a unique idea Claire!!! The stats you provided added “weight” and made the venture concept more appealing.
An in-person pitch would have been even more impactful. I myself filmed two versions, one just voice and then another one with video but finally decided to use the video version.
Concept and team
The venture concept “a solution to enhance visual literacy” is very clearly articulated.
The detailed information about team roles and the thinking behind supporting the future growth convey confidence and competence in carrying out the plan successfully.
Marketability
I like the idea of tying this to essential skills because that to me sounds promising in terms of market opportunities. The competition is well researched – my only suggestion would be to probably elaborate a bit more on what differentiates Speaking Visually from the competition.
Venture Plan
A very well thought-out plan Claire. As an investor I would have liked to see a larger profit share and if not possible then maybe a rationale would be helpful.
Great work.
Leonora
Hi Leonora,
I appreciate your comments and agree that some in-person segments would improve my pitch. I actually began by creating a video of myself but it didn’t seem to fit my venture idea so I switched to presenting images and me speaking. Now that I’ve had more opportunity to reflect I think a combination of in-person video and visuals would have worked well.
As I understand it an investor is looking for a return equal to or greater than the initial investment. I might not be clear on that though. It would be helpful for me to participate in discussion regarding expectations in that area.
Claire
Hi Claire
I really like this idea. I have always thought, that with the recent improvements to web-based digital media, that high quality education in fine arts would become possible. I got the sense from your elevator pitch that a quality learning experience would be offered.
My hesitation regarding this venture and other tuition based ventures surrounds facing the emerging competition from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). There are some major university partnerships in the US such as the $60 million dollar edX partnership of MIT and Harvard. I would need to know more about how this service would be differentiated from existing MOOCs and platforms like Udemy and Coursera which are attracting the big universities.
Hi Chris,
Whenever the idea of selling online courses comes up so too does the fact that some of the major universities offer open online courses. It’s my understanding that what these courses offer is content. While they include video instruction and demonstration, they are in fact the equivalent of online texts. The modules I’m marketing are designed for learning communities and the construction of knowledge. My approach is to encourage learners to pull content rather than having content pushed at them. Each module encourages students to be creative as they define problems and work collaboratively to find logical solutions. Once they’ve arrived at a solution or solutions the next task is to go beyond spoken or written forms of communication and use visual forms to articulate their findings.
Claire
Hi Claire,
I really like your elevator pitch, which is so engrossing and passionate. It does work to lead me into your venture proposition, though I wish there could be a few key words in the pictures to give me a quick idea of the story behind (forgive my poor hearing).
I love the cover of your venture pitch. That shows a great sense of art. I have no doubt that your credit and capability can make you a qualified leader for this venture. I would hope to see a clearer story for how the “visual” and “speaking” parts work together. Do students orally speak out opinions for presented pictures, or do they “speak” in the form of visual pieces? What kind of arts can be considered as “ill-defined”? Does the “illness” mean in art sense or in social sense? In my understanding (not professional), art is perceptual which values creativity and innovation, how to associate it with very rational “problem solving” and “critical thinking”? I think you have a very thorough plan for operating the venture, including human resources, but I would like to see a more detail description of your potential users. In the competition paragraph, a brief comparison could help to clarify the differentiation advantages of your venture to the others.
Well done, Claire!
Ping
Hi Ping,
You offer something for me to consider when you suggest that I use text as well as images and audio to communicate my idea. My idea highlights the fact that visuals offer a language of their own. We’re so accustomed to communicating through spoken and written language that we easily overlook the power of the visual language that is everywhere.
In my competition paragraph I don’t compare my idea with the art options listed as these options teach technique and aren’t offering arts integrated education. Perhaps I should add a sentence to that section to make it clear that to my knowledge there currently are no online arts integrated options.
Claire
Hi Claire,
This is a very interesting idea, as I think it is very challenging to get school-aged students to reflect on art in more ways than saying that they “like” or “dislike” it. I believe this venture would be quite beneficial to art education curriculums. I was wondering, however, whether the learners are working collaboratively on problem-solving through art, on understanding problems represented through art or on creating art that represents current problems … or a bit of all of those. I also wonder how you might market this course as superior or different from existing art education courses, or art-centric blogs.
Great work!
May
Hi May,
As you suggest students are problem-solving, gaining understanding of problems, and representing solutions to problems through art. The difference between existing face-to-face art education courses and my proposal is that the students go beyond a focus that is personal in nature to explore issues that are relevant to their cultures and communities. This means that modules offer arts integrated options to students at the grade 10-12 level. Students learn to communicate through a range of art forms but also earn credit for disciplines other than visual art. When comparing Speaking Visually to online art options the differences are greater as the online options’ primary goal is to teach technique. With an increasing number of students at the grade 10-12 level electing to learn from home and seeking online courses there is a need for quality online art options.
Claire
Hi Claire,
I thought your elevator pitch was excellent and I really like your venture concept. After reading your full pitch, it’s clear that this venture is needed and different than many other products out there on the market today. I wonder how you would gain entrance into schools with this product tough – and would you target school districts – or ?
Overall, great pitch,
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I think that endorsement from national, provincial, and state organizations such as the Canadian Society for Education through Art (CSEA) and the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in the US would prove valuable in marketing to schools and districts. In the public system the decision to purchase Speaking Visually might be made at the district level but I would also market to school administrators and art educators. Marketing to Independent schools should be primarily to administration and art educators.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Your elevator pitch was visually intriguing which of course is perfect for the venture you are proposing. However, I must admit that I found myself distracted from your words by the imagery – perhaps, as Ping suggested, a few key words of text for emphasis may help to keep your viewers focused.
Your venture pitch was well laid out and I was especially impressed by how clearly you communicated the need to expend visual communication and its oft overlooked benefits of critical, collaborative and critical thinking skills. I was also impressed by the structure of the service from an educator standpoint. I have seen many students fail to complete self-paced courses due to lack of structure and isolation – your plan seems to resolve these issues. Your proposed orientation process is very comprehensive and it appears your team is more than capable of implementing it.
On the money side, I was somewhat confused. I found your start-up costs very low – it seems to me that you are under-valuing yourself and your team. It was also unclear to me how you are actually ‘selling’ your product to your customers – what is the cost to them?
Overall an idea worth investigating. Well done
gillian
Hi Gillian,
Thanks for offering your thoughts concerning my pitch. I have some things to consider if I choose to move forward with this venture. I agree that I could be more courageous when it comes to launching this venture. While I’m trying to be practical and keep things manageable, and therefore small scale, I hadn’t considered how this might be perceived as communicating a lack of confidence or under-valuing the idea and the team’s capabilities.
Costs to customers varies depending on whether it’s an individual or a group signing up and the level of the students participating. You’re right a summary of student fees should be included with my proposal.
Claire
Hi Claire, I found your elevator pitch highly effective, engaging, and clear. I would have liked to see more about how the courses would be designed: I liked the idea that students would engage in visuals relevant to their communities: how will connections with people from other communities be moderated? Great idea with excellent potential. Thanks, Chelsea
Hi Chelsea,
If I had a few more weeks to prepare for this presentation I’d create at least one module and include a preview of it in my proposal. The opportunity to see how modules are organized and presented would certainly help to convince investors that this is a worthwhile venture.
Students participate in a placement interview prior to beginning a module. The purpose of the interview is to ensure that learners with similar interests and skill level are placed together. While learners will have the opportunity to address issues of relevance to their culture and community this does not mean that cross-cultural groups will not occur. Many topics will lend themselves well to contributions from learners from varying backgrounds.
Claire
Hi Claire,
Good job on your venture pitch and proposition. Your elevator pitch was very well-designed as you tried to use pictures to reflect your venture and the opening phrase “a picture represents a thousand words”. You did a very good job in articulating the core benefits and what your venture does, although in your elevator pitch you didn’t quite state what is the current challenges that people are facing but your detailed proposition has presented that information which made up for that and it acts quite nice as a follow-up document to your elevator pitch. As an EVA, I would suggest that you incorporate a brief introduction for your elevator pitch and perhaps having a scene or two with yourself leading the elevator pitch would have been more convincing as that would help you gain credibility and accountability, I think it is important to the investor in knowing who is actually presenting the venture to them.
Karon
Hi! I’m Sheza Naqi, an experienced ESL teacher and CEO of FREESL Blogging. Watch our 1 minute Elevator Pitch to get a sense of this venture in educational technology: Participating in an online language learning community is a good way for ESL students to improve speaking and writing skills. FREESL Blogging allows English Language Learners […]
Continue reading FREESL Blogging – A Blogging Community Exclusively for ELLs Posted in: Venture Forum
HI Sheza. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this venture. I think it is a great idea to try and link ELL learners together and your idea is one worth pursuing. However, I’m confused by the title of your venture FREESL when in reality, you’re hoping for about half of the users to pay, so then in the end, it’s not really free? I wonder if this would confuse or frustrate users and drive away potential customers. Your elevator pitch is quite well done and your Prezi is very detailed.
In the end, while the idea is intriguing, I’m not sure that I’m ready to invest at this time. Good luck!
Dear Jody,
Thanks so much for your valuable feedback. The title FREESL is not meant to be confusing; the primary service is blogging and this will remain a free service on the site. The additional pay-features are available to enhance the language learning and are completely optional to the user. We are expecting that the users of this site would be interested in pursuing their goal of fluency in English, therefore they are likely to opt-in for the service if they can afford it; and it is quite affordable!
Hopefully this pricing plan will not frustrate customers as there are many sites where the initial or main service is free with some optional features available for purchase as add-ons. Even Prezi works in this way.
I would hope to be able to convince you to invest at a more in-depth meeting where we could discuss the venture further 🙂
Thanks,
Sheza
Hi Sheza,
Thank you for allowing me to view your pitches! Your personal connection in the elevator pitach drew me in so that I was interested in viewing your prezi. Perhaps I missed your “ask”? But I think this is a viable venture and I would invest. I am quite used to working with tools (e.g. Voicethread) that allows some capabilites for FREE and demands $ for “extras”.
All the best,
Ronna
Dear Ronna,
Thanks for your positive feedback. It is very encouraging! The ask was indicated in the venture pitch: $1,000,000 over two years.
Thanks again,
Sheza
Sheza,
Thanks for sharing your pitches. Both were excellent! During your elevator pitch I was thinking “you must have done this before”. I became totally intrigued. Your Prezi was also excellent, and I thought that was a great way/tool to present your venture. Though I feel you might have some real competition with social network tools already available, I could see this service being very beneficial to adult ELL students. I’d invest,if not for the idea, but your professionalism and enthusiasm!
Super Job!
David McInnes
Hi David,
Thanks so much for your encouraging feedback! I haven’t actually done this before, but I really enjoyed it!
I agree that the social networking competition is heavy in today’s market but that this does offer something different than your typical Facebook type site in giving ELLs a safe place to practice their language skills in order to become more comfortable with publicly tweeting or Facebooking!
Thanks again,
Sheza
Sheza,
Awesome elevator pitch, it definitely captured my attention as an investor to continue on to your venture pitch.
I would be interested in your company for the sheer volume of traffic that it could generate. However, under the current fee structure I think a 50% pay rate is way higher than what is possible and that an Ad revenue stream may be more realistic. With that said a micro-fee structure you have proposed may have opportunity to work along side with Ads.
Another worry is competitors (social networks) could adapt your features (paid native speakers) and could cut into your clientele especially with large scale ad driven revenue systems.
Clearly there is risk funding this project until it hits critical mass. Staff, network and marketing costs will put pressure on generating revenue at a scale that is sustainable. However, If the user population peaks– so could returns on the initial investment.
Great Job,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the feedback 🙂 I can understand your concern about the 50% pay rate, however, at that rate the investor is getting 100% ROI, and so even witha lower subscription level to our paid features we are looking at generating some viable revenue.
I had not thought about using an Ad revenue stream but you are right – that would be an excellent way to break even at the get go while we wait for the user base to build.
Thanks for your suggestions!
Sheza
Great presentation Sheza!
Your presentation is VERY slick and well done… I liked how dynamic it is.
Very engaged and you cover off most of the questions I had during the presentation.
My biggest concern is with the possible competitors and platforms. I wouldn’t want to lose the uniqueness of the concept. I would want to discuss that further before investing, but the plan, the enthusiasm and the passion are definite sellers.
Well done!
Hi Yves! Thanks for the positive feedback.
The competition is there but I would hope that our idea is unique enough that we can capture a good chunk of the market off the get-go.
I would love to show you a business plan to secure your investment 🙂
Thanks again,
Sheza
Hi Sheza,
I agree, this was a great presentation both for you elevator pitch and your venture pitch. You have a well researched and developed market concept and I like the idea of starting people off with free-services and then providing extra pay-features. Paying your native english speakers also means you can control the quality of the support and respond to your customers. Would you plan to have a feedback component from the ESL learners in order to monitor how they are doing and what things are working well or not?
While I still have a few questions I would want to see your venture plan for implementation and I would be interested in investing.
Dave
Hi Dave!
Thank you for the feedback. Yes I think an opportunity for feedback from our users would be an excellent way to ensure that our services are meeting their needs. This could take the form of an online user-survey or having users rate their Paid Native English Speakers. Thanks for the suggestion.
