Hello! And welcome to my Assignment 3.
Our data-driven digital landscape is becoming more personalized by the day. Tomorrow’s industries are not looking for mass-produced, standardized workers. Until now, educators have struggled to keep track of their learner’s progress when each one is on their own unique path.
Meet JournEd. The tool that uses cloud computing and AI to provide the best individualized assessment of learning. Without rebuilding the technological architecture.
Elevator Pitch:
Venture Pitch:
Click here to view the JournEd Pitch Deck.
Hi Laura,
First about your elevator pitch:
Being able to see the face behind the idea is definitely something that would inspire confidence in investors. The general concept of the product seems appealing enough. The part about building on top of existing architectures would be a major selling point, as most school systems are struggling with funding. If I was an investor, I would be willing to hear more because of the promise of this type of market.
Venture pitch:
The slide deck is beautifully crafted and looks very professional. However, after reading through it, I’m left with a big question: how is JournEd different from an LMS/SIS? You mentioned that JournED is “one platform for assessment, digital communication, and student information”, which is exactly what LMSs and SISs do. I don’t quite understand how it’s meant to be built on top of these architectures instead of replacing them. Personalized learning and AI-supported microlearning are certainly interesting promises, but there’s not enough detail to explain what those actually do, how they work, and how they’re different from the competition.
Some smaller things:
In your chart in “What Sets Us Apart”, JournEd is positioned as more affordable than Moodle, which is quite difficult considering it’s free. Even if you go with a Moodle partner that offers all these extra supports and services, it certainly won’t cost anywhere close to $48/student/year as your pricing plan suggests. Speaking of the pricing plan, there are some pretty egregious errors in the calculations; all of the numbers in the yearly revenue are wrong (there are 12 months in a year), and the stage 3 numbers seem to suggest every student would be on both the basic plan AND the pro plan simultaneously, which leads to numbers that are quite misleading. The yearly revenue in stage 3 that is highlighted is missing a whole digit, which makes the number incredibly underwhelming. I also think you are severely underestimating the cost of development for such a product by at the very least an order of magnitude; a smart investor would see this as a red flag suggesting that either the scope of the product is way too small or that you are not sufficiently aware of potential costs.
Yannick
Hi, Laura,
With most assignments posted without showing the founder and lead on a project, I felt you were brave to include yourself in your elevator pitch. It outlined the product and solution offered, with a bit of tongue-in-cheekiness. Keeping in mind your venture is fictitious, the venture pitch was indeed beautiful, well-laid out and simple to follow without extraneous info. keeping in mind this is a fictitious venture. Good effort!
Hey Laura,
Thanks for letting us explore your A3, it is a great idea!
Elevator Pitch: I loved your enthusiasm! Your pitch is very coherent and enunciated which peaked my interest from the outset. I also very much appreciated that the pitch is just you (with quite an interesting background!) and the only graphic is an overlay – the fact that the video held my interest even though it’s just a person talking to the screen speaks to how captivating your pitch was!
Venture Pitch: I like the format you chose, though at first it took a bit to figure out how to navigate backwards. I like the amount of white space and the colourways you chose – I feel as though you made your information pop, so good work! The historical context was a nice touch and you did a great job on the ‘market’ portion of the A3, which took up the back portion of your pitch. I do wonder about your competitors; you do mention them but I didn’t really find out much about what REALLY sets you apart from them. I would have liked to see some info akin to “this is what competitor A does, and this is what JournED does to solve it”. Overall I think you have put forth an interesting set of pitches with a lot of pertinent information that an investor would be interested in. Great job!
Hi Laura,
To add to the reviews above…
I love the energy and presence in your elevator pitch. I do, however, think it could have done with some text visuals, or a simpler background (I had to watch it 3 times because I kept getting distracted by all the treasures in the background and couldn’t figure out what the venture was. That said, I’d love to come around for a games night!)
Highlights of your venture pitch were the expertise on your team and your financials. That made me feel quite confident to throw money at you. The slide deck was lovely as well and the branding was great (with a mission statement!), though the branding was quite different to the elevator pitch. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think your venture pitch actually could have been longer. Specifically, I would like to see some more market trends and insight into your competition (if you could hover over the bubbles on your graph for more info that would be fab).
Great work Laura!