Navigating the pathway to post-secondary education can be confusing and daunting for high school students and their families. Many students do not have access to individualized guidance as they consider their future. So what if there was a comprehensive guidance counselling digital site that offered various tiers of support, from open-source to individualized and personalized? Guidance4U proposes to do just that.
Please visit the following site to view the Elevator Pitch and the Venture Pitch:
https://sites.google.com/view/guidance4u/home
Thank you!
Steve
Hi! Great presentation. I think that innovating the application process does increase accessibility to some individuals who may not have the opportunity to apply in the past. I also think it is important to think about if you do not have buy in from universities, this type of app might be challenging. I am curious about the prolonged involvement of the universities in a tool like this.
Thank you Sam. I’m not sure how much buy-in from the universities it would need as it is geared towards supporting high school students primarily.
I appreciate your thoughts!
Hi Steve, thank you for this wonderful venture. It is thoughtful and informative, and it successfully addressed the problem high school students have when faced with the decision of their future education. I am biased as I am an academic advisor, therefore I think your idea and venture is extremely important. I see too many students entering university with very little idea of what they are getting into. Though students have opportunities to transfer programs of study later, it delays their graduation and wastes their time and financial resources.
My main concern with this venture is how could you market your company so that students and parents will choose this service over their own high school counsellor? My understanding is high school counsellors provide most of these services, and students can access this service for free if they attend the high school. My other question is, should your company be successful, will your subscription and premium service be able to support mass number of students? As your premium service is mostly you and your team providing service to individual or groups of students, how big would your team (and cost) have to be in order to support students more individually?
Overall, this is a wonderful idea, I do wish every high school student has the opportunity to learn about educational and career pathways before they make informed decisions. Thank you!
Hi Jennie,
Thank you so much for your feedback. In response to your questions:
– I’m actually not interested in having students choose Guidance4U over their own high school counselors. Rather this is a service that is available to fill in the gaps and provide more to those who want or need it. The statistics I provided were meant to demonstrate that the reality is that many students are simply not receiving this guidance from a high school counselor. The numbers don’t add up, and as I run a high school guidance department myself, I know the challenges of providing adequate guidance to everybody. Guidance4U is a resource for those who are being missed.
– This is a good question. I believe a network of counselors would need to be established to support adequate numbers for Premium. Kind of like how teachers will also tutor.
Thank you so much for your support!
Steve
FEEDBACK:
Hi Steve,
Looking back at my experience with career education, I definitely think I didn’t have enough guidance and support when I was in grade 10. We had the basic planning 10 class but I never got the chance to access a post secondary guidance program. For teens who are overwhelmed and families who need some guidance, a resource like this could be useful.
As an investor, I think I need more information in the invest section of the venture pitch. Some mock ups would have been useful to show the vision of the start up. In addition, as an investor I’m looking for return of investment. What would I get in return if I invest in this start up?
In terms of marketing, where are you planning to market your product? How are you going to reach your intended market? Based on Sam’s comment from above, they’re saying what if universities don’t buy into this app. From reading your venture pitch, I don’t think universities are the target market for this app.
Overall, I see potential in this idea. Please keep on helping students receive the guidance they deserve.
Thank you Bianca, I appreciate your feedback. The reality is that if I were ever to move forward with this, I would need to clarify this in my own mind as well.
What would you get? Investors would need to receive shares in the company.
Marketing? As a web-based business marketing would need to be targeted through Social Media ads and other online sources.
You are correct – not targeting universities, rather providing a service directly to students and their families.
REVIEW – The multi-teered aspect of this venture looks very promising. The open source first level would allow a fast market adoption and offer value to students with limited budgets, making this beneficial to all levels of society. I think there’s also potential to open up a premium service for international schools; even when they have guidance staff, the global outlook of the student body makes it unlikely that many international schools will have such extensive knowledge on Canadian universities.
Recommendation: The free content offered will be a valuable way to build the user base but will require considerable work to develop and maintain before revenue appears. I would want to see a detailed financial and marketing plan for the initial stages of development to ensure that a plan is in place to grow to profitability; if this is reasonable than I recommend investment.
That’s a great point Devon – I’d need to put in a lot of work on the business plan.
FEEDBACK
Thanks Steve for your work on this, I have always said it is so important to open students eyes to the possibilities they have because I find they have a hard time seeing past the dr, lawyer, teacher, nurse options when in fact there are countless other options to explore. It is gret to see a tiered subscription option so people can pay and access resources based on need. I think focusing on showing the value of personalized guidance counseling is very important for this venture and may require extensive marketing and outreach efforts. Some may be skeptical of the need for additional support beyond school resources or may be unaware of the benefits of personalized guidance.
Thank Meagan – I think you’re right, and people who are not in a phase with high school children may not realize the lack of resources for guidance. Marketing would be essential.
FEEDBACK
Hi Steve. Thanks for your Venture Pitch. Reflecting on my own journey through the complexities of planning for college and university, I can appreciate the immense value a service like Guidance4U could offer. The prospect of having dedicated support during such a pivotal time is appealing.