Let’s set up a meeting to discuss the business plan soon. Hope to count you as an investor! 😉
Sheza Naqi
Hello Sheza,
I am totally impressed with both your elevator pitch and your venture pitch. Both are very effective and professional. It actually looks as if a professional company did them for you. Kudos!
I had no idea you could do all of that with a Prezi – I don’t know how long it took you to do your presentation, but you have successfully covered every base of your venture. I was especially impressed with your projections for your venture – really well researched indeed! As an ESL teacher, I can see how such a venture could work and I would certainly invest in your company!
The only thing I might change is the title ‘FREESL’, I feel it advertises the company falsely, as it is essentially a paying service with some free elements to it.
Congratulations on a job well done!
Marie-France
Hi Marie-France,
Thank you for your vote of confidence! I appreciate your positive feedback. Prezis are great – really fun to make and I find they do a great job of breaking down your information in a manageable way for the viewer to take in.
I appreciate your feedback regarding the title – although I would hope it wouldn’t turn users off; essentially it is a way to catch their attention and bring them onto the site, but it does not do so falsely as indeed the Blogging service offered is completely free!
Thanks again,
Sheza Naqi
Hello Sheza
Splendid! I like your Prezi and youtube. The topic you are dealing with is great as well. Blogging has become one of the essential educational features of our age. Exploring this field is great and has future in the market. I am sure your venture will be attract investors.
The question I have is the same which voiced by other classmates : you call it Free but it is not so. Or probably you wanted to do what some companies are doing theses days, they say “free” but they charge the users of their products. When they are asked how come you mentioned it is free, they usually say it is “free” to download the software but not to use it.
As for me personally , business in blogging is not tempting. I feel the market is depleted. So I wouldn’t invest in such a project.
You did a great job
Hussain
Hi Hussain,
Thanks for your feedback. I thought FREESL Blogging was a catchy and dynamic name for the company but it is not just for show – the blogging service on the site is indeed free of charge. There are additional pay features also available but these are optional of course.
Thanks again,
Sheza
Hello Sheza,
Please give yourself a pat on the back for the great elevator pitch. It was very professionally done and I think your enthusiasm for ESL and ELL came through splendidly. I am move as an instructor by your talk as I know how important it is for ELL to socialize, having been one myself.
As an investor, I would love to have seen a bit more of your value proposition in the elevator pitch, which, I thought was lacking. However, as I have said, your enthusiasm moved me so much that I wanted to watch on.
I think your idea has a great potential there, but as with many social media, you will need a immense marketing budget to jump start it in this market that you already said is saturated with resources which sends users spinning. Sustainment is also very key to your success in the future.
I am not quite sold on your product based on the fact that I am not sure how you will capture your free user’s attention to become paid users. This is beyond what the paid structure could do (which I like, it was a great sustainment strategy). How would you let them know how great of a difference it would make to be a paid user versus a free user? Will there be free trials?
Another thing that I worry about is the uniqueness of your proposal. What is preventing me from taking your idea and doing the same? (yes I’d be a big jerk if I do that, but that is what happens in the business world).
(Man this role playing is tough, I need to watch more Dragons Den to do it!!) Good luck with your venture, Sheza! I think you have a good start, polish it and it might be just be gold 🙂
Cheers,
Sherman
Hi Sherman!
Thanks for the positive feedback. I think that you raise some great questions – it would indeed be a great idea to offer some free trials of the paid features to hook new users. Another idea is that those who sign on for this service are dedicated learners looking for that online resource that does more than the other ‘freebie’ sites in abundance offer.
I can also understand the competition concern – someone could indeed put up another social networking site offering the same services but there is something to be said for brand loyalty when it comes to where you do your socializing. I find that if there were another Facebook type site to come along I would be hard-pressed to switch over, considering my entire social network was already developed on the existing site.
Hopefully sitting down with you to discuss my complete business plan can secure your investment!
Thanks again Sherman,
Sheza Naqi
Hi Sheza,
You have put together a fantastic elevator pitch and caught my attention with your enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject you are presenting. I do have some concerns with your product before I would fully invest in your venture.
Firstly, it seems that there might be a lot of competition for services like this. I know some of the big names in ESL learning (or language learning in general) offer services why users can speak with native speakers. Rosetta Stone offers this with a paid subscription to their services. I like the idea of including the social networking aspect, but how will users know when they have reached a level of competency that will begin to open doors for them? Are there assessments and feedback for users, or is it just a place where users can practice?
Personally, I think that an estimate of 50% of users enrolling in the paid options for the blog is a little high as most would probably continue with the free version. I like the idea of extras that people can pay for, but I think that less than half will pay for services.
All in all, I really like the idea of your venture and if I truly were an investor, would be willing to talk with you more about your plans and the future of FREESL.
Great work,
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
Thanks for the feedback. I think your idea of having competency tests online as part of the package is an interesting one although originally I had envisioned the site to be like a social networking sandbox for ELLs who might want a place to have their blogs/tweets edited before publishing them on their main social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter for all the world to see.
I think that even if we have fewer members who subscribe for the pay features we would be in a good position as a venture to invest in, considering that at 50% subscribers we are looking at 100% ROI.
Thanks and look forward to sitting down with you to discuss our complete business plan!
Sheza Naqi
Good work. The elevator pitch made me want to know more about your product, which says a lot since the topic itself it not a focus of mine. Your visuals made me believe that you product was fun and interactive.
Dear Mackenzie,
Thanks for your interest in the venture and the positive feedback 🙂
Sheza
Great work on the pitches. I even felt the impulse to invest after watching the pitch. Your venture pitch was informative. I think your concept is a great one (especially the part where users can practice with other users). However, there is too much strong competition to start a new social media website. In fact, you may need to use those competitors to get your product going. For that reason, I will not invest in this time.
On a side note, I think it may be worthwhile just to consider a Facebook plug-in instead. This way, you don’t need to compete with social media giants–you’re part of it but you provide a service that Facebook doesn’t naturally provide.
Dear Colin,
Thanks for your valuable feedback! I think your idea of offering our venture up as a plug-in to existing social media giants is a viable option. Perhaps if we are unable to generate the interest on our own we can make this a part of our site.
Thanks again,
Sheza Naqi
Welcome to ThinkLand, an in-cloud space for collaborative and creative thinking. This solution is made up of three products: FreeThinker, FreeProject and FreeGroup. It is developed to facilitate quick think, quick work, and quick reflection, by natural input, output, construction and collaboration. We understand that thinking is the original power to push our world forward. […]
Continue reading Welcome to ThinkLand ! Posted in: Venture Forum
Hey Ping,
Again, I couldn’t access the elevator pitch so I just read your venture pitch. The graphics were amazing and made your presentation look very professional. I wasn’t surprised when you stated that you have experience in graphic design. As for the idea, it would be a great idea for an iPad so the user can use their hands/fingers for input to create a mind map, but I feel there is way too much competition in iPad apps to differentiate this idea enough. On a desktop computer, I’m unsure how this program will actually be faster than using any other mind mapping software. As for suggestions, I would suggest video clips of these 3 programs working unison to truly sell the idea, and forgive me if they are contained within your elevator pitch. Short video clips of these programs working together will sell this product for you. Since this idea is so visually dependent, any type of video visuals will do it a great service.
Good luck, and I look forward to seeing the eventual youtube video.
Thanks Pin.
-Regen
Hi Regen,
Thank you! I hope I heard your suggestion before I made the pitch. You are right, I should tell the story with a demo on how these 3 programs work together. I should sell the idea first before selling the product or the venture plan. Sorry I didn’t realize this earlier. Your suggestion will be a big help if I really run for this idea someday.
Ping
Hi Ping
I really enjoyed viewing your elevator pitch. The idea is original and I love the name of your venture. The images and music were beautiful and well matched to your venture concept. The pitch itself is a little long and perhaps could be shortened, just enough to get the attention of investors. One suggestion that I think would improve your elevator pitch would be delivering your pitch in person on the video. This would, I think lend more credibility to the CEO, and give investors a chance to see firsthand your commitment and passion for your venture.
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
Thank you for your comments. I also think my elevator pitch is too long, but I was not familiar with video editing to make it shorter when I realized that. I also hoped to deliver the pitch by myself if I had enough time to improve my oral English 🙂 . I’m grateful for this practice, as well as your appreciation. Thanks again!
Ping
HI Ping,
This is an interesting concept. I really enjoyed the graphics in the pitch, but I would have liked to have seen you in the video as well. I think it would have personalized the pitch a bit and secured more buy-in from your potential investors.
Your venture pitch contained great diagrams that helped put the venture in perspective. You mentioned the size of the potential market and then quantified the K-12 market. I wasn’t sure if you were planning to target the K-12 market first? As an EVA, I would have liked more information on how you are planning to market your venture to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Good luck!
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
Thanks for comments! You are right that I was planning to target the K-12 market, but I know it would be difficult to start it at first. The children are not buyers themselves, so I would rather start from their parents and teachers. When they realize that many features of ThinkLand are better designed for natural thinking, they will recommend it to kids. The 3 parts of ThinkLand can be used as virtual learning environment, and also integrated to other learning environment. I should certainly think more about the marketing strategy as you noted. I’m not good at marketing things, but I think it’s a very interesting area to explore further. Thanks for your encouragement.
Ping
Hi Ping,
Good job on the elevator pitch, it was very detailed and the slideshow including diagrams have helped in clarifying your pitch. However, I think as the CEO it would have been great to have you infront of the camera to present this pitch to show us how confident and optimistic you are with this product. As an EVA I have enjoyed your elevator pitch but for most cases elevator pitches normally are 1 minute maximum having that your elevator pitch was 3 minutes and 12 seconds long, in the future you may want to see how you can trim it down in time and yet ensuring that all the full details are there. For myself, I find that this is the greatest challenge for the elevator pitch.
You’re on a great start, keep up the good work!
Karon
Hi Karon,
Thank you for your comments. I definitely should cut the pitch shorter. And if I could do it again, I would change the style of the pitch and make a more appealing story instead of speaking behind the slide. As you point out, it’s a big challenge to trim it down yet ensure all the details lossless. After reviewing many pitches in this forum, I am sure I will do better in the next time. Thanks!
Ping
Hi Ping,
I think your idea is great and very original. I envisioned myself drawing with my finger on a tablet screen and it magically becoming a neatly drawn mind map and then I could follow it up with real time collaboration – what a fantastic thought.
Although your elevator pitch was on the long side, it was very comprehensive and as many others have stated your graphics in both pitches is a great strength for you.
Hi Gillian,
Thanks for envisioning as a ThinkLand user! You share the same feeling as mine. I believe someday we could have such kind of support on a real platform. I now realize the shortage of my elevator pitch. If I could just visualize it from your envisioning point, it would be more engaging and more credible. Thanks for reviewing my both pitches! Thanks for encouragement!
Ping
Hi Ping,
Wow! This is an excellent venture idea and is certainly one that I’m interested in, especially as a new iPad user and someone who truly appreciates mind mapping. What is especially attractive about your venture is its compatibility with other platforms, and its cloud capabilities. I also think you have done an excellent job of outlining the investment return in a clear way that even those who are not business savvy make sense of the costs and potential growth.
My only suggestion would be to keep the elevator pitch short and simple. You have done your research, and the visuals are fantastic. Well done.
Danielle
Hi Dani,
Thanks for so much encouragement! I hope we could really have such kind of mind mapping tools someday in the future. The elevator pitch is a very big challenge for me, since I never did a pitch, or record a video for myself. It is already a big step for me to record my voice in a ppt slide, and turn it into a video file. I’ll make the elevator short and simple as you suggested. After reviewing pitches of our peers, I am aware that an elevator pitch are not necessary to convey too much details, but to tell a good story. I’m grateful for what I have learnt from this course. Thank you very much!
Ping
Hi Ping:
Your elevator pitch, though a little long, clearly presents the pain points in the area of education your are addressing. You have provided some great software solutions that, if packaged, would provide your clients with useful tools. Your visuals are very helpful in understanding your products. A heightened personal presence in your elevator pitch would enhance its authenticity. You mention that you will out-perform the competition but it is not clear to me exactly how that is occuring. It would have been helpful to know a little more specifics regarding your target market to analyze how effective your venture would be in the longer term. Overall, great work and nice presentation.
Tim
Hi Tim,
Thank for suggestions & questions! I believe there are competitive advantages in this venture as it compared with those representative competitors like Inspiration and Cacoo. I should address these differences with more details in my pitch, maybe from the user’s point of view. The long-term aspects is not very clear as you point out, I’ll think it more thoroughly, but I’m confident in myself that this kind of platforms for thinkers will have a future growth space. Thanks for your advices!
Ping
Hi Ping,
Thank you for sharing your pitches and after reviewing your elevator pitch I have the follow comments.
I like the way that you stated the purpose of your company (InCloud space for creative and collaborative thinking) and the problem, which your company solves
(with mind mapping tools our mind are faster than the tool). You offer a solution to the problem in a very clear manner with concise diagrams. The presentation flowed well and the audio matched the video very well in both timing and feel.
