FEEDBACK: Safaa, this is a great idea! I love the idea of being able to learn a language and about the culture, because the culture piece is so important – especially when travelling! This pitch was great – you offered a lot of valuable information. You provided plenty of great information regarding the market and finances. My one piece of feedback is that I wish there was more explanation about the actual program. How do users connect to the native speakers? Is this like a language learning app, with an option to communicate with native speakers? I am trying to visualize the app. I think this is one piece that would strengthen your pitch! Good work!
FEEDBACK: Hi Safa’a, I really like your idea with Speakulture. Although there are existing language learning apps out there, it doesn’t seem like many have integrated culture into the programming, which is a crucial element. I also think that it’s a cool way to have language learners have more control over their experience. I have a similar suggestion to Justine, in that it would be helpful to know a little bit more about what the program does and how learners engage with the cultural component (as that’s what sets it apart). I really think this is a great venture!
Hi Safaa, There are a plethora of language learning apps out there but I like how your venture embraces the cultural aspects. Clearly, you have the background and experience for this venture, I especially like the use of the community model. I would have liked to hear more information about the technicalities of your platform in the elevator pitch and your pitch deck. Other than the competitive advantage slide, there was not much information on the actual platform itself. You provided sufficient information on the market analysis and business model of your venture, but I was having a difficult time envisioning what the actual platform would look like. As a potential investor, I’m not sure I can see it through from the ventures inception to conception.
FEEDBACK: Your Elevator pitch has strong justification / reasons for why it is beneficial to learn languages as well as cultures and people who speak diverse languages. The Market info and revenue model, financial projections and marketing+sales strategies sections were all very thorough and specific. I’m interested in learning more about what the social platform of the app will look like- how will people be interacting with the service in order to learn about language and culture? And what will be some of the language learning activities promoted on the app? Will it be like Duolingo but with an open social forum to learn about culture too? Or cultural-specific modules that align with learning certain languages? I think this is a promising idea that could help bridge some important gaps.
REVIEW:
I love the idea for your program. Understanding the culture (or cultures) a language comes from is an extremely important part of becoming immersed in a language and maintaining the motivation to learn it. I liked your well-researched emphasis on the positive benefits of language learning and thought that your breakdown of financials and the explanation of your business model were sound. I was somewhat confused by the details of how your program would incorporate these cultural elements into language learning. I think to feel comfortable investing i would need more information on the details of how the program would function.
Feedback:
I love the idea for your program. Understanding the culture (or cultures) a language comes from is an extremely important part of becoming immersed in a language and maintaining the motivation to learn it. I liked your well-researched emphasis on the positive benefits of language learning and thought that your breakdown of financials and the explanation of your business model were sound. I was somewhat confused by the details of how your program would incorporate these cultural elements into language learning. I think to feel comfortable investing i would need more information on the details of how the program would function.
FEEDBACK: Hello SafaaAbuSaa. I loved the purpose of teaching languages associated with cultural aspects. This was one of the most significant gaps in my bilingual education. I was so impressed with this difficulty that my children learned English in Canada. It is difficult to understand a language’s rhythm, accent, cadence, and fundamentals without knowing its cultural expressions. Moreover, knowing and understanding language and cultural differences is the most effective way to respect people.
Great job!
REVIEW: Hi Safa’a, I appreciated your venture pitch! SpeaKulture is a great idea, and I can see it being extremely useful in language and cultural education. Just like the feedback above, I am also interested in how the actual program would function. You clearly state the problem and your solution which made it very easy to follow. You have a lot of data to back up your reasoning for the venture and you also explain why it is significant. You also clearly state your target market which you’ve shown to be wide overall. However, it becomes difficult to then imagine the specific target users and to then differentiate yourself for all those users. There would be differences in what a busy user would be looking for from a program compared to a slow-paced user. As an investor, I think I would want more information on the program for this reason specifically. In terms of your monetization strategy, I agree that those that have large market shares can solely rely on data monetization and advertising revenues. As a start-up then, user retention and engagement would be extremely important. The question then I would have as a potential investor would be how does the program ensure user retention? Without the user retention aspect, it would be difficult to invest. My concern with data monetization would be that users are becoming more aware of their data that is collected, so it is possible that there could be larger concerns in the future relating as data ethics becomes a more prominent topic. I would invest based on the idea itself, but I struggle with the decision when it comes down to the monetization strategy.
