Hi everyone! Please find my venture pitch as well as my elevator pitch in the link below. My pitch is taking an existing language learning app in a different direction and focusing on Indigenous languages, with one particular Indigenous language as the initial focus.
https://sites.google.com/view/lingvistventurepitch/home
FEEDBACK: Hi Seth. There is a purposeful, inspiring tone to your pitch and it shines in the marketing and solution sections. I was especially impressed by the strength of discussing the value and market of Reo Māori. You clearly put a lot of thought into how that language is a great first pick to test the market. I liked the competitions page as well as the pros and cons. For more clarity, I wonder if having them all succintly in a table of comparison could really show how Lingvist Indigenous Language Initiative goes above and beyond in more aspects. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Seth! Thanks for putting together this pitch; this is certainly a worthwhile social enterprise, and I’ll echo Jackson’s point regarding the ideal strategic choice of launching the Indigenous Language Initiative in New Zealand given the government’s financial support offered for Indigenous Language Learning! I likewise think you made a compelling case for why preservation of Indigenous Languages is so integral to the preservation of Indigenous Culture and Identity. I may have missed it, but I didn’t understand how some of the financial figures were derived (e.g. revenue from non-student Māori subscribers and non-subscribers; I am unsure how the number of users was estimated), and I likewise wasn’t sure what the financial return would be for investors. That said, the social benefit and return was certainly apparent, and I hope more ventures such as this are supported here in Canada! Cheers!
FEEDBACK: What a purposeful and important pitch! As mentioned above, starting off in New Zealand with Te Reo Māori is wise. When I lived in Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, I appreciated how Te Reo Māori was integrated into day-to-day life. For example, I worked at Whakapapa (pronounced Fak-a-papa) and my first local lesson was to not disrespect the language by pronouncing ‘Wh’ as I normally would in Canada, it is the ‘ph’ sound. If there was an app available like this when I lived there, I would have loved to learn from it. More importantly – I live on unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh land and would love a tool like this. From an investment perspective, I would like a bit more visual appeal on the site, such as consistent font size and font type. This takes away from your great information.
Hi Seth, I enjoyed reviewing your OER. The passion for the idea was visible throughout the presentation, and that’s always a positive sign to any investor. You did an excellent job on the breakdown of the New Zealand market analysis and explained “the why” clearly. Survival of Indigenous languages is indeed very important and seeing the demise of an Indigenous language is very upsetting. One thing that could have been explained more under the pain point section, was explaining why some attempts at language revitalization succeed, whereas others fail. You did discuss lack of resources, however, an investor would probably want to know more about the failure points.
FEEDBACK: Loved the music to your Elevator Pitch. The charts in the Elevator Pitch were hard to read due to the speed and font colour/size. Did you have two different Elevator Pitches? I truly appreciate the opportunity to learn about Indigenous Languages, too. As a Venture Capitalist who might be scoping out a partnership or investment in a language application that teaches Indigenous Languages, I would surely consider your Venture as you are ahead of other companies that have not introduced Indigenous languages but the common romantic and Eastern languages instead. In your competition pie chart, I wonder where Drops and Lingodeer compare to those you included. Thanks again.
FEEDBACK: Hi Seth, I think the concept of a language app which focuses on indigenous languages is a good one. As an investor though, I would need to know how the numbers would pan out for an investment specifically into the indigenous language portion of the app. My understanding is that the app already has a money-making model, so how would the indigenous-language portion fit into this? Or would it be more of an investment into culture by a government or charity looking to help keep these languages alive?
FEEDBACK: Seth, I enjoyed going through your venture pitch immensely. I think retaining culture and educating users re: cultural sensitivity through a language app can be very impactful. That being said, there are many language apps out there already in the market. How will this app stand out to their competitors and how can the indigenous peoples benefit / gain profit from this technology? The ask for funding is quite a large sum of money… compared to Duolinguo which already has existing customers and support multiple languages… Are there other features that Lingvist bring that users can learn? Perhaps they can learn more about the culture through the app? Perhaps there is a way for indigenous educators to analyze how students are doing and cater the curriculum to their learning needs? can it integrate with other apps? There’s many vibrant ideas that can come about for this venture and I’m excited how this can be explored in future iterations.
[FEEDBACK] Well done on this venture deck, I really appreciate the intentionality behind it and think more ideas like this should be at the forefront of our thinking. As an investor I would like to know when and what does the ROI look like for your venture? Without any costs or pricing schematic I am not able to discern where the investors money goes and when they might get a return on investment. I think it is really important to outline in detail how you can capitalize on the largest portion of the market share that is available.