However, the pitch was much longer than required for the elevator pitch allowing deeper explanation of the venture. This made it difficult to compare it fairly with the other elevator pitches requiring me to eliminate it from my final three. I would be interested in viewing a one-minute pitch in order to see if my curiosity is peaked in the short time period.
It sounds like an interesting and possible venture.
Bridget
Hi Bridget,
Thanks for comments. I agree with you that my elevator pitch is too long. I’m lack of experience to make a presentation in audio or video. I’ve learnt a lot in this week from all of you. If I would come to a real circumstance to pitch this idea, I’ll do better as you suggest. Thanks!
Ping
Ping;
I like your pain points. If I can make my like more efficient I am better off, right? There is a huge online market for production and efficiency tools, especially as more and more people get online or go mobile. Your pitch reminded me or Evernote and I am just getting familiar with that program. It is supposed to help keep us organized. I do like the collaborative aspect to your venture, as well as the organizational aspects. I am sure that if you keep working on it you could have a real venture on your hands.
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
You encourage me greatly! I do hope I could have this venture at hand someday. The feeling of freely drawing, organizing and collaborating was appealing to me. I like you comments that “there is a huge online market for efficiency tools”. We’ve already been in an era when human-computer-interaction is about to revolute tremendously. Thanks for sharing your vision with me, and thanks for encouragement so much.
Ping
Ping, I don’t want to reiterate what my colleagues have said about the length of the pitch…. 🙂 It was beautifully done but I, too, would have appreciated seeing the face behind the pitch. You have also made a statement about outdoing the competition. How exactly are you going to be doing this? That being said, the world is truly focused on efficiency and productivity, and your ideas have fit right into that motion!
Todd
Rendez-vous is an on-line French Learning Management System and live communication company that is available 24/7 from any handheld device. Rendez-vous is an emerging market venture that will be the first of its kind, allowing French students access to mother tongue speakers around the clock. Here is the link for the Elevator Pitch included with my Venture […]
Continue reading RENDEZ-VOUS – The Company For You Posted in: Venture Forum
Good day Donna.
Great job on your pitches, they were both engaging and well presented. I think your idea has potential not just in the education market but also in the private sector. There are any folks who are now not in the work-force anymore and are looking for things to do to occupy time. I know my mother has began taking second language coures and has really enjoyed them, but something like this takes it to the next level! By actually having real-time conversations with other French speakers just makes the experience that much more engaging and meaningful! When French becomes a success with this program, the potential to target other languages is endless! Investment made!
Thanks,
Jon
Hello Jon,
Thank you very much for your comments on my Venture Pitch.
I hadn’t thought of the private sector as an option for Rendez-vous, so that’s worth looking into.
I hope that your mother is enjoying learning her second language.
Have a good week,
Donna
Hi Donna,
I really like the idea behind Rendez-Vous, but there were a few questions that came to mind that would keep me from investing at this point. I really like the focus on mobile devices, as this is a strong approach to encouraging youth to become active language learners and there is no doubt that learning from native speakers is the best approach! I did wonder, however, about the student teacher ratio, as you mentioned aiming for 25,000 students, but hiring only 16 instructors…is each instructor really going to be able to have meaningful conversations with over 1500 students? As well, what does Rendez-vous do that makes writing in the target language on Facebook or Twitter any different? I can sign in and write in any language I choose without a program – does it have specific pages or links where conversations are going on? I wasn’t sure about that part, but you’ve definitely got my interest!
My only other comment is that I felt somewhat disconnected from your elevator pitch as the static image of an elevator seemed unrelated and lacked excitement. I understand why you chose it, but some variation might spark more interest!
Nice work, I would love to see where this idea takes you!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Thanks so much for your comments.
I had thought about the teacher-student ratio at first and came to the conclusion that at first, the novelty of phoning would probably put the strain on the teachers but would then peter out later on and eventually, only those really eager students would call more often which would balance out for the instructors. It would definitely by something to seriously plan if the company is to take off.
For Facebook and Twitter, I know that my students don’t choose now to write in French. However, if the francophone instructors from Rendez-vous and the other students in their cohort are on special groups on Facebook, they will only be writing in French. Also, the teachers can recommend people to follow on Twitter as well.
For my elevator pitch, I was trying to set up the atmosphere of stepping into an elevator and having to listen to what was being said. However it didn’t come across as I had hoped. Next time I will definitely do things differently.
Thanks again and have a good week.
Donna
Great idea, Donna. I really like this pitch. Even the name of the company, Rendez-vous strikes me as very catchy. I like that this company is a French on-line Learning Management System and live communication company that is available 24/7 from any handheld device.
It’s also unique that Rendez-Vous that will be the first of its kind, allowing French students access to mother tongue speakers around the clock. I don’t think there’s quite a product like this.
As a mobile user myself, I think what catches my attention is your thorough analysis about the telecommunications media companies involved. I find your analysis of Telus as an example of thinking ahead and allaying my concerns about how this intensive use of mobile technology will cost for those who will require larger smartphone/cell phone data plans since there will be constant use of text and data. Great job over all, and I look forward to seeing how this venture will progress!
Allan
Hello Allan,
Thank you so much for your comments.
My analysis for the telecommunications media companies involved may only work for B.C. However, I would need to do more of an investigation with other companies such as Bell Canada in order to see about package deals with the rest of Canada.
I do think that this is a unique product that provides acces to native speakers 24/7, so I believe that there is a market for Rendez-vous!
Thanks again,
Donna
Hi Donna,
Great job with your pitches. I think this is an incredible completive market you are entering and if you are successful the reward could be immense. Outside of the public education system there are many individuals who are interested in learning French from native speakers and so there is the opportunity to expand into other markets which I like as an investor. Additionally, if you are successful you could consider expanding to include other languages (spanish, chinese, etc) I am concerned about the ratio of students to teachers (25,000 to 16?) and not sure how that will work especially if you are operating 24/7. Your management team seems to have the necessary background to make this venture work, however, after much consideration I am going to pass on the investment.
Greg
Hello Greg,
Thank you very much for your feedback. I also questioned myself about the student-teacher ratio. Meggan also had the same concerns so if you read my comments to her above, then it will explain a little about how I was thinking out my plan.
I believe that this company could work and also expand to other languages such as Chinese and Spanish as you mentioned. When I was learning my second, third and fourth languages, I discovered that the hardest thing to do was to talk on the phone, since you don’t have the face or lips of the person speaking in front of you.
I’m sorry that I can’t count on your $500,000. A bit of a disappointment:)
Cheers,
Donna
Hi Donna,
I think you have a great idea for a venture. There is certainly a huge market for second language learning and providing students with an opportunity to converse in another language outside of class would be a huge selling point.
One suggestion for your elevator pitch, though. The enthusiasm in your voice is compelling, but a few images other than the elevator would have made it a little more engaging. Something like VoiceThread where your narration could have been accompanied by changing images might work well.
All the best on your venture,
Janet
Hello Janet,
Thank you so much for your feedback.
I agree that my elevator pitch was weak. I had originally wanted to give the listener the impression that they were riding the elevator and listening to my pitch. However, it does need some more images and a bit more pizzazz!
Thanks again and have a great week.
Donn
Hi Donna,
Your venture certainly addresses a need for French language learners to use the language they’re learning. The ability to access French speakers 24/7 is a definite bonus. I’m not clear on how options to converse on Facebook and Twitter are unique to Rendez-vous. My main concern though is the teacher to student ratio of 1:1562. This ratio means that in a 40 hour work week each teacher will have approximately 1.5 minutes to speak with each student. In order to be of value there should be sufficient time for teachers to get to know the students and encourage meaningful dialogue. A ratio of 1:80 would allow for 30 minute weekly conversations.
Claire
Hello Claire,
Thank you so much for your feedback,
The teacher-student ratio has been a common concern of others too. I agree that 30 minutes weekly would be best. I first planned that at the beginning, many students would phone teachers but then when the novelty wore off, things would settle down and there would be less students calling in general. It is definitely a major point in my venture that would have to be re-visited if it is to come to fruition!
Thanks again and have a great week.
Donna
Donna, I love the connection and thought of ‘teachers without borders’. Perhaps, in this time of fiscal restraint and union unrest, it’s an idea that will take off. Second language learning is certainly on the upswing, but the demand for French would be a limiting factor to the potential growth of your venture. I struggled to see how you would make money on this venture, but then saw the data on the slides, outlining potential return on investments.
You outlined a plan for moving from the BC environment into other provinces, but since education is a provincial mandate, did you consider how you would make contacts and customer base in provincial environments that may not be as open to the opportunities you would provide to their students? I know that Ontario has a program of instruction for french language learning that may close the door for potential profits in this province.
Your elevator pitch provides passion in your tone but this is lost in the absence of engaging images or personal ‘presence’ of the CEO. The details in your venture pitch are extensive and compelling. There is potential in the concept, but the market potential beyond BC borders (for teachers without borders) may hamper the business goals.
Helen
Hello Helen,
Thank you so much for your comments.
Yes, moving into the other provinces would be a challenge and I would need to do more homework to see if other programs of instruction such as in Ontario would be open to a program like this. Maybe I would need to takes Jon’s advice and move to the private sector.
I agree that my elevator pitch needs my presence and a few more engaging images. My first plan of giving the listener the impression that they were riding an elevator didn’t come across as I had planned.
Thanks again for your comments and have a great week.
Donna
Hello Donna,
Indeed our two ventures are similar . . . it never occurred to me anyone would have anything close to the same idea as my Converse-A-Long idea. The type of enterprise you propose however is more ‘course’ oriented, offering clients the possibility to learn French through your program, focussing on writing and speaking.
I found that you covered all the important point san investor would want to know concerning your venture. You elaborated your plan for short-term and long-term goals well, but felt that for investors they might think the endeavour a bit risky at an international level. Perhaps once your enterprise is well established in B.C. and can show some steady growth, then it might be a good idea to propose to future investors the idea of extending it to Europe.
The information you provided for your venture pitch was quite complete, but perhaps your powerpoint presentation could have been a bit more engaging visually, it felt more like a slide show.
Does this enterprise really exist or like me is it fictive? It certainly shows that you have researched the idea very well, thinking of every last detail. If it doesn’t exist yet, perhaps this is something you are truly thinking of starting up?
Marie-France
Bonjour Marie-France,
Thanks you so much for your comments,
Rendez-vous is indeed fictive. However, the idea of running a company is fun so it will be an idea at the back of my mind. There are so many things to think about in order to make a venture become a reality, it’s crazy!
I agree that my presentation came off as a slide show. That was my biggest challenge with this project, choosing the best type of media to use. I need to work on this aspect in the future.
Hope that you have a great summer.
Donna
Hi Donna,
I really like the concept of your venture, I think its a great idea and very practical. It’s clear that you’re an expert in this field, which is attractive as an investor – you “know what you’re doing” here.
I wonder though, because there are so many language learning products on the market, how does render-vous compare? Is this technology more expensive than what is currently used today – or ? More information on the competition and how you plan to dissolve the competition would have been good to include in your pitch.
Cheers,
Lisa
Hello Lisa,
Thank you for your comments.
You asked a very pertinent question about how Rendez-vous would compare to other language learning products in price. I would have to do some further research on this since when I was originally looking up the competition, I was concentrating on the quality of the products and not the $$$.
Have a great week.
Yours,
Donna
Elevator Pitch: Wonderful idea, compelling elevator pitch and I love your slogan! I love how you’ve covered all elements in this brief pitch. As a bilingual student and teacher, I’ve always found languages, accents and language learning to be very interesting. Your venture provides a real and useful service and you present it well. Having more than one image to depict the venture might have enhanced the presentation, but since the narration was excellent, it was not an issue for me. My only concern is that the venture is in its incubation/idea stage and already the valuation is $2M. While this valuation might be reasonable after the business has made some sales, it is a gamble for investors at this point. However, because of the usefulness of the product, especially in Canada, I would still consider investing in this venture.
Venture Pitch: The Rendez-Vous concept is impressive, comprehensive and the proposed language learning tools are excellent and interesting. I particularly like the idea of allowing students to recognize accents, as I have met many FSL students who attempt to speak Parisian French in Quebec, or students who disregard the need to work on accent altogether. One of the points that is somewhat concerning, however, is the idea that instructors must be available 7 days a week. While being “on call” 6 hours a day might not be incredibly demanding (since these instructors arguably wouldn’t be interacting with learners during those 42 hours a week), routinely working without a single day off would most likely be problematic for most individuals.
I really appreciated your inclusion of the Telus package, since it gives a good idea of how much the technological costs might be (though it might be possible for Rendez-Vous to negotiate a deal with a service provider because of high volume). An honest description of Rendez-Vous’ potential obstacles was also an excellent addition to your pitch, as well as an idea of the return on investment.
I did wonder, however, about the statement that Quebec does not have French Immersion, as I have worked as a student teacher in a French Immersion classroom (see http://www.rsb.qc.ca/?C61913D1-512F-4C81-B3EA-94B479D68D81) in the Montreal area a few years ago, though perhaps the schooling structure has changed since Bill 104 and national French Immersion and Quebec French Immersion are not equivalent programs.