“REVIEW” Hello Safa’a, Your venture taps into an area that has been tormenting language teachers for a long time. Learning a new language is also learning a new culture. One cannot separate a language from the culture where that language is spoken. But the issue has been how does one teach culture in a classroom? That is what makes your venture so appealing. As you are, maybe, looking for ways to get your venture off the ground, you may want to think about how you can host live events on the site where classroom users can communicate and discuss cultural issues or just observe how cultural rituals such as how Christmas is celebrated in other places, how birthdays, and weddings are commemorated. These will definitely require you to establish key contacts in many places. But, it will all worth it.
All the best in this endeavor!
Feedback – Hi Safa, great great pitch!! This is an amazing tool! I would love to use this, as someone who loves to travel (and tries to learn at least a bit of the language while I’m there, I could definitely use this!) I can definitely see it’s competitive advantage over other tools, however, I think your market pitch would be even stronger if you were to talk more about the specific other language tools and all the ways that your tool is better. Another thing that could have improved the pitch would’ve been a catchy name and logo. It would’ve helped to mature your pitch further to have the name of your venture front-and-center.
FEEDBACK: Hi Safa’a, it was a pleasure watching your elevator and venture pitch. I really appreciated how you identified a huge gap in language learning apps and developed an eloquent solution for it. The best ways I have learned different languages was by immersing myself in that language, and that’s hard to do without the nuances of the cultural aspects. SpeaKulture definitely provides a way of solving this by creating spaces for others to share tips or facts about some of those language nuances to help users learn more in depth. Although language learning has a large appeal to all ages and many demographics, it may be worth focusing on a smaller target group initially to help with development and testing before expanding to broader markets. Different age groups interact and communicate using technology in different ways and common references/sayings differ between generations as well. Overall, I believe SpeaKulture has a lot of potential and it is something I’d use when learning new languages, great job!
FEEDBACK: Safaa, this is a great idea! I love the idea of being able to learn a language and about the culture, because the culture piece is so important – especially when travelling! This pitch was great – you offered a lot of valuable information. You provided plenty of great information regarding the market and finances. My one piece of feedback is that I wish there was more explanation about the actual program. How do users connect to the native speakers? Is this like a language learning app, with an option to communicate with native speakers? I am trying to visualize the app. I think this is one piece that would strengthen your pitch! Good work!
FEEDBACK: Hi Safa’a, I really like your idea with Speakulture. Although there are existing language learning apps out there, it doesn’t seem like many have integrated culture into the programming, which is a crucial element. I also think that it’s a cool way to have language learners have more control over their experience. I have a similar suggestion to Justine, in that it would be helpful to know a little bit more about what the program does and how learners engage with the cultural component (as that’s what sets it apart). I really think this is a great venture!
Hi Safaa, There are a plethora of language learning apps out there but I like how your venture embraces the cultural aspects. Clearly, you have the background and experience for this venture, I especially like the use of the community model. I would have liked to hear more information about the technicalities of your platform in the elevator pitch and your pitch deck. Other than the competitive advantage slide, there was not much information on the actual platform itself. You provided sufficient information on the market analysis and business model of your venture, but I was having a difficult time envisioning what the actual platform would look like. As a potential investor, I’m not sure I can see it through from the ventures inception to conception.
FEEDBACK: Your Elevator pitch has strong justification / reasons for why it is beneficial to learn languages as well as cultures and people who speak diverse languages. The Market info and revenue model, financial projections and marketing+sales strategies sections were all very thorough and specific. I’m interested in learning more about what the social platform of the app will look like- how will people be interacting with the service in order to learn about language and culture? And what will be some of the language learning activities promoted on the app? Will it be like Duolingo but with an open social forum to learn about culture too? Or cultural-specific modules that align with learning certain languages? I think this is a promising idea that could help bridge some important gaps.