I’m curious about the pricing structure of your service. Having shared more details on how the fees are determined for individual users would be useful. Specifically, I’m wondering about the subscription model and the duration and rationale behind this choice. Given the nature of academic planning, which often intensifies during the final year of high school or at the onset of significant educational milestones, I wonder about the flexibility of your service to accommodate the varying needs of students. In periods where active guidance may not be necessary, how does Guidance4U address potential concerns regarding subscription pauses or cancellations?
Cheers!
Bradley
Thanks Bradley,
Yes, as a real business plan was not part of this assignment I did not name prices without doing a lot more research – I didn’t want to guess.
You pose a great question about different needs throughout the year. Being in this field myself, my experience is that I invest most of my time September-February working with students on applications and preparing for transition out of high school, and most of my time from February onwards working with students on guidance activities, pathway mapping, etc. Perhaps a good model would lay out typical progression and priorities throughout the year.
Hello Steve,
What a fantastic job you did on your elevator and venture pitches. As I went through your work, I had the following thoughts: Your ask was clear. Your experience brings value. You demonstrate a true need for this idea, and your personal experience is able to emphasize this need. I like how you brought forward your own experiences as a student when you discussed the problem. And you made it clear how your idea stands out from existing competitors by offering a personalized, more robust option to students and their families. I see true potential in Guidance4U. Well done!
Emma
Thank you for the generous feedback!
Hi Steve,
This is great, tackling a very important issue. I believe from your presentation your clients are the parents. I think this is the right move. Competition is stiff in this area, maybe I am more keenly aware as I manage a very large international program and lots of parents pay into these kinds of services. There are hundreds of these types of companies in my metro area. Your idea of course is uniquely packaged and offers something new. I think part of what would make this venture successful is ‘good will’. ‘Good will’ on the books in valuing this company is essentially your personal expertise and brand value. I think you are a major part of this product and we see that as a business trend. As Jennie pointed out above however, it may be challenging to scale beyond a certain point. Certain aspects are, like the podcasts and videos are scaleable, but, I think the real value that parents are willing to pay for is the one-on-one expert attention and to be blunt, hand holding.
Regarding some of the details, you may run into friction when advising on course planning when you are not in the school. I have people running companies like this who can be very pushy with my counsellors and they often don’t understand what is going on in the school in terms of timetable blocks or undisclosed personal struggles that student may have that the school counsellor is aware of. Said example company however has made big promises to the parents who are paying big money for the services. Overall, I appreciate these supports as like you said there is a labour deficit when it comes to counsellors in schools, but these companies need to be tactful. I am sure with your background that is also something you would be good at.
I’d love to have a much longer conversation with you about this as I have put a lot of thought over the years into these very things and I imagine you have a lot of great insight. I will end by saying two things. One, you are definitely the right type of person to start this type of venture, your product brings new innovate aspects to a field where there is a proven market and you yourself are an expert. Two, I think you can do this for a lot cheaper than $250,000. The biggest cost in this venture I believe would be your time unless I am misunderstanding what needs to be built.
Good luck if you do this!
Thank you for the excellent venture presentation.
Rich
Rich, I really appreciate your feedback and the perspective you take. I want to respond to your comment on friction as I have very similar sentiments and experiences. Pushy companies, agents who are profiteering from students and muddying the waters of our programming – I really don’t like that. You’re right, my angle with this is to provide support, promote the vitality of counselors within schools, and also work with families who want more. I in no way envision running agents who require heavy financial compensation and commitments, but rather a subscription-based service that allows families to seek support to the degree they require.
That’s all I’ll say for now though you were generous in your feedback – and I’d be happy to chat with you more about this.
Steve
Hey Steve,
Your idea for this venture pitch is original and has a great purpose. As mentioned by others, I like the idea of a tiered model for your venture. The open-source tier could allow those secondary students who need support due to a lack of financial resources at home, while higher tiers could help those looking for more specialized support or those who start on the earlier tiers and wish to stay with the program. Your market share research and your list of competitors are detailed. The amount for investment is also reasonable.
From an investor’s perspective, I would like to see more areas where the funding comes from. From a teacher’s perspective with secondary school students, I would recommend this program to them.
Thanks Daniel, I appreciate the feedback. So based on your comment about funding, perhaps considering other options, subscriptions, and resources available for purchase.
FEEDBACK:
Hi Steve,
I enjoyed the animated powtoon elevator pitch and your voiceover was very well done! I think this is a valuable resource for students who do not have enough access to a capable guidance counselor, and it could even be great for students who just want a second opinion. As a teacher I can see the stress of students surrounding university emissions increasing every year. As an investor, I appreciate how your product can serve low-income and higher-income clients with the tiered system. One thing to consider is the exceedingly complex number of different regulations and application processes is changing every year. Since counsellors are in such high demand and are mostly hired by schools already, it may be difficult to find skilled and knowledgeable counsellors unless you are paying them to work part time on weekends, or paying above market rate.