Overall I love this idea, and with a bit of restructuring for employees’ sake, I believe this would be a very useful and potentially lucrative venture. Great work!
May
Hello May,
I’m glad to see that you would be interested in investing in Rendez-vous.
It is interesting your comment about French Immersion in Quebec. I had questioned it when I first read it on a site which told me that there wasn’t any in Quebec. However, I realized that I should have done further research because after you mentioned it, I looked it up and found the same “incorrect” site but also found out that it does, indeed exist on other sites. Shame on me for not researching into more depth! That’s what happens when I live in lotus land for so long and Eastern Canada seems far and disconnected.
I appreciate all of your comments, thank you.
Cheers,
Donna
As french is not my forte, I do appreciate your potential venture as a unique and worthy en-devour. I liked how you narrated the presentation for it added a degree of authenticity. To make this more powerful, I would have liked to see more of the dialogue included in point form, for I am a highly visual learner. At times, I found myself pausing and replaying the video so that I was able to gain an understanding of the details. Features such as a table to outline the features of the competition would have been of benefit. In addition, the inclusion of theory on achievement and social interaction in language learning would have persuaded potential investors. Also, referencing the BYOD movement and increases in access to mobile technologies would help support the need for your creation. Overall, a very good, engaging presentation!
All the best,
Danielle
Hello Danielle,
I appreciate your comments.
I agree that now when I look back at my Venture Pitch, I should have put some more dialogue in my slides. However, I was trying to avoid the typical Point Point presentations of reading exactly what was on the slides. Maybe I went a bit too far the other way:
I also could have incorporated more of the BYOD movement into my presentation, especially since I was involved in the BYOD week 10 group presentation!
Thanks again and have a great week.
Donna
Welcome to my iPad Reading Solution Tool. A venture specifically designed for the education sector to facilitate and develop skills in Reading and combat illiteracy in the Caribbean and other developing countries. Click on this link to view my Elevator pitch . The selected reviewers for my venture may email me to view my venture […]
Continue reading The iPad Reading Solution Tool Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for sharing your idea. You seem very credible in your pitch and it is obvious you have the necessary experience to run this company. However, this market space is too competitive for my investors.
Greg
Hi Shawn,
You have identified the problem, the market, and your solution. I agree that the iPad could definitely be used to assist students in learning to read. However, with such well established competitors, I would have like to hear in your elevator pitch a little more about how your solution is unique, beyond affordability. Overall, it sounds like a well planned venture, though.
All the best,
Janet
Hi Shawn,
You sound enthusiastic in your pitch and express a genuine concern for the need for quality reading instruction. I expect that you’ll be faced with major competition so your pitch needs to convince me that the iPad reading solution tool is unique in some way. Without addressing how this tool fills a gap I’m likely to continue using the tools I currently rely on for teaching reading.
Claire
Hi Shawn,
I like the idea of using the iPad’s popularity to improve student literacy. I have difficulty understanding how this might differ from other reading-related apps and I wonder about its use in other developing areas than the Caribbean, as iPads are pretty pricey and I really lack the research background to be able to evaluate such a venture’s viability internationally. I enjoyed your obvious passion for excellence in education which was apparent throughout your pitch.
May
Nice to meet you. I would love to tell you more about our New Venture – “The EduNexus Group” – an educational technology consulting group that firmly believes that technology should serve pedagogy! I’d like to invite you to follow this link to the EduNexus Investors Information page where you will be able to view […]
Continue reading The EduNexus Group – BYOD the right way Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello Yves,
What a very professional Venture Pitch! I like the way that you presented with your video on the right with the slides on the left. It gave me a sense that I was with you while you were presenting.
Great research on your company, especially with Marketing and the Competition.
As a critique, I would have liked to have heard what company forecast plans you have for the next few years and what kind of return an interested investor like me might benefit from.
I like your them that your “group places technology at the service of pedagogy and not the other way around”.
Great presentation,
Donna
Thanks Donna!
In order to respect the time limits for the assignment, the executive decision was to forego certain pieces of info as we knew we would address it with any investor wanting to go forward.
The long term plans are dual pronged: To go Canada-wide and branch into deeper into business – many companies also need a solution that goes beyond the actual connectivity of hardware and serves their interests more directly.
Appreciate the comments… as you can see, I have a crack management team! 🙂
Hi Yves!
The elevator pitch for the EduNexus group is direct, engaging and tickles you enough to make you want to view the Venture presentation. The presentation is dynamic and easy to follow as it uses slides and video presentation from the CEO. The presentation flows very nicely and describes the proposed venture very comprehensively. I am also impressed with the quality of the audio, well done!
Management team: A great way to prop up the presentation by listing the photos, names and titles of the management team. Fosters a sense of professionalism and the company is putting it all ‘out there’, nothing to hide.
CEO Credibility: The CEO is speaking in person, was fully focused on the message and the product… we can see that he is taking this ‘seriously’, and he expects to do the same.
Venture Concept: Very clear – a consulting service that places the focus on the ‘educational’ aspect of technology (in this case, BYOD) and makes it clear that success in a BYOD implementation goes well beyond just the ‘hardware’. Also presents the special ‘hook’ in their service – a comprehensive ‘BYOD Profiler’ that collects and analyzes data to build an appropriate BYOD implementation plan. Very thorough and well thought out!
Opportunity Space: Although there is no ‘hard’ data explaining the lack of direct competitors, it would appear that there are few competitors in this space and that there is in fact opportunity. Little is mentioned about the marketing aspect or specifics about revenue.
Market readiness: The service seems timely and in need in this market. Being active educators with a great deal of experience and connections, they seem to already have their ‘in’ for the market. There is little said about long term growth, but the way it is presented, one would have to assume that word of mouth and reputation will be key.
Competitive edge: Very clear and well explained – the ‘pedagogical’ approach (“ technol0gy serves pedagogy”) along with the BYOD Profiler is what makes them different than the competition. This re-enforced with their claim “We are educators with a specialization in technology, not technologists that know something about education”.
Exit Strategy: There is no clear long term target for market size, although they are focusing on Ontario in the short term. The size of the investment is not stated, but they are clear that they want to bring their consulting services (with BYOD specialization) to the educational market.
Overall investment status: The CEO is credible, presents a comprehensive product that seems to target the ‘weakness’ of the current market offerings and seems surrounded by a team of competent professionals. Furthermore, they have what appears to be a very interesting tool to help them design their solutions. I consider this venture very plausible and would like to invest in it, but would need to hear more about the financing spectrum.
~Shawn
Thank you very much for the thorough analysis – we look forward to working with you!
EduNexus is planning for growth into Canada as well as the business sector by increasing marketing efforts, upgrading the BYOD Profiler capacity and going Canada wide in pahse 2 of the business plan.
We will be happy to share this with you at our investor’s meeting!
Cheers!
Hi Yves,
Thanks for sharing your business idea. I find that the BYOD profiler can be a double-edge sword. I kind of see it as purposely installing spyware on school server. On one hand, it can be used ethically within the educational institution to profile its needs. This can be a very useful tool, especially when educational technology is such a large investment. On the other hand, I sense that it can be used unethically or “in other ways” to capture student information for other marketing purposes (which ironically is worth a lot of money to others). Of course, I don’t question your good intentions. From experience, once you accept money from investors, they can pressure you to alter your goal company goals to meet their needs. Make sure you do your research on your investors. Aside from this concern, good job on the video!
Colin
Thank you for your input Colin. The Profiler is in fact a data collection tool administered by the team and not ‘installed’ per se on any client network. It is one of the early steps in the planning process. Thus, like any sizeable project, data needs to be collected to do any kind of planning.
We certainly appreciate your concerns with regards to data mining and such, however, plese note that the data collected is strictly BYOD related and not used or sold for any other purpose and certainly not shared. As for the collected information, here is a large subset of the kind of data that is collected:
http://metstudies.ca/?page_id=286
I appreciate your input and will be sure to share it with the team!
take care!
Hi Yves,
Your business idea is a great one and I am ready to invest. It is reassuring that you have considered the importance of servicing pedagogy with technology and emphasis that there is no “cookie-cutter” solution to deploying and creating a BYOD initiative in institutions. School boards and districts will be very eager to use your services for deployment but how are you going to get in the door with the schools to convince them that BYOD is the proper choice for them? I have seen many schools that shy away from these initiatives because of the risks to security and logistics of the programs. Will you be willing to provide the foot work first to convince schools that BYOD is the proper solution, or will EduNexus simply wait for schools to come to them?
Also, as an investor I would be wanting to see this program expanded to include services to businesses as this is where there would be a lot more potential sales than school boards. I feel that if this profiler for schools works well in an educational setting, would it be possible to create one that would profile a business solution. This would require hiring experts in fields other than education and expanding your team of individuals. If I were to invest, you would need to be willing to accommodate this type of expansion and be willing to create two branches to EduNexus one for education and one for private business.
I do like how you have been able to create a unique solution to a problem that plagues many school districts and have created a solid presentation of the facts and needs for a program and business like this. Like I said, I am willing to invest, but will require an expansion of the company into the business world.
Kenton Hemsing
Hi Mr. Hensing, we very much appreciate your interest and especially your questions as they will will help us ‘tighten things up’!
Being educators that are well places in our school boards with many educational connections and participating at many conferences, we will make out presence well-known in these circles with a variety of marketing material. Furthermore, we have a strong social presence, a targeted marketing campaign and key partnerships. We will be happy to share the full marketing campaign details with you at the investors meeting.
We strongly agree with you that we will need to do some footwork and this is part of out ‘foot in the door’ strategy in our marketing campaign as school boards rarely ‘scan the horizon’ for available services, they typically use word of mouth connections and information that they happen to come by – hence EduNexus wants to be par tof that ‘information they come by’.
Expansion – excellent, you are already ‘guesstimating’ at our long term business plan, and correctly! Yes, in fact, phase 2 involves us branching out into business sector as many of these institutions put solutions into place that focus primarily on ‘making wifi available for all devices’ without building a solution that aligns with the business priorities or long term goals. Phase 3 involved going Canada-wide.
Excellent feedabck Mr. Hensing, look forward to discussing this further with you at the investors meeting.
Cheers!
Yves,
As per the investors above me I am interested in your venture.
There is a market for educational consulting and the companies currently offering services are lacking the services Edunexus could provide. There is a question of sales or more directly a lobby.
This is a messy market that may take a few rounds of golf with a hospitality suite with key decision makers to get things going. I have seen a large corporate do this in BC successfully in educational consulting.
Great Pitch!
Brian Hotovy
Thanks Brian, comments are much appreciated. I agree about the golf and hospitality suites, and will make sure that my Policy Planner participates in these. 🙂
Cheers.
Yves
You did a great job. I like the presentation in general. The theme you are tackling in your venture can trigger a lot of discussion. One of the great things your venture has reflected is the uniqueness of such project. Educational consultation as a private entity is something unique in our current market relatively speaking.
The project is really complex and needs special investors, investors who have a wide horizon in the field of educational market. The marketability of your venture depends on a lot of educational factors. One of these factors is how ready our educational system in in regard to it expansion horizontally and vertically.
Great job, Yves
Hussain
Thanks for the comments Hussain… agreed, expertise is essential and investors with experience as diverse as the team I’ve put together would be essential to really help move this forward.
Cheers.
Hi Yves,
Thank you for sharing your pitches. I really appreciated your personal touch – video is a very effective means to draw potential investors in. I am unable to invest in your great idea because I am all out of $$$, lol. But good luck with your venture!
Ronna
All out of money!!! Arrrrgh!!! nooooo.
ok. Hehe, thanks.
🙂
Hi Yves
I thought your presentation was very and I liked your concept, though I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to be used by companies. While like Ronna I currently out of resources, it is definitely a venture that has growth potential and as an investor I would keep an eye on it for a time when I could invest.
Dave
Thanks for the comments Dave.
The consulting services would be purchased by school boards, schools, etc. any institution that wants to deploy BYOD. We would help them from the moment they want to make part of the strategic planning or just peice it out according to the areas they need help with.
Cheers.
Hello Yves,
I think your elevator pitch is catchy and holds your investor’s attention. You are direct and appear confident in delivering your product and held my attention till the end. I also love the way you put both your elevator pitch and venture pitch in a package, which is something I never thought of doing.
Your venture pitch is well laid out and you outlines the problem and proposed solution quite well. Your really relay that your venture has growth potential and I found your pitch realistic. I would want to invest in your venture, for I feel it is viable – I feel the educational domain is ready for such a change, not only at the K-12 level, but also at the corporate and higher education level.
Just for fun, how many times did you have to record your pitch over until you got it just right? I know how time consuming it is to try and incorporate videos . . .
Kudos!
Marie-France
Much apprecaite the comments about the production as well as the sincerity of my itch.