REVIEW:
I love the idea for your program. Understanding the culture (or cultures) a language comes from is an extremely important part of becoming immersed in a language and maintaining the motivation to learn it. I liked your well-researched emphasis on the positive benefits of language learning and thought that your breakdown of financials and the explanation of your business model were sound. I was somewhat confused by the details of how your program would incorporate these cultural elements into language learning. I think to feel comfortable investing i would need more information on the details of how the program would function.
Apologies, I meant to label this comment as Feedback. Please ignore the review tab.
Feedback:
I love the idea for your program. Understanding the culture (or cultures) a language comes from is an extremely important part of becoming immersed in a language and maintaining the motivation to learn it. I liked your well-researched emphasis on the positive benefits of language learning and thought that your breakdown of financials and the explanation of your business model were sound. I was somewhat confused by the details of how your program would incorporate these cultural elements into language learning. I think to feel comfortable investing i would need more information on the details of how the program would function.
FEEDBACK: Hello SafaaAbuSaa. I loved the purpose of teaching languages associated with cultural aspects. This was one of the most significant gaps in my bilingual education. I was so impressed with this difficulty that my children learned English in Canada. It is difficult to understand a language’s rhythm, accent, cadence, and fundamentals without knowing its cultural expressions. Moreover, knowing and understanding language and cultural differences is the most effective way to respect people.
Great job!
REVIEW: Hi Safa’a, I appreciated your venture pitch! SpeaKulture is a great idea, and I can see it being extremely useful in language and cultural education. Just like the feedback above, I am also interested in how the actual program would function. You clearly state the problem and your solution which made it very easy to follow. You have a lot of data to back up your reasoning for the venture and you also explain why it is significant. You also clearly state your target market which you’ve shown to be wide overall. However, it becomes difficult to then imagine the specific target users and to then differentiate yourself for all those users. There would be differences in what a busy user would be looking for from a program compared to a slow-paced user. As an investor, I think I would want more information on the program for this reason specifically. In terms of your monetization strategy, I agree that those that have large market shares can solely rely on data monetization and advertising revenues. As a start-up then, user retention and engagement would be extremely important. The question then I would have as a potential investor would be how does the program ensure user retention? Without the user retention aspect, it would be difficult to invest. My concern with data monetization would be that users are becoming more aware of their data that is collected, so it is possible that there could be larger concerns in the future relating as data ethics becomes a more prominent topic. I would invest based on the idea itself, but I struggle with the decision when it comes down to the monetization strategy.
“REVIEW” Hello Safa’a, Your venture taps into an area that has been tormenting language teachers for a long time. Learning a new language is also learning a new culture. One cannot separate a language from the culture where that language is spoken. But the issue has been how does one teach culture in a classroom? That is what makes your venture so appealing. As you are, maybe, looking for ways to get your venture off the ground, you may want to think about how you can host live events on the site where classroom users can communicate and discuss cultural issues or just observe how cultural rituals such as how Christmas is celebrated in other places, how birthdays, and weddings are commemorated. These will definitely require you to establish key contacts in many places. But, it will all worth it.
All the best in this endeavor!
Feedback – Hi Safa, great great pitch!! This is an amazing tool! I would love to use this, as someone who loves to travel (and tries to learn at least a bit of the language while I’m there, I could definitely use this!) I can definitely see it’s competitive advantage over other tools, however, I think your market pitch would be even stronger if you were to talk more about the specific other language tools and all the ways that your tool is better. Another thing that could have improved the pitch would’ve been a catchy name and logo. It would’ve helped to mature your pitch further to have the name of your venture front-and-center.
FEEDBACK: Hi Safa’a, it was a pleasure watching your elevator and venture pitch. I really appreciated how you identified a huge gap in language learning apps and developed an eloquent solution for it. The best ways I have learned different languages was by immersing myself in that language, and that’s hard to do without the nuances of the cultural aspects. SpeaKulture definitely provides a way of solving this by creating spaces for others to share tips or facts about some of those language nuances to help users learn more in depth. Although language learning has a large appeal to all ages and many demographics, it may be worth focusing on a smaller target group initially to help with development and testing before expanding to broader markets. Different age groups interact and communicate using technology in different ways and common references/sayings differ between generations as well. Overall, I believe SpeaKulture has a lot of potential and it is something I’d use when learning new languages, great job!