Live Teacher: (Fictional Venture Pitch)

by dawinder mann

11 comments

1 Sharon Hann { 12.01.09 at 12:48 pm }

I like the idea of an intergrated system. I work in an online classroom environment and the admin can be dificult to balance. I worry about the investment of 5 developers time before the product is built. How will you know exactly what customers want/need? The returns on this type of project can be great but the investment is large. Becasue of the high potential, I would say this is a good idea and a good pitch. Sharon

2 Jeff Laird { 12.01.09 at 8:44 pm }

I absolutely love the notion – it addresses a number of complaints I hear from staff, teachers, students, parents. However, I question some of the numbers in the executive summary which would make me hesitant as an investor. A break-even by 2011 with a team of 5 developers (and no mention of support people or training staff to work with the admin and teachers) means that you would need to sign up 133 sizeable high schools (or 19 school districts the size of Victoria’s) within the tw0 years just to pay your development staff (average salary and benefits of $80000 for developers).

I’m interested in the idea but would be hesitant as an EVA on the return potential.

3 Cindy Leach { 12.02.09 at 1:57 am }

This is a great idea with great potential as the others have said. A solution with complete integration is everyone’s dream. For myself I would have liked to seen at least some visuals in you summary, graphs, pics, company logo? Also when you mention about the developers it made me a little leary as well, I started to question the stability of the product, is it built, are you market ready and if not, how much money is it going to cost to get you there?

4 dawinder mann { 12.02.09 at 2:15 pm }

Thank you for the feedback everyone,

With fictional companies like Live Teacher, one think that is hard to master is how do estimate the cost of a business venture? I think you can come close but you will never be bang on. Especially in a 11 min presentation.

One thing I think I struggled with is estimating the amount of time and effort this would take to develop by a group of people. While teaching programming 11/12 I have noticed that you can have a very simple program sometimes but it might take you a long time to work out the bugs. Live Teacher would not be a simple program. Integration at this level would be in a different ball park compared to the software we currently use in the current K-12 system. And that is why for this fictional company I estimated 5 developers (This could be split up into part-time, contract employees or full time employees.)

The reason why I selected this as an idea was because I was wondering why we don’t currently have a system like this . I know it would be very successfull. But again it would take some investment to make it all work. This is a long term investment that would pay off over a course of a few years as mentioned earlier.

Most business do not make a profit for their first few years and many fail. Facebook being is a great example. Facebook recently announced it made money for the first time this year. Facebook was created in 2004. It might of had a lot of investors but when it comes to overall profits it only made money this year. Expenses out paced revenue.

Take care,

Dawinder

5 Amy Frank { 12.02.09 at 8:29 pm }

Hi Dawinder,

Interesting idea. I do not have really any experience in K-12, so I am not sure I can add anything regarding the need. However, the idea is sound, and from the other posts, it seems to be relevant for this market. I agree with the others regarding the timelines for success, especially considering the Facebook stats you listed. As well, as mentioned above, I would have really liked some visuals, especially graphics in the presentation.

What type of support would your team provide?

6 Byron Kask { 12.03.09 at 1:00 pm }

Hi Dawinder,

I’ve decided to give your pitch a full review using the Cube as a guideline.

Market Focus:

Like you specified, the main market focus is K-12. The interesting thing about this venture is that it’s designed to be implemented at an early grade level, following the student through to graduation.

Types of offerings:

The CMS itself would be prepackaged content, but I’m unclear about whether you would host it on your servers or if it would be software that is hosted and maintained at a district level.

Who is the Buyer:

The goal is to have a whole district buy the CMS, and then provide to to all the schools in the district. It might be worthwhile offering the CMS to individual schools or classrooms as a way of getting the product into schools, and providing the hosting for them.

Global Markets:

This product could be sold to all wired Anglophone countries immediately, and later translated to allow additional global markets. Computer/net access is the limitation.

Development of a Market:

This CMS would be available for any market that it was priced competitively in. Give the unique design direction, it could be adopted by any K-12 out there. The problem is that it will take a lot of classroom computers to make use of, which might be limitation.

Competing with other forms…:

This product will compete with other forms of learning. It presupposes that students will have net access during classtime to make use of it. It also assumes that there will be a lot of teachers who will adopt the technology within districts that purchase it.

My thought as a potential investor:

I love the idea, but like others, I’d be concerned about time to become profitable. The main thing that sets your CMS apart from others is the ability to incorporate teachers, students, parents, and admin into one system. I think that you have a solid concept, but to built from scratch seems like a lot of extra expense.

If I could suggest a different approach, I might build a set of commercial plugins for and existing product like Moodle. You could still generate revenue, but the lower cost of production would mean a lower cost to the school system. This would make your product easier to purchase.

Overall, I really like your idea, but as an investor, the development required to possibly become profitable makes it seem a little risky. That being said, if you delivered, I think the project would be a success.

7 Cathy Jung { 12.03.09 at 6:19 pm }

Hi Dawinder,

I liked the part of your pitch that stated “one account, one system, one solution”. The focus and repetition of the word “one” was strong. I did wonder why the CMS is called Live Teacher? What is the live component? I guess I’ll need to watch the full pitch for that!

Cathy

8 Michel Lacoursiere { 12.03.09 at 9:36 pm }

Very well thought out and delivered presentation Darwinder. I am not sure if I have much more to add as my major concern was in relation to the numbers but that was already brought up by Jeff above. Developers are expensive.

I think the highlight for me was how integrated and complete the system was that you described. If there is one thing teachers, and anyone really, appreciate it is when things just “work” and you presentation lead me to believe that your fictional product would work for me as an educator.

~Michel

9 Bev { 12.04.09 at 3:41 pm }

Hi Darwinder- As I listened to your pitch I reflected on my own situation- Teacher Logic for attendance and marks- Moodle for what ever we want to use it for, school web-site established by a private company where we post our homework- and announcements- and another platform for our e-mail- That’s the four that are used on a daily basis- Parents are supposed to be able to access Teacher Logic- but that hasn’t happened yet- so contacting them is done by phone. So would having a platform that integrated this all in one place- you bet!! Too bad it is fictional- you need to get working on this.
I don’t really understand how LMS work- what does Vista lack?- What is it that Live Teacher can do that Moodle or Vista just are not capable of doing?
I have the same questions about developers as already mentioned.
My pitch was too long to put on YouTube- I wish I had done what you did and done it in two parts- Good for you!

10 Liz Hood { 12.05.09 at 8:10 am }

Good elevator pitch. I think one integrated system is a sound business concept. Your elevator pitch summarized well the important points and your graphics complemented the audio nicely.

11 dawinder mann { 12.05.09 at 9:11 pm }

Thanks for feedback everyone,

I created this pitch because I really wanted a system like this within our district. One system that runs everything. I see some of the limitation in my pitch but I hope this fictional product will come a reality soon. I think it would really make a difference.

Its a large platform which would probably require a large company to invest in or take over.

Take care,

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