I recorded in ‘pieces’ pausing here and there, and certain parts I had to redo a few times, but a few I rolled right through. I do webcasts and videoblogs within other projects and have been doing video montages for a long time, so I already had the tools and the know how… in this case, I didn’t go all bonkers with the montage and special effects and such as we are rarely rewarded for Bling in the MET program. 🙂 Thus, I settled on this simplified format…. and specifically, i wanted to stay true to the concept of ‘elevator’ pitch – there are no slides, powerpoint, music, etc. when you corner a potential investor in an elevator. But that is me… so many people did these far out pitches and put a lot of time into the, very nice work.
Anyways, thanks again… c u at the investors meeting! 😉
-y
Hello,
I am always looking for help in the video montage domain. What tools do you use to do your montage?
Marie-France
For the elevator and venture pitches here, I used ScreenFlow to kepp it ‘quick and dirty’. When I produce stuff like I have for the last few years with my board (DVDs, promo vids, testimonials, Our Board ‘idols’ project, etc.) that require multi-tracks, effects, etc., I usually use FInal Cut Studio and its tools, mpeg streamclip and iMovie…. ohh, and I love Adobe Encoder as well.
Hope that helps.
Cheers.
-y
Wow it sure sounds complicated, I thought you had used one or two programs . . . Thanks for providing the info, I’ll explore these programs when I get a chance.
Marie-France
Hello Yves!
After reviewing all the educational ventures that were pitched today, I am quite impressed with the quality of both your elevator and venture pitches. The elevator pitch was very investor focused, which, quite frankly, was lacking in most others. I think you’ve hit the spot there. Your pace of speech was great; it was neither too slow nor too fast.
CEO & Team: I love how you showed all of your team members and clearly introduced yourself. As the CEO, you spoke passionately about your product and the flow of your speech alone gave you that credibility in my view. A person who knows less than what they are talking about would probably stumble with this.
Venture Concept: I think this is a great concept. It addresses the pain point that impedes or even drives organizations in throwing away their opportunity to implement BYOD. I have worked with many organizations that would forbid such devices, but with your service, it would definitely save big bucks in the long run. Therefore, I think you have captured my interest.
Marketability: With the pace that technology is traveling at right now, I think profiling BYOD is definitely a full time job on its own. Rarely would an IT department be able to do that, so I think you already have an edge there. Furthermore, because your team needs to be highly specialized to carry out your business, I agree with most other investors you have shook hands with already that it is easy to see why you have little competition.
Venture Plan: I may have missed a bit of it, but do you have separate plans for companies that wish to subscribe to continual services? That might be a mean of sustaining your customer-base. Or is this strictly a once and done service? Those are really the only questions I have for you
With such a great pitch, I would like to invest in your venture. Prior to committing a solid amount, I would like to further discuss with you in regards to the EduNexus business model.
Thank you and great job!
Sherman
The elevator pitch seemed a little one dimensional, you talk we listen. The venture pitch has you reading the slides with your video playing. You have obviously done a great deal of work putting this all together, but I wonder how much money a school would pay for your services. Just last year we tried to implement a free program to a school district and they needed us to provided the bussing for the students to attend. I just don’t see a need for your product in education that would get districts to invest in your services.
LOL!
Thanks for the input.
HI Yves,
Like the others I really was drawn by your elevator pitch to go on the the venture pitch. Having them embedded together made it much more likely as an investor that I would “read on”. I also was taken with the invite to meet the team, but I would have liked a bit more background on your team (which could have been embeddd with the pictures).
I too enjoyed the mix of video and slide but I felt that a number of your slides had too much text -more graphic slides would be easier to view and digest (and were when you used them).
As an investor I was drawn to the variety of solutions you would provide thus a breadth of offerings.
BYOD seems to be a disruptive innovation, and so selling your services on to schools who are in the early or late majority may require you to find 1 or 2 schools or organisations who use your services and can then act as respected, pragmatic referees for EduNexus. They should help open the market.
If you can identify 1or 2 interested schools for your startup I would certainly be wanting to know more, with a view to invest.
Denise
Webcasting is one of the premier communication technologies in the world, which is primarily used in business applications. Educational webcasting is a platform which hasn’t truly been touched on yet, and I intend to change that! Please watch my Elevator and full Venture Pitch below.
Continue reading Webcasting – School Announcements with a TWIST Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Todd. I completely agree with the premise of your idea – school announcements are boring! Our school does something very similar but it is run, as you stated, on television within the building.
I hear your concerns about the cost of webcasting and hosting. My concern with the venture is this: what exactly are you suggesting? I found the elevator pitch intriguing and I wanted to know more, so then I watched the venture pitch. I feel like I had more questions after. Much of your video explains the drawbacks of the other options and the costs involved. You have explained some about why webcasting is beneficial, but I guess what I’m getting at here is, what product are you offering? Are you offering a hosting service that is inexpensive and no frills as suggest? I wasn’t sure in the end. I’m also not clear on who your CEO and Team is (my assumption is that it is you). I don’t recall any information about how you will market this, but you did do a good job of comparing the various existing options out there.The concept makes sense and I do believe that there would be a market for cheap webcasting/hosting (if that is what you’re offering?).
Overall, appreciate the quality of the videos. I love your image selection, music, editing and the fact you used some student work to complement your own. In the end, I feel like I don’t really know enough to make a decision about investing at this time.
Thanks.
Jody
Todd,
Great job on your pitches. Professional, engaging and a great concept. I see your arguments clearly to move from the traditional, boring droning voice over the PA to digital podcasts created by students. I can really get behind the idea of all the skills the students would learn by being hands on in the podcast production. What I am not very clear on, is what you are attempting to sell or create. You effectively describe the need to move this direction, but I don’t really see you providing a cost-affective alternative. I get lost a little bit, wondering where the pitch is. I think if you could find a way to give some focus to your real proposed alternative, I’d be much more eager to jump on the bandwagon. Otherwise, I thought you did a great job.
David McInnes
Well done.
Todd,
Great job on the pitches. You have clearly defined a market for changing school needs. Your company seems to really hit the area of Social Enterprise and the inherent social benefits and could help me leave a positive legacy as an investor.
A very exciting proposition!
Brian
Hi Todd
Creative pitch and a good concept. I would like to hear more about the team and how you will position your product in the market – my concern is with the uniqueness of what you are selling… I think the concept is good but will need a stronger ‘hook’. Before signing up, I would like to see a bit more focus.
Good job.
Hi Todd,
Fantastic job with your pitches – very concise and professional. I love your idea about webcasting, as morning announcements certainly are tired!
After watching your venture pitch, I have several areas where I would need clarification/additional information prior to investing. While you did a fantastic job of giving the details, as well as the strengths and challenges presented by webcasting and the cost of, I was unsure what product you were advocating. Are you asking me to invest in a company that provides webcast services to schools at a reasonable price? In the end, I wasn’t really sure what I was being asked to consider (pls forgive me if I missed something obvious!)
Have you formed a company with you as founder and CEO? I didn’t hear any info about the foundation/management of the company/venture. As well, there was nothing about what your ideal client base would be, nor how you would attract them and what you would be offering them.
I think that you have done some strong foundation work, but would need to work on the framework a little more before presenting your venture. With some more information, it would definitely be a venture that I would consider.
Smiles, Kim
Hi Todd,
I think this is an interesting idea for a venture. I think there is great educational value in webcasting, though I’m not sure that school announcements alone are worthy of such an extensive venture. I think it is a great idea and could be part of more than just school announcements, such as communications and media courses. It could even be a part of language courses.
I think the presentation is very clear and I like the fact that you use local examples. I think it is important for investors to see the potential being put into practice.
I also think you make the same point several times, and I would have liked to have seen more about the CEO and team, and your venture plan as well as the marketability of the venture. I think this is an intriguing idea and certainly one I would be interested in if I had more information.
Danielle
I like your initial question about announcements and the fact that they need to change. My problem with your proposal is that I am not sure what you are asking for. You seem very passionate about your webcasting idea but how is the high cost of hosting being solved? Where are schools going to get this money and how are you going to make money doing it.
Hi Todd,
I like your idea as an instructor and a tutor who works with youth on a daily basis. I think what you proposed would be great for developments in many ways aside from the obvious fact that school PA systems are boring. Giving children tools to do a professional announcement boost confidence and of course engage interest of those who are listening.
I like that your presentation was visually clean and you mentioned a lot of educational value but I really wish that I have learned more about you and your team so I would know what I am putting my investments into. As well, from an investor point of view, I am not quite sure what you would like from me to help you improve or carry out your ideas.
Sherman
Hi Todd,
Thank you for sharing your elevator and venture pitches, which I thoroughly enjoyed watching. Your elevator pitch caught my attention immediately and I was impressed with the way in which you very efficiently demonstrated the need for schools to move to a mobile method of transferring their daily information. The fact that most programs and packages available are set up with businesses in mind is a very real problem and one often faced in schools with technology integration/implementation.
Technically, both of your pitches moved at a pace, which kept my interest and your use of pictures, diagrams and voice over made for a complete flowing presentation. I felt though that at one point it went a little long concerning the needs of schools and you did not summarize what you would be offering as a solution.
As an investor I feel that this is the way that schools need to move yet they need to be able to do it using a platform that is financially viable in the future. There are a couple of questions, which come to mind regarding the specifics of your venture and the actual cost to schools. I did not see any pricing information or proposals so I am wondering what the cost to schools would actually be? Also, are there any competitors in this field who are doing the same thing?
I have seen some in house productions at a school in Montreal http://www.lcc.ca/page.cfm?p=835 where the time and commitment from the students is extraordinary. Providing youth with this opportunity is incredible and if your venture facilitates this process then I would be happy to back you financially after some clarification on your direction and pricing.
You are a yes for me!
Bridget
Hi Todd,
You have an interesting venture concept here but I think it is not well-defined enough as yet. Your elevator pitch was captivating and made me want to move onto hearing your Venture Pitch but I was confused as to why you were only discussing the drawbacks of the venture. And then I thought I understood that what you wanted was not a studio suite produced type of morning announcement but rather a podcast type — but I wasn’t clear on what exactly the product/service was that you wanted the investor to put money into.
I think it is an exceptional idea however, that students create productions in school to captivate student interest – I believe this is an excellent learning opportunity for students, but I agree with a lot of what you were saying in your venture pitch which was how can we make this affordable?
If you can clarify your venture and come up with a solid plan as to how to make this marketable and an investment that we could see some return out of it would be a viable venture.
Good luck!
Sheza
Really nice work! I like the swift pace in your venture and pitch. There was no information about the team which will run such a project and how they will sell it in our current “relentless” market.
This venture tackles a point which is an uncultivated aspect in the market. The idea of webcasting is not new and there is always a chance of introducing creative ideas to it. I don’t know how your project will compete with the similar existing project. But there is something that I can see in your project which is focus on increasing the students’ self-confidence and this comes through a solid program that can make all learners participate in broadcasting.
your presentation is clear but its position in the market is still vague.
I would wait to see how the market looks at it before investing in it. I need more information, market information!
Good luck with your project
Hussain
is the latest graphing application for smartphones, iPads, and iPod touches. It is easy to use and a cost effective alternative to costly graphing calculators that serve a single purpose. Diophantapp makes use of the current, “Bring Your Own Device” trend and empowers the 21st century learner who has access to the technology. Now students […]
Continue reading Diophantapp- A dynamic graphing calculator for your smartphone, iPod, and iPad Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Danielle
I really enjoyed viewing your elevator pitch. The images and music were well matched and held my attention throughout the pitch. It almost felt I was watching a very slick commercial for the product. Your idea of capitalizing on BYOD and smartphones is a realistic venture that would certainly have a niche in the market. However, as an EVA, I would have liked to have seen you deliver the pitch to give me a sense of the person behind the venture. Giving investors a chance to see firsthand your commitment and passion for your venture might entice them to investigate your venture further.
Good luck with your future ventures
Valerie
Hi Valerie,
I did consider delving deeper into my history as an inventor, however I wanted to deliver the product to the viewers rather than me as a creator. As with some other pitches, I find the first hand deliverance to be more of a distraction and can make the pitch seem amateur; in fact the opposite effect 🙁
I appreciate your input. All the best!
Danielle
Hello Danielle,
I love the catchy song and fade-in/fade-out descriptions.
Though still a little unsure of the idea. Does the smartphone app have all the same functions as a real graphing calculator? What happens in K-12 education when you want to use the graphing calculator app when your teacher allows no cell phones to be used during class/test? I would love to have a device such as this to at least make the screen appear brighter and more crisp than those old ti-85’s…lol. It’s as if texas instrument has never heard of backlighting the screen. Yes something has to be done to make the ti graphing calculator more vibrant, but the idea also needs to comply with school/class rules. Thanks Dani.
-Regen
Hi Regan,
If you take a minute to delve deeper into the EVA, you will see the feature of the app expanded upon. In doing so, I have outlined the elements that differentiates it from other products on the market (both calculators and apps). Furthermore, I have also included the “no cell phone zone” as a potential barrier. This being said, as we have learned from our classmates the BYOD movement is often evident within various business environments and I believe, will be capitalized upon within educational learning environments as decision makers advance their knowledge on policies, procedures, and governance of such devices. I would suggest that as the net generation ages (I am one) and move into administrative roles within the school system, we will see major changes. Until then, we will see a blend of technology use policy.
