Assignment #3: Educational Application of Penveu
Hi,
Sorry for being a bit late, I submitted this to David on Saturday, but had problems uploading it to the blog. Hopefully this link works!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8nu030x2g60lzr7/AhgxDlPBaH
Let me know if there are any problems finding my assignment!
I have done an educational market venture pitch on Penveu, a new technology similar to that of an IWB, but that allows all of the features to be captured in one pen.
Let me know what you think!
Jhodi
Posted in: General, Venture Forum
Jenny Brown 9:59 pm on November 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
I enjoyed both your short elevator pitch and venture pitch. I really liked the design of your venture pitch – very professional and well laid out. I think you described the pain point, investment potential, current investors, team, and differentiation of the product all very well. As it is not your own original venture, I understand why you didn’t show a “face of the product” in the video, but I do find that I am more drawn to a pitch if there is a face behind the voice. To enhance your pitch, I would also recommend letting potential investors know what to do next – visit the website, contact our team for investment opportunities, etc.
As an EVA I expected to get a good understanding of what the product actually was in your venture pitch. I did reread what you wrote, and understand that it has something to do with pixels on the screen but a demo would have been a selling point for me, although I would agree there is a market for this product, I would not invest without seeing a demo of how well it works.
jhodi 5:14 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Jenny!
I agree that it would have been nice to have my face in the video, but as it is not my own product, I thought that I would assume the position of one of the CEO’s and keep it as if it was coming from one of them. I also wanted to feature the product, and since I do not actually have one, I thought that photos would be better. I do also like seeing a face in the video though.
Jhodi
tomwhyte1 2:33 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
Thank you for providing information regarding Penveu, never heard of it before, looks intereting. However, before I complete my rating could answer a question for me. I am just unsure what has been “made over” to quote one of David’s posts or what the new venture/idea is. Would you mind clarifying this for me?
Regardless, I like Jenny enjoyed the presentation, as it was engaging and highly information regarding this product.
Thanks, Tom
jhodi 9:46 am on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Tom,
I wanted to market Penveu to the educational market in a way that would focus on the use by a teacher and students in an interactive, engaging way. I have tried to focus the pitch on marketing Penveu to instructors and schools for the purpose of engaging students and creating efficient hand-on learning in the classroom. By highlighting the educational aspects and benefits of Penveu, I hope to intrigue potential educational investors. I felt as though the original marketing of Penveu was not focused on the education market enough in terms of benefits in the classroom.
Jhodi
Doug Connery 8:10 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Well done Jhodi. I enjoyed your elevator pitch and like Jenny, it would have been more convincing to see your face. This would have given some visual cues and body language indicating your excitement towards the product.
Both your elevator pitch and venture pitch certainly convinced me on the more affordable price and flexibility of use in the classroom as big features of the product. Your venture pitch is very convincing and realistic to the point that at first I was wondering why you were just re-publishing or plagiarizing their marketing material. Once I was part way through, I then realized it was your own material thus I believe you did a fine job of role playing and creating new and unique marketing material.
Doug.
jhodi 5:19 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the input, I agree that having me in the video would have allowed my body language to show more. If I actually had a Penveu, I would have definitely gone that route.
Colin 9:25 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jhodi, I like the idea behind Penveu and the approach of positioning it against whiteboards with the idea of cost savings and portability. Though the price is a bit misleading as a whiteboard already includes the projector where this product needs a laptop, projector and pen. Depending on what resources the school already has this might not be that much cheaper. Since it is portability that might be appealing as well to a school over a Whiteboard. As for the product I would really need to use it to determine its effectiveness before I would decide if it is worthwhile. Since it has to go through wireless to a laptop there might be a lag involved that could be annoying to teachers. Overall a good job I would definitely look further into investing into this kind of company.
Pat A Son 3:54 am on November 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
I can see that your venture has a solid team from the biographical sketches you have provided and they have put together a solid product.
With the current thrust to get schools up to scratch with information technology you have convinced me that you have a possible game changer for those teachers who are intimidated by the hardware side of some of the products that are available today. As matter of fact our school was provided with two of a similar product but no one uses them because they have to be calibrated and you are ‘pinned’ to the front of the class when using them. I am just stating the fact because you did a great job of identifying the competitive edge of penveu and as such did not need any help from me. So the penveu team certainly did their homework and got their act right in this respect.
There is certainly a lot of room in the education market for penveu but you did not say how potential customers are exposed to the product. Also I would have liked to know the market size in terms of how much money it is estimated to have and how this market is projected to grow in the future. In addition penveu’s parent Interphase Corporation seem to be a solid company with a deep pocket so I do not think they need my money anyway. As long as you can provide me with the answers to these questions I will invest in penveu.
After all is said and done you did a great job.
Cheers
Patason
jhodi 5:45 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
Given that this is such a new technology, it has been grouped with the IWB market. As such, I explored the potential market growth for this market, but I was unable to determine what portion of the market would move to Penveu. This is an area that I would have liked to have found more information about (but with all of my searching, I was unable to). I agree that for a potential investor, this would be very valuable information.
Jhodi
teacherben 6:51 pm on November 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think the product is sound. I just went to a learning technologies expo last week and the one thing that I saw over and over was interactive whiteboards. Probably a third of the companies that were there were showing something like a Smartboard or something like a Mimeo. And, coincidentally, my wife is helping prepare a bid to a Central American government for the purchase of thousands of these things for schools. And I didn’t see anything like the penveu so I thought it was your own invention until I looked it up. I think you know your stuff. You present a myriad of facts and include a few figures that shows that you did your research.
