A3 Advice
Pursuant to Peggy’s recent A3 post, and some other queries via email, I’m posting this general announcement to welcome any questions about Assignment 3 that might not be answered or sufficiently clear in the instructions and rubric in the course requirements.
As per the course schedule, your A3 is due at the end of Week 12, which is Sunday November 25th. That deadline is critically important because our Venture Forum begins the next day and I’ll be assigning your individual review duties within that immediately, so any A3 that’s not submitted on time can’t be in the Forum.
Your A3 should be an original learning technologies venture (for profit, non profit or blended) that is either a start-up (completely new) or a makeover (completely new direction for an existing venture). It can be fiction (you have no intention of pursuing the venture), fantasy (it is based on a technology that doesn’t exist yet), or nonfiction (a real venture, with you on your way to fame & fortune). Your role is to be the intrapreneur or entrepreneur who persuasively conveys the vision and the value proposition of the venture, telling us an engaging story that covers all of the questions an EVA might have. I’m not expecting you to be money experts, so only provide as much detail about financing, pricing, etc, as you are comfortable with (no money details at all is fine).
A mistake some students make (and just as many entrepreneurs in real life!) is that they’re so in love with the product/service that they forget that their pitch is supposed to be targeted at investors (people who care about how the venture will be successful) rather than customers (people who might buy the product/service). Tell us what’s cool and original about your product/service only as a context for convincing us that you know how to create a sustainable venture around it.
Another common mistake is forgetting to ask for something. Why are you pitching? What do you need from your listener, and what can they expect in return?
So A3 is your chance to strut your stuff as a venture champion, whether this is play-acting or very real. Don’t hesitate to be creative, nor to ask me directly if your idea/approach is on target.
Have fun with this,
David
Posted in: Announcements, General
joeltremblay 10:33 am on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you David,
This explanation is MUCH appreciated.
Doug Connery 9:04 pm on November 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi David, thanks for the info.
As the November 25 due date draws near, I have some questions.
Will you create a Venture Forum Category for us to link our submissions to?
Just to be clear, we create a new post here and upload our elevator pitch (video) and venture pitch (video or written) and embed them in the post. This is where Kaltura comes in, automatically I assume.
Then we wait for you to assign each of us 10 ventures to review. We comment briefly on 7 and in more detail on our top 3 and then choose and justify one or more of the top three to fund. This needs to be done by the last day of classes on Friday November 30.
Thanks David.