Thanks for your input. All the best!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
This is a great idea! I enjoyed your elevator pitch, but as Valerie pointed out, it would have been helpful for you to appear in the video to secure more buy-in.
The venture plan contained some good information including the identification of potential barriers. My school does not permit cell phones or other devices and we have not purchased iPads or iPods for student use. I am also concerned about the potential digital divide that might be exacerbated as not as students have access to the technology required to run this app.
I thought you did a good job of identifying your competition and summarizing your marketing plan. I was curious though as to why you chose Finland, Australia and Singapore to be your phase II target countries.
Good luck!
Deborah
Hi Deborah,
If we revisit the article written by Lisa Nielsen on the BYOD movement, she addresses your concern about creating a deeper digital divide. This being said, I think it is pertinent that schools create opportunities for students to have access to such technology to equip them with the 21st century competencies needed in the workforce. If we do not provide such, I would argue we are dis-servicing our students very similar to not teaching them the basic skills of math or language.
The choice of the countries to be included for phase 2 came from cross-referencing the countries who: 1) are advancing their policies on general technology and graphing technology use within educational environments and 2) have the highest access to smartphone and iOS technology. Ultimately an interesting (and somewhat disparate) grouping, I agree. However, it would be important to launch in areas whereby both educational and technological policy supported the app.
I appreciate your input. All the best!
Danielle
Link to the article aforementioned: http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/11/09/7-byod-myths.aspx
A very cool idea Dani.
Elevator pitch message
I was intrigued about the concept of the app and wanted to learn more about it right away. It would have been helpful to have more specific information about the app.
I can see by looking the credentials that the venture has a knowledgeable and credible CEO. A video “address” would make the investor feel more confident.
Concept
I like how you made the connection with BYOD(T). Your analysis of the barriers is very good – many schools and universities don’t allow cell phones during exams so the learners would still need the graphic calculator.
Marketability
The smart phone market is huge but that may not be true for this app. As you stated in you analysis, this is good tool to entice learners to use the app because it’s not the usual “calculator” – this may definitely be a selling feature.
I appreciated the research you have done on overseas market – it would have been very helpful to compare the barriers between the North American and other markets to show growth potential. You showed that in Finland students are allowed to use symbolic calculators but showing if that includes both learning and tests/exams would have been helpful for the investor to see the potential.
Great idea and good research Dani.
Thanks,
Leonora
Hi Lenora,
I appreciate your input as to how I could improve upon the concept. I found it difficult to determine how much information should be required within the pitch and the venture analysis. Because students are yet to be allowed to use such on tests and exams, I believe pitching thus as a learning tool rather than solely as a test/exam scaffold could address the issues you mentioned. If educators promoted the app, students could perhaps deepen their understanding of complex and abstract concepts therefore warranting the purchase of it.
All the best,
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
I can so appreciate the difficulty with balancing how much detailed information to include in the pitch. I had the same issue.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
Leonora
I do like this idea. I agree that smart phones will soon be ubiquitous is some schools districts. Students will turn to their mobiles for all sorts of educational content such as textbooks, bookmarks, blogging, and specific apps such as a graphic calculator. I think if that app were good enough to get recommended by teachers, it could take off. As an investor, I would have to be convinced however that it is in some way superior to the other graphic calculator apps. A quick search in the app store showed that there are several – many of them free. As an investor I would need to know more about the revenue stream, product differentiation, and market plan to educators.
Hi Chris,
The idea for my app came about from using the free apps I mentioned within my EVA. Although a lot of them are great, basic apps to use within grade 9 math, I thought they could be improved upon by including the extra features such as: real-world images, color, and 3d modeling. I guess the price of the app would have to reflect these features and the price of the competition.
Thanks for the input. All the best!
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
I really enjoy watching your pitch. You academic background is impressively solid for this venture. I agree with you that there is a really big market for graphical calculators on mobile devices. As an investor, I need to be know more about competitive advantages of your product. You give 3 competitors in the “competition” page, but it would be more helpful to include Diophantus in the list to make the differentiation more visible.
I didn’t find the price strategy of Diophantus in the pitch, did I miss something? Will you sell it by license (eg. $1/download like other apps) , or will you let it go free but open other tunnels to return money? I’d ask for a clearer business model that could ensure the market share as well as my compensation. Another concern is: do you plan to develop Diophantus on other types of devices, such as Android, WM7 or Symbian? The increase of device types will lead to an surely increase of R&D & marketing cost.
Good luck to your calculator, I’ll be interested to use it when it’s available.
Ping
Hi Ping,
I appreciate your feedback. As for the price, the plan was to launch it as a free app in phase one. As for charging additional fees, it would have to be determined after the PD was completed. Because it was an ambitious project, my main focus would be to remain within the smartphone, iOS market until the company gained competencies within other areas, as I am a lone soldier as of now!
All the best,
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
Brilliant idea for your venture! As mobile devices (smartphones, iPads, iPods) have somewhat became a daily necessity to many of us nowadays, this venture would sure be able to continue to grow along with the mobile device trend. I think you have articulated your venture pitch quite well and delivered the core ideas to your audience. As for your elevator pitch, I see that you have put quite some effort into it and it does capture my attention, however for some areas I found it a bit too busy and my visual processors aren’t working fast enough for it. I think it would have made it a lot easier for your audience to process the information if you narrated your elevator pitch. I liked your venture idea but I’d like you to be the protagonist for your elevator pitch. If I was an investor this would be a venture that I would consider in investing into.
Keep up the good work.
Karon
Thanks for the positive and constructive feedback, Karon. I appreciate that you took the time to review my research and contribute your perspective :).
Danielle
Hi Danielle,
I really liked your pitches here. I really appreciate how you critically analyzed your competition and included that in your presentation. I also like how your pitch was a presentation as opposed to a paper (and a dynamic presentation at that).
As an investor, I would have liked to see more information on how I could make money on the app. Perhaps long term projections?
Excellent work!
Lisa
Hi Danielle,
Love Animoto – always helps to create such a professional looking product. A good choice of tool for your elevator pitch.
Your venture idea is so simple, yet so very necessary. We have many students in our program who are not able to afford graphing calculators, and we are only able to lend them to students onsite – they cannot take them home. Our math teachers have looked for an app that would be suitable, but were not able to find one with the functionality your venture offers (however – how a student can afford a smartphone and not a calculator still mystifies me – priorities I suppose)
I am curious about the name of your company – does it have some significance? I ask because for such a straightforward venture idea the name seems to be on the complicated side.
As for your venture pitch, I thought it clear and concise and well supported by relevant research, especially in regards to your market research. I was also intrigued by the idea that your pitch seeks employees as well as investors. I am not sure what that says from a business point of view though.
My only comment for improvement in the venture pitch would be to include your product in your differentiation graph so that viewers can see a direct comparison of what your product has to offer.
gillian
Thanks for the feedback Gillian. Diophantus is known as the ‘father of algebra’. I wanted to use something unique and easily identifiable…..perhaps a bit too complicated, however students would also ask about the name, therefore they would receive a bit more math history 🙂
All the best,
Danielle
I thought there must be something more to it … I’m just not all that math savvy I suppose.
Best to you as well.
gillian
Hi Danielle, Your idea is highly relevant and your elevator pitch makes that clear. I would have liked to see more about how you will develop the app and how you will compete with the other graphing apps that are out there, as well as how you will determine pricing. Thank you! Chelsea
My Venture and Elevator Pitches are for a hypothetical enterprise called m-Learning India. A company that works closely with NGOs and India’s public health system to develop e-learning games, and applications for mobile devices that deliver relevant health information to marginalized groups of people. My Elevator Pitch can be viewed on youtube: http://youtu.be/W-J1wcR-0to My Venture Pitch […]
Continue reading My Venture and Elevator Pitches are for … Posted in: Venture Forum
Hello David,
I’ll first start with my critique of things that I feel that you could have improved in your presentation. Your Elevator Pitch lacked enthusiasm in your voice and sometimes you had black text against black background, so it was a bit hard to follow. I do believe it was also a bit long. Your venture pitch fell short however (just over 1,000 words) and lacked a plan for the next few years.
I like the idea of your venture concept to provide health-based mobile games. Your target of the millions of mobile users in India is also a brilliant idea for future prospects. I also like your altruistic goal to move away from greed and providing an opportunity for positive social change.
Your elevator pitch is very colourful and I enjoyed your humour with the names of some of the members of your team – Missy Dogood and Appy D. Veloper:)
Hope that all is well in Whitehorse.
Donna
Hi David,
Thanks for sharing your pitches! I know like others you must have worked really hard on them. I get that your proposal is to try to partner with the government and NGO’s along with public health advocates to generate engaging e-learning mobile games that are health considered. It seems like a lucrative business to get involve in.
I do agree with you that there is a big market for mobile phone technology also. You have a good idea for this venture, however the way in which you pitched it, it may not get off the ground to be honest. The choice of delivery for the elevator pitch wasn’t your best. No enthusiasm was heard in your voice to grab the audience’s attention. As a matter of fact I could hardly hear what you were saying and when I tried to read the words to follow the clips that was challenging too. It was not engaging enough to make me even want to see the venture pitch. However, I still went ahead and read it; and it was a good presentation.
I do think your venture has a market that is increasingly growing overtime. You have provided a detailed venture pitch with information about the market and the product. The concept is a good one…thanks for sharing it with us however I do not believe I want to invest at this time.
~ Shawn
Hi David
I am a big proponent of using mobile technology and can see a lot of potential for these as tools and it does seem like there is a large market in India. However, the pitch did not grab my attention as the voice was to flat and the text was hard to read on multiple frames. I can see the advertizing companies covering some of the costs, but I wondered how likely it was for people to be into health related games and if it is targeting a marginalized group, what level of educational games will be successful?
Dave
Hi David,
I like your concept and the number of people in India you can potentially help with this product. By investing in your company, I don’t think your investors would expect good financial returns but they would be philanthropic people for sure. One area that you can improve on is your elevator pitch. Consider a less upbeat, more subtle background music to match the tempo of your voice.
Overall, if I were expecting good financial returns, I would not invest. I would learn more if I were representing the Indian government for public health. Thank you for sharing this idea.
Colin
David,
As an investor I am not interested in your product as an investment. This pitch would be very relevant (and share greater success) with philanthropists who have a strong sense of the cultural and social needs in India.
It is a worthy cause. Keep up the effort.
Brian
Hi David.
I think your elevator pitch was well produced and very significant. Like the others however, it would need to be propped up a bit more to heighten listener engagement.
That being said, the numbers seem solid and even if a small percentage of the market uses the service, there can be significant upside.
I am not all familiar or comfortable with ad-based revenue service/products and would need more information to commit.
Thanks for the presentation.
Thanks all for your frank feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to look at my pitches. The common trend of feedback about the lack of excitement in my voice is not a new one to me, but it is how I talk. I tried to sound more enthusiastic, but it came across as cheesy and insincere. Something for me to work on for sure.
David
I think it is very cool that you take the comments this way as it is not always easy to not do so. Kudos on a winning attitude.
-y
Thanks Yves. I appreciate it.
Dave
Hi David,
Thank you for sharing your pitches. Your idea seems very solid and culturally sensitive – it is a good one! Your physical presence in the elevator pitch would add a lot in persuading potential investors to open their wallets!
Ronna
Hi David
Thank you for sharing your venture with us. Your venture seems based on accurate analysis of the market in India. With 7 million people buying or subscribing to mobile services, India can be a great market for innovative ideas like the one you are promoting in your pitch. There is no doubt the idea of the project will be tempting to many investors. The problem with it is that you are entering a very competitive market especially India. India is overpopulated , over-invested and over-speculated. So it will be hard to break into the field there.
You mentioned that the project can be done with the help of ministry of health of India. That is great because it will add credibility to the project and makes investors more flexible or more accepting of the whole project.
There is another thing that you need to take care of which is the unannounced level of poverty in India. That can’t be overlooked if you want to start a project like that . I know it is cheap to have a game for $0.2. But can the downtrodden class afford that?
Generally speaking your project can be very successful and this could be ascribed to the fact that India is a huge market for technology now…like all other countries.
I have the same concerns about the slow pace of the pitch. But I don’t really look at it as a problem.
Great job, David
Hussain
Hello David,
As a potential investor, I would probably not have been interested in moving on to your venture pitch based on your elevator pitch. However, I think you did a good job of presenting your venture. I found your pitch was strong, covering all the important aspects of your venture. I especially liked the honesty and comparison of your company’s challenges vs your strengths.
In order to grab the investor’s attention fromt he start, I think it might be best to restructure some elements. Perhaps it would be best to present yourself and the nature of your company first. – an enthusiastic video clip might work well. It is near the end of your pitch that I started to feel this is a company I could invest in, however some investors may have lost interest before getting to the end.
I do think there is a future in mobile technology and there is indeed a growing market in India. I think the humanistic motive behind the venture is what appealed to me the most.
Even though the cost for downloading the app is low, I fear it might still be too much for some . . . perhaps there is a way to get sufficient partnerships or philanthropists to actually cover all the costs?