I watched your elevator pitch a couple of times though and I spaced out each time. I think that the elevator pitch needs a bit more style and a bit less substance. I guess I am being a little picky about technical and performance issues, but I could hear you gasping for breath as you were trying to get everything out. There was a lot of information in there that would have been better in the venture pitch. The elevator pitch just needs to get my attention so that I listen to the venture pitch. It is not about making the sale. It is just about getting in the door. I watched the video that they had on their site (Dr. Yoram Solomin, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development) here:
http://www.penveu.com/products.html?video
and he was able to sell the idea without nearly so much information.
On the other hand, your venture pitch was beautifully presented and the little touches made it look very professional. You may have wanted to slide yourself in there as a senior level administrator though. It was not clear who you are in the company, unless I missed something.
I was also not clear on what you are asking. It seems that the project already has sound financial backing from Interphase. And from my experience, there is no guarantee that you will make any money investing based on a product that is produced by a huge company. If this is their only product, and it takes off, you can make money. If they are part of a huge conglomerate, then success of one product has little impact on the balance sheet.
So, before investing, I would want to know more.
jhodi 5:59 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your input! It is funny that you mention too much information in the elevator pitch because I have a tendency to want to put as much as I can into things like this and I know that sometimes less is more. I think that overall, investors with some sort of tie to the education market would be the target market for this product as they would be able to invest capital and help make connections at the same time, which is what I think this device may need.
Jhodi
jameschen 2:32 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
Your elevator pitch has a lot of information, so a provision of closed captioning would paint a clearer picture for me as an investor. As an EVA, your pitch would hook my interest more if you provided a description of what the students can do with the product (i.e., write on any surface?) in addition to information about how it is better than the IWB.
Upon reviewing Penveu’s website, I do wonder how your pitch is steering the company from its original direction?
Thanks,
James
jhodi 6:02 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
The only thing that I found when I explored their marketing was that it somewhat lacked emphasis on the impact that it would have on teaching style and student engagement. This is in line with the company’s vision, but my goal was to emphasize how this could make a bigger, stronger impact.
Jhodi
jameschen 3:29 pm on December 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Johdi,
It appears that most of us who were re-pitching for existing companies had the same problem. I wanted the company to focus more on the education market instead of the commercial one, but did not specifically emphasize how in my pitches. There should have been an extra section on both my elevator and venture pitches comparing which direction Knewton is currently going, how it differs from the direction I want the company to move towards and the results this new direction will have in comparison to the results they have now.
In any case, this assignment was a great learning experience for me, and I hope it was the same for you too.
Have a good break!
James
pcollins 10:11 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I appreciated the cleanness and succinct message from your elevator pitch. I did find it contained a lot of information to digest in a short period of time. Almost like a very short venture pitch – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing? Just something that I noted personally. Your recording was also very clear and overlaid well with the visuals that you provided. It was quite interesting to see that penvue compared to the smart board technology which many are now questioning the validity of. I hope that wouldn’t detract from the marketability of this neat little device.
cunnian 12:00 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
Great job on the elevator and venture pitch. I found that they were both very professional and informative. Like others, my concern is that this is already a well-established company that is not really hurting for money. As such, being an investor, I am having a hard time finding a way that my investment is needed.
It was a good idea, however, to take this product in a new direction in order to fully move into the educational market. You would think that the parent company would have considered this!
melissaayers 1:45 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
Great work both you pitches were very professional!
From the elevator pitch I was not able to workout exactly what this product does unfortunately (I am a newbie when it comes to white/smart board technologies sorry) and for this reason I needed to look further into it. The pitch clearly states a pain point but I am not sure how this device actually works to meet this pain point from the video. Although the pitch does clearly identify how this provides value by means of a cost reduction compared to other products. My confusion for understanding the product lead me to view the venture pitch, which was professionally presented with most of the investment information I wanted to see as an EVA.
However unfortunately I do not think I would invest in this venture. While not because of anything related to the ventures pitches themselves or their contend purely as I think its something the competitors can reproduce and integrate into their own products or even buy the company if the product is something they find great.
Thanks
Melissa
adi 10:08 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi jhodi,
Sorry for the late post. I have had sleepless nights completing other assignments. I do apologize and mean no disrespect.
I am going to base my feedback on what we saw in week 3 regarding the content of a venture pitch(Perfecting Your Pitch).
1. Pain Point: the market gap or problem the venture is addressing
– Though this is an interesting product, I don’t think it is necessarily a very much needed one. Some people say the IWB is on its way out, and there are only 600,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_whiteboard ) out there, so it would appear to be a limited market.(http://eddigitaltribe.blogspot.mx/2012/01/are-interactive-white-boards-dead.html )
2. Solution: the new product or service that resolves the pain
– Yes, the gadget solves the problem
3. Differentiation: the reason someone will buy or use this new product or service, versus the alternatives
– The report does not state if here is anything else similar in the market
4. Marketing: where and how buyers/users will be reached
-It is not clear. Also, though the report states this gadget will enhance the IWB market, I read pages that suggest it may replace this market, so I got a bit confused http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/penveu-electronic-pen-could-replace-whiteboards/11270
5. Championship: the competency of the venture’s leaders and advisors
– Good
6. Competition: an overview of competitors and partners
-Not mentioned.
7. The Ask: how much money, etc, is required to take the next step
– Not mentioned
8. The Return: how much and how soon will an investor be recompensed
– Not mentioned
9. The Message
-Overall the presentation, especially the PDF, was well presented. Some things to keep in mind: speak more slowly and have less text so investors actually read your proposal. This aside, however, I feel the look was good and if tweaked could work.
Good luck,
Adriana