Marie-France
Hi David,
I like the idea that you have presented and to be honest, the content speaks of a greater purpose. I feel that I would be ready to invest in your venture given a bit more information. Questions that have popped into my head have been:
1) What are your future goals for the company? Will there be expansion into other markets, countries, fields?
2) Compared to your existing competitors, what do you offer that is different and exciting? Are you packaging very similar products, or is there a significant difference that makes your better?
3) Are you planning to control the type of advertising that is seen on the application? I worry that sometimes there will be a possible conflict between what users are learning from the games and what could possibly be advertised on the application.
Also, before I invest, I would like to talk about the possibility of expanding your company to another emerging market and possibly if a few years creating m-Learning Africa. Continuous expansion will be needed for me to invest my money in your venture.
Your elevator pitch and venture plan are very good and easy to follow, but I feel that they are possibly lacking some important information. I did like your honesty in showing the weaknesses and strengths of your venture, it shows me as an investor that you have a realistic outlook on your purpose.
Thanks, and good work.
Kenton
Kenton,
Thanks for your feedback and questions.
1.) The future goals would include expansion into other developing countries. There will always be people in need and countries that are coming “on stream” in the mobile market. Getting information (even non-health education) centered will always be a priority, so I believe there is enormous potential for growth and to diversify. US AID for example, does this type of work in Africa, Latin America and India.
2.) As I stated in my venture pitch, I am not trying to hide that there are other competitors with a head start, however they are companies that humanitarian organizations have gone to and asked to develop their product. The difference from my end is that we would specialize in the content creation, working with partnerships and then sell the advertising. This would be our primary focus, not a side project.
3.) I do plan on vetting the advertising. It would have to be in step with the information we are providing. The apps themselves would be free to the consumer, and we could use scan codes to bring the users to the app store or URL to download them.
Thanks again for your interest.
David
The visuals were good but the text drew me away from them. The reading of the text was not an effective use of this medium since after a few seconds I found myself simply trying to read the text and I was ignoring the visuals and missing the message.
Hi David,
Thank you for the presentation. I think you do have an market available for you to carry out your vision. With the millions of users, the potential is definitely there. As I am very keen on health education as well, I think you have a great, respectable product there.
However, I would have to agree with others that the elevator pitch seems a little flat. It would be great if I hear more of your enthusiasm through your voice. Energy carries through to listeners. As well, the biggest question mark for me was your competition. I understand that there are millions of users, but do you think they already have a head start and would have drowned the market already? What made you certain that there is space?
I would definitely be interested in another pitch from you. Please let me know when you are ready to pitch again.
Sherman
Thanks Sherman for your feedback and interest.
No denying that there are other competitors already out there, however the mobile industry in India is still somewhat “new”. With the largest growth of new subscribers/month in the world, I believe there is ample space. My feeling is that with my company being solely focused on this project, rather than entertaining diverse goals, I can do a better job than the competitors.
Thanks again.
David
MyPocketUni is the ultimate organizational tool for busy post-secondary students. Using its three ingenious components, MyPocketUni is able to create an individualized learning schedule for today’s ever so busy post-secondary students through cloud-based technology, intellectual scanning software and mobile technology. Please watch my Elevator and Venture Pitch below. Elevator Pitch Venture Pitch Sincerly, Kenton Hemsing MyPocketUni President […]
Continue reading MyPocketUni – Letting Students be Students Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Kenton,
Thanks for sharing your elevator and venture pitch. myPocketUni seems to have some great potential in the post-secondary market and I think would benefit those first-year students who might feel overwhelmed already with beginning a new chapter in their lives. (hypothetically) It might be even worthwhile to beta test the grade 12 students and have them use the application prior to embarking on their university career.
Thanks,
Jon
Thanks for the excellent idea Jon. As grade 12 students embark on their post-secondary studies, focusing a marketing campaign and testing at this level might prove very effective.
Thanks.
Hi Kenton,
As a potential investor, I would be eager to learn more about MyPocketUni as your target market is also the group who are most familiar with mobile devices and therefore seem to be a viable group to target. Your presentation was well put together and you explained the venture well. My key questions and concerns are:
1. How does MyPocketUni work around copyright issues? Are there problems with an application sourcing documents/texts? What does MyPocketUni do if there is no online source?
2. How will MyPocketUni go from beta testing to full operation in only a month?
3. You discuss expected returns from the mobile app, which seem very reasonable, but will this cover running costs, marketing, support, etc.?
4. How does GenieScan know how quickly students read/learn from these things? Analyzing reading level is wonderful, but can the student make adjustments to the programming if they are a fast/slow reader?
What I view as the strengths of this venture are the ability to personalize, the practicality of the programs, and the target market (the eager mobile device users). The potential for expansion of this venture is definitely large, as adding languages and expanding marketing could definitely bring more users, as will each new year when students start post secondary education. Additionally, with some alterations MyPocketUni could easily be adapted to suit the high school market, who would likely find uses for a homework type application.
Depending on the answers to my questions above I would consider myself a likely investor in MyPocketUni!
Thanks Kenton!
-Meggan
Hello Meggan,
Hopefully I will be able to answer some of your questions well enough to ensure your satisfaction in our product and persuade you to invest in MyPocketUni.
1) Since MyPocketUni uses the student’s university credentials to log into their library resources and repositories there is no worry about copyright issues, its the same as if you were to log into the University of British Columbia’s library system and search for a specific paper, its just that the system does this automatically for the student. If there is no online source available, MyPocketUni will still create an event in the student’s personal learning calendar as if it were found online, but the link and the estimated reading time would not be present.
2) Although we are aware of the tight time frame we have set to get this product on the market, please rest assured that my team and myself are fully dedicated to this project and will ensure that it reaches at least a select few post-secondary institutions by our set deadline. My dedicated team and I will remain focused on this product upon release to ensure that any bugs that remain will quickly be fixed and the dealt with.
3) We are confident that for a design like this we will be able to create and produce our product for under $40,000 CAD. Here is a quick breakdown of the costs that are anticipated and have been accumulated:
Branding and Design – $8,000; Development – $8,500; Mac and PC Desktop Apps – $2,000; XHTML and CSS – $2,200; Misc Hardware – $3,000; Hosting – $1,500 a month (we will be working with a company that offers complete hardware infrastructure, maintenance and hosting solutions to ensure ease for ourselves); Legal Fees – $10,000 (estimated); Accounting – $1,000; Trademark – $300; Linux Specialist – $1,800 (contract); Fee Processor – $1,000; Other Misc Costs – $5,000.
This leaves your initial investment covers the advertising, marketing and salaries associated with creating and producing this product.
4) It is our intention to make the reading time estimator adjustable for the student. If the student is a slower reader, they will be able to change the settings on the scanner to ensure that there is an appropriate time allotted for each reading.
Thank you for your interest in MyPocketUni and I hope that my answers have helped you to make the choice to support our venture.
Sincerely,
Kenton Hemsing, President and CEO
p.s. As a reflection, I should have put those figures into the original pitch…
Hi Kenton,
This is an excellent venture and elevator pitches. I really am impressed with the energy you show in these presentations. This is a sharp presentation online, and shows how you integrate technology well. This is a unique product and I think has great potential. MyPocketUni is a perfect tool for those busy post-secondary students. Your analysis and clarification of the three key tools to this product — cloud-based technology, intellectual scanning software and mobile technology — is effective.
I wonder however if there could’ve been more emphasis placed on the marketability and financial plan of MyPocketUni though. I think this could have given investors some idea of how this product could go out on the market once.
Allan
I think that you are absolutely correct Allan. I feel that I spent too much time explaining just what the system does rather than the future of it. Something to consider in the future for sure! Thanks for the feedback, its much appreciated.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
I was very impressed with both the elevator and venture pitches. Your passion and confidence come through in the videos. Your elevator pitch hooked me immediately and drew me in to the venture pitch.
You did a great job of identifying the pain point, the uniqueness of your solution and the vast market potential. Your qualifications and confidence gave the team and the venture credibility. I liked how you went through specifically what My PocketUni could do and how it worked. As a potential investor it gave me a clear idea of the capabilities and potential of the product. As a student, I would love having it organize all of my readings for me!
I have a couple of questions. First of all, would the Genie Scan rely on an interface of some kind with the educational institutes or would it physically scan the calendar/documents? Secondly, the timeline for having your venture up and running seemed a little unreasonable. Even with some beta testing already done, one month to secure investments and patents, establish a website and market the product, could be problematic.
Those two questions aside, this is definitely a venture my investors are interested in!
Janet
Hi Janet,
Thank you for your feedback. The way that I envisioned the GenieScans program was to basically be a piece of software that would look for information and keywords in a text document, it would then log into the university library system and do a search for the document. If it found it, it would create a reminder and link for the student, if it didn’t it would only create a reminder.
As for the time frame to get the app complete, I know its short but as I was making the pitch I realized that having this app available halfway through a school semester would limit the uptake and purchasing of it.
Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
Thank you for sharing your pitch here. MyPocketUni has some valuable features that you’ve clearly described and shown during your presentation. In particular, the capability to combine the course calendar, readings with estimated reading times, course notes, and links to classmates to ease access for discussion lead me to recognize that this is a product that students can benefit from.
While you’ve identified the initial potential market as being an estimated ten percent of the 1.9 million Canadian university students your breakdown of profits doesn’t include sufficient detail to convince me that your initial projections are realistic. I wonder how well research and surveys support this venture. What percentage of university students are concerned with organization and recognize its importance in their success as professionals? The answer to this question is required in order to realistically estimate the portion of the 1.9 million students who would be drawn to MyPocketUni.
While you mention that your team includes experienced sales staff some elaboration on your marketing strategy is needed. The description of your marketing plan doesn’t convince me that your potential market will be reached. How will you communicate to potential customers the benefits of your product so that they will add the MyPocketUni app. to their devise?
Also unclear, are ongoing costs for marketing, operations and future development. A gross profit of $180,00 to $360,000 sounds good however, with a team consisting of professional programers and sales staff, costs for wages alone will account for much of that revenue. In order to consider this venture for funding there needs to be a clear marketing strategy, evidence to support that the estimated percentage of the potential market who will purchase MyPocketUni is realistic, an overview outlining costs, and potential for profit.
Claire
Thank you for your wonderful feedback Claire, you have definitely highlighted some of the areas in which this pitch would need to be improved. Its amazing how intense putting together a pitch for an imaginary venture is, I couldn’t begin to guess at how difficult it is to have your livelihood resting on a total of 10 minutes to present and convince people to invest.
Kenton
Hi Kenton,
First of all, I think your pitch was fantastic! It’s filled with energy and enthusiasm and your explanation is clear, using purposeful visual support. The proposition gave me a lot of the info I was wondering about.
I understand that your venture is fictional, but it absolutely has potential, so I’m treating it as if it were real in case someone does want to make a true venture out of it. Also, don’t feel like you have to answer all of my questions or you’ll be here forever!
Almost 30% of the 1.9 million Canadian students are Francophones, many of whom don’t understand English at all. Has your entire system been translated to French?
If you go internationally, will you target countries where English is not the first language?
Do students need to verify whether the information is displayed correctly? If they have to make too many manual corrections, the time invested could deter students from wanting to use the app.
Each instructor, let alone each university, has a different way of presenting course schedule info. Does GenieScan read all these different formats accurately? What if instructors have different ways of distributing notes and don’t use a format that GenieScans recognizes? I guess the student would add that stuff manually. If one person in the class does it, the info could be shared, saving other people the extra work.
What is the purpose of the discussion board? Will there be a moderator that you need to pay to ensure that it enhances the users’ experience, rather than diminishes it, what with the potential for negativity?
Could your discussion board include alerts for when students find about schedule changes? When I was in university, I relied heavily on rumours to find out what was going on, and without those rumours, would have missed out on a lot of critical information. For example, a classmate of yours posts a message in the discussion forum, perhaps clicking on some sort of calendar button and announces a change they heard about. The change is sent out to relevant students in the forum and asks for your approval before making modifications to your calendar. Something similar could exits for when students plan meetings together. Instead of having a chain of 20 or so messages where students discuss the most convenient time to meet, the app could do it for them, offering a few choices, one at a time that each person can accept or decline.
If students are only uploading info once a semester, they may forget certain steps by the time the next semester starts. Tech procedures that are not habitual need to be as simple as possible so that students don’t get frustrated at having to re-learn how to use the app.
There should also be functions or buttons that students can click on to add tasks to the schedule, like laundry, groceries, meetings with profs, dental appointment, team practice, work schedule…
What is the significance of the colours of the boxes in the examples you showed?
Other comment: The app would have to ensure security of the passwords granting access to the library.
I’m not sure that everything could realistically be ready for September, but if my concerns could be put to rest, and the app made ready for December, in anticipation of the next semester, I would likely invest.
Once again, I think you’ve done fantastic work!
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you for your fantastic feedback! I’ll try to answer all, if not most, of your questions here.
1) I do fully intend to make this program available in French and upon going international, will be available in translated versions.
2) Students will need to verify the information, this will come up as a text box that asks “Is this correct? – Yes or No”. Simple and straight forward, they can edit as they like from there adding information as needed.
3) The system would be designed to look for references to authors names, publishing dates, pages etc. This should be hopefully a rather common component to any instructors course outline/syllabus.
4) The discussion board in the original design was meant to log students into the one specifically created for the class. For example, for ETEC 522, the link would take the student directly to the homepage of this blog or it would link to the dedicated Vista site.
5) I do like you idea of creating alerts for students on new information. This certainly could be included in the final design of the application. I think a function that allows students to make individual contacts with others in the class would also work well in this program. As simple as getting another students name would allow them to contact one another in the class. This would need to work like a social network within those that are using the application.
6) I am hoping that the uploading of documents is very straightforward and not too complicated for students to use. This will limit frustration when using the system later. I also feel that since students will be logging into the site frequently that they will be quite comfortable with the interface when they need to use it for a new semester.
7) In one recoding I know I mentioned that students would be able to add their personal reminders to the task calendar, it must not have made the final cut in my presentation. It will be fully customizable and students will be able to add what they would like to their site.
8 ) The boxes are used to differentiate tasks. Students can assign a different colour to each class or to each type of task (readings, notes, assignments, exams, etc)
9) Yes, security would be of the highest importance. This would need to be maintained and carefully protected by my team and developers.
Perhaps you are correct in that it may be better to make these additions and alterations before rushing our product out to market. We will delay the release until December to ensure that everything is to your satisfaction.
Thank you,
Kenton Hemsing
President and CEO
Kenton, you have a valuable product and enthusiasm and passion to sell it! Nicely done. As the parent of a struggling university student (one who desperately needs a pocket uni) I was enticed to take a closer look.
You have identified the need and found the solution to something that many college and university bound learners are faced with… and your 10% of the 1.9 million students I think is a low-ball estimate. Once students start using this tool, word will spread.
Are there any possible links or connections from My Pocket Uni to facebook or twitter – that would potentially provide the necessary link for these socially connected learners.
The one challenge I see with your product is the potential need for one-one support since you need to be organized to get organized. Students need to make a habit of updating and monitoring their pocket uni in order to know what’s going on, what to read and when to read it, and when things are due. If they don’t actually do that, then the tool is no good for them. Do you have a some way of monitoring to see if someone has not been on Pocket Uni for a while and somehow connect with them to get them back on track?
This venture is worth a closer look, just for the value proposition. Thanks.
Helen
HI Kenton,
Ie njoyed oyur enthusiasm in both pitches. I did find it difficult with you standing in and out of the projector screen at times and going dark, and in the venture pitch some of the screen examples were not easy to read from the distance.
That said as an investor i could see the real potential for a product like this. You clearly identified the pain point, solution, market and uniqueness of the product . It was really important to see how the product would work and made the venture seem even more enticing to invest in.
I was concerned about the time to market – very short. If investing i would want a business case and more financials – there wasn’t much time for this.
If you were pitching to a number of investors and then decided to hold off a few months for the release to add even more functionality from their suggestions, I am not sure I would feel reassured, rather I would be concerned that the original idea could lose its innovative foothold. I would prefer to see the current product which already fills a gap out in the marketplace – with the additional functionalities added in later with an upgrade. This would be a bonus for thiose who bought the app initially (and become part of your market “team” when they tell their friends)and potentially increase the market further with the upgrade.
As identified earlier some more figures would have clinched the investment for me – even without a business case. Great venture.
denise
Kenton,
I found your pitch to be very informative yet to the point. Although your venture encompasses three fairly complex/detailed components, I found that you did a great job of not overwhelming the viewed with too much information; well done! Within your venture, you included a great deal of information pertinent to your venture, however I would have like to see a little more research-based data. Although your presentation platform worked very well, perhaps you could have included some of the information as text on screen as you reviewed it. Screenshots or a webcast of manipulating the software would help the viewer buy into your product more so ( I found the distance from the camera to the projection screen a bit far to see how it actually works). The close-up shots of GenieScan really aided in modeling how it works (I would love such a tool to keep my courses organized!). Items that could help sell such to an investor is backing up some of your statistics with research. Examples could be number of Canadian post-secondary students who have access to mobile devices or other products that do not measure up to the triad of applications offered by MyPocketGenie. Overall, very well done!
All the best,
Danielle
Hello Everyone! My company is called Games 4.0 Education and has recently successfully launched its first (ficticious) game: Pharmville. I can’t tell you just how excited I am about this venture and its future possibilities. Well, maybe I can:) Please view my Elevator Pitch and my Venture Pitch Regards, Ronna
Continue reading Hello Everyone! My company… Posted in: Venture Forum
Hi Ronna,
Both of your videos appear to be private. In voice thread, go to the “Publishing Options” found at the bottom of your voice video and make your selection for public view. Hope that helps!
~ Shawn
Good day Ronna,
Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to review your pitches. Games 4.0 Education sounds like an exciting way to integrate technology and game-based learning into the medical industry. The pitch was convincing and I wanted to hear more about what the company was all about. I agree that game-based learning is an effective way to engage learners and I think this method of learning has great potential to influence education. There is no time like the present to get companies such as this one into the market.
My question would be, what are you going to do when “Farmville” challenges the game name? 🙂
Thanks,
Jon
Hello Ronna,
You did a great job of covering all of the points such as who your target is, what kind of investment could be made and what your future goals are.
I learned something new that there was a difference between simulated learning and game-based learning.
Also, Good, colourful presentation on your slides, however, I would have prefered to have seen more of them. I thought that you’re “Pharmville” name was catchy but I agree with Jon that Farmville may want to challenge you and they may end up suing you for your millions down the road:) Maybe you could change the name to GAME PHARM!
I hope that you’re having a good summer in Ontario!
Donna
Thank you for your feedback Jon and Donna! You are both right – I should have taken the name more seriously. Jon made me think of changing it to PharmAville or PharmvillA but I do like GamePharm Donna! Cheers!
Hi Ronna,
I got a giggle out of your name, lawsuit or not! Pharmers is another option!
I think that Games 4.0 Education has immense potential as a new venture. I was a bit uncertain about how the process works – do teachers submit content and then your company turns it into a game? Will teachers then be given part of the profit from that game?
I think that your focus upon games is very viable, as more and more educators are looking at how they can engage students more with the content in a way that the students also enjoy. For this reason I think that there would be a lot of potential support for your venture! I also found your presentation to be visually appealing and very well put together.
Very nice work!
-Meggan
Thank you Meggan – Pharmers 🙂 I like that too!
Ronna
Hi Ronna,
I think you did a nice job with your presentation in the elevator pitch. You had my attention, the voice over was very clear and the graphics were good. Anything that has to do with enhancing learning, I am always willing to listen. I think games in education can very well serve useful purpose in an enjoyable and non-threatening manner contrary to many beliefs.
The CEO speaking in person to me would show more credibility and would give the potential investor your commitment for your venture. You also did not make mention of the management team.
However the venture concept is clear and a well explained pedagogical approach. I would really like to know what makes it different from Farmville as I have never used it.
~Shawn
Hi Shawn,
Thank you for your feedback. My Pharmville game (or whatever it ends up being named!) would be quite different from Farmville which basically involves building a farm by giving and receiving animals and objects from Facebook friends. It is reward based and nothing is really learned.whereas the games made by Games 4.0 Education would be educational.
Ronna
Hi Ronna,
This is a terrific presentation. Excellent elevator and venture pitches. I especially liked your financial breakdown of the numbers. As an investor, I am impressed by the numbers you give me — $140,000 investment can evolve into a $70,000,000 profit!
I also trust your background and knowledge as CEO. As someone knowledgeable in the field of pharmaceutical sciences, I especially think you have commitment and know the challenges facing the profession.
Your discussion of gamification is also quite strong. I’m glad you discussed this as it was in Horizon Report 2012’s list of emerging trends. Well done!
Allan
–
Thanks for your support Allen!
Ronna
Hi Ronna,
I appreciate your choice to present a game-based learning venture. Naturally, I began a review of your venture by viewing your elevator pitch. It was somewhat confusing though, as your introduction suggests that the target market is the elementary level but after the music there’s a switch to describing Pharmville, a game for student pharmacists. Later the pitch returns to describing games for the classroom. I’m guessing that the purpose of describing the pharmacy game is to show company credibility. All that said, game-based learning can be a powerful way to motivate and engage students plus it’s an area that I’m particularly interested in.
After viewing your venture pitch it’s clear that your target market is college students. You describe the benefits of game-based learning and identify the pain point. It would be helpful if equal time was given to describing Games 4.0 Education. In your elevator pitch you mention that teachers provide the content. Does this mean that you develop games to meet each teacher’s requests? Without a clear description of this venture I am not prepared to invest. Your venture concept has potential; with some adjustments to presentation it is likely that there will be support for your proposal.
Claire
Thank you for your feedback Claire! This was a great exercise in finding out just how clear one needs to be in their pitches! Just to clarify a couple of things for your benefit: my college level pharmacy technician students, whether 18 or 45 y/o, have often been found on Facebook or playing Bedazzled in the lab – much to my chagrin. So, I was not intending to pitch to elementary teachers. And yes, the idea is to create games for college educators with their content and input. Darn, I missed out on your money – 🙂
Ronna
Great Job Ronna, your pitch was convincing and you sound like you have a clear target market. Game based learning is definitely on the rise and if marketed properly your venture could be quite successful.
Greg
Thanks for taking the time to watch and for your encouragement Greg!
Ronna
Hi Ronna,
I enjoyed both of your pitches very much. They’re very well put together! I LOVE that you broke up your presentation into sections with titles!! It made it very easy to search when I had to replay different sections. Please note that I’m treating your venture as if it were real.
Did I understand correctly that some people spend up to 12 hours a day on their devices?
I’m glad you distinguished gamification from game-based learning and simulations!
Like some of the ladies above, I’m not sure I understand how teachers participate. If the teachers are providing you with content, are they also paying you? Who else would pay you? How much would it cost for a teacher to have a single game produced for their class or for a school? How many games would you make available for the mass market? In how much time? For what cost? Are there priority subjects you would address? Why not focus on health and science subjects, or a particular educational level? With college drop-out levels being so high, you could focus on that, and maybe offer additional services within your games, like career counselling or money management, to encourage students to stay in school.
What types of games give a return on investment like the one you mentioned without saturating the market? How many games do you think you could produce with such high profits? Even Hollywood often gets it wrong with their movies.
If you could deal with these issues, I would consider investing.
It might have been worth simplifying the graph titled “Cognitive Tutor Technology…”. It’s got a lot of info, and I paused the audio to better understand it. What do the acronyms mean? (CBI, IMI) I understand that I can look up the reference myself to find out, but why not eliminate the need entirely by modifying the picture? Also, I’m concerned with whether it’s okay to present data from a research article through a video on the Net.
I think your pitches are very well researched and planned out. They show that you have very strong organizational skills, and that in itself is pleasing to an investor!
Cheers,
Dan
Ronna, You presented an interesting elevator and venture pitch. I was impressed with the return on investment, but even the dragons are skeptical when that much money is promised. With game based learning on the rise, you are right in saying it only takes one really great game to catch on and make your fortune. I’m not sure that Pharmville is that product, with such a limited niche market. If it was something wide open and targeted to many ages of learners, then you might have the right product for the right time. As I am not an expert in pharm-ing, I’m not sure this is the right venture for me.
Helen
HI Ronna,
Your elevator pitch was fast and well delivered. Like Claire I did get confused about what you were asking me to invest in Pharmville or the company and that was only clearer towards the end. If Pharmville was your example of what you can do I would have introduced yourself and the company first and then given the proof of what you are capable of.
The venture pitch was really interesting. I enjoyed learning about games versus simulation and the impact of games etc. However I felt this was pitched at the educator in me rather than the investor. One suggestion – by just changing some of your wording and reducing slide content and adding a few extra slides you could have increased the interest and investor focus (rather than an educator focus).
I really wanted to see what Pharmville was like – did it excite me as a game? Was it just that “lucky one” or was theer more to come?
The figures seemed almost too good to be true. I wanted to know what Pharmville has made? How was it achieved? is this why Games4.0 Education is a 1.25 million dollar company?
Is selling a 20% share in the company the best way to ask for investment, how much control would I have with a 20% share?
I was interested in this for investment but I had no good understanding of the venture plan, so I was finding myslef uncertain about exploring further or not.
Denise
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
Dave Horn 8:16 pm on August 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I agree that having had the opportunity to get feedback earlier on our pitches would have been really useful for producing a better end product.
Denise 4:15 am on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Leonora,
I like the idea of doing the pitches earlier. But…..mine and other people’s pitches related to OER that people had done and the disadvantage would be that we might not be able to integrate this new learning if the pitches were too early.
Denise
Leonora Zefi 6:48 am on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you for your responses Denise and Dave,
I feel that the process of going through the experience is very important and going through that process more than once would have been helpful for the learning and for developing a viable venture pitch.
Thanks,
Leonora
Leonora
ping 1:49 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Leonora,
Totally agree with you that we should start early to prepare the elevator pitch. I have little concept of what the pitch should be like, even after watching the Pitch Polls. I realized my problems soon after I launched the pitch in the forum. So it there were a few days left the result would be improved better.
Ping