Hi everyone,
Thanks for taking the time to check out my elevator and venture pitch for CircAI, an intelligent educational resource management system for a more sustainable school.
Elevator Pitch
Link to my venture pitch below:
Venture Pitch: CircAI
Posted in (A3) Venture Pitch
annaren
I'm a primary grade teacher looking to explore more about educational technology and the thoughtful selection, use, and implementation of tech within our classrooms.
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Hello Anna, I think this is very insightful. Few years ago, the educational institution that I worked for wanted to use more software like Workday to manage resources, but did not proceed because the return on investment is hard to estimate at pre-implementation stage. Another challenge for using similar tools was that, the more real time data / analysis we have, the cost for cloud services such as computation can be very expensive.
Hi Omni, the cost for computing and developing a tool like CircAI is an insightful point! This is definitely something I should be prepared to address in a venture pitch. Thanks for your thoughts!
REVIEW
There is something great here:
Hey Annaren, thanks for this great venture, I want to say that the elevator pitch and the presentation aligned and tickled the logistics center of my brain. As someone who was previously an operations manager in different roles in the private setting and the healthcare setting, I can tell you that CircAI would not just be utilized within the education sector but in many sectors through different economies as logistics and supply management has always been seen as an area to be lean and to generate cost savings and cost opportunities.
The nugget that had me excited was the core features you presented that links with different aspects of generating efficiency in different levels of supply chain management and what I really appreciated with the emphasis on the network to be able to decant and ask for resources within subscribers shows an opportunity to grow the application.
Can I help make it great?
This tool has the opportunity to expand into bigger fields outside of the school board and district setting as the use of AI supply management can garner overages and “wasteges” in different settings (private enterprise, government and health system) that there is an opportunity for CircAI to connect those inventories and streamline it within your processes. The other review I have is an opportunity to analyze the cost that it would return to the individual teacher if they use their own funds and time (I’m sure there are savings there), and analysis of adding a logistic task or role to the teachers in regards to time lost or gained for this tool. Overall all, this is an excellent venture and something that I would invest in.
Hi Rico, Thanks for your review and suggestions! Yes! I definitely think this tool would have applications beyond the educational space. I did gesture at this when I talked about the procurement as a service space, but I did not go into that too much because I wanted to focus on developing this as a resource management tool within the educational space first and foremost. Actually, keeping this pitch focused was a real issue for me while I was creating it!
I also appreciate the incisive suggestion to include the cost and time savings a tool like this would return to individual teachers. I think that is an important point that EVAs would want to know about too. Thanks again!
FEEDBACK:
Thank you annaren for your work and this interesting AI venture, designed to help the world by offering a system to sustainably manage resources within educational settings.
While I see value in this venture — as it connects to environmental trends in the market could help build upon a global culture of sustainable designs — but the logistics of data entry put upon customers (individual teachers) has me questioning its viability as a venture. I am concerned with how accurate the information the AI would be able to act upon and the addition of yet another task to teacher’s workflows to ensure that accuracy is maintained.
To connect with Rico’s review, perhaps a partnership with a major resource supplier and distributor would help alleviate this concern, as perhaps a simple QR code could be stamped on their products making it easy for teachers to share what they have and what they need.
I am excited by the transparency piece — letting customers and organizations know what resources have been used and what has been saved.
Thanks for the constructive feedback, Patrick! You definitely bring up pertinent points in regards to adding yet another task to a teacher’s workflow! The easy input function is supposed to be one of the features and selling points of CircAI, so perhaps I did not communicate that as well as I should have.
In my vision, it should be as simple as giving a short voice command to CircAI, much like how one would to Siri or Alexa. For example, “Hey Circ, I used 20 paper plates for the project today.” and then Circ would handle the rest. I view it as a way of externalizing and offloading the mental inventory that we teachers have to keep in our brains when storing, searching for, and managing supplies.
Your feedback is very helpful because you are right that I need to clearly convey to users and investors that this is a better alternative that will help ease the workload and mental load of teachers. Thanks, Patrick!
REVIEW:
Great elevator and venture pitch Anna! I thought this was a really great idea. I was really impressed by how well researched your pitch was and that was a significant factor in why I would invest in your venture. Also, your purpose in establishing the venture is really clear from the three goals that you set out early in the pitch. This is a really smart use of technology because it turns sustainability into a win-win for the environment and a cost-saving standpoint. Additionally, this is a clever use of AI that leverages its strengths and connects humans in an efficient and helpful way. The examples you provide are also really effective in illustrating the use-cases for a tool like this and that is really helpful for investors to see the vision. I also liked the structure of your 5 year growth plan and I think it makes a lot of sense for investors in helping them understand the overall plan for growth. One suggestion is to point specifically to what you would use the investment for to help get CircAI on that path.
Thanks for your feedback, Mark! That’s a great suggestion for making my venture pitch more appealing and understandable for investors! Thank you!
Great idea Anna! I really love this idea and truly admire the awareness and thoughtful approach behind it. CircAI has the potential to be a fantastic product in an ideal world. However, I do think the reality can sometimes be more complicated. Given the complexities of bureaucracy, human dynamics, and the sometimes intricate nature of political environments, resources within the system can often be underutilized. This is particularly the case with certain management funds, where the flow of money may not always align with the intended goals. With this in mind, I do wonder if institutions would be willing to invest in such a system, given the complexities surrounding resource management. That said, I still believe this idea holds great potential, and I would love to see it come to life in the right context
Hi Yan,
You make an incisive point about how the reality of bureaucracy may pose challenges to bringing this product to market. Thanks for your thoughts!
Feedback: I really like the concept here and I’m sure your experiences as a primary grade teacher gives you some excellent insights to the problem and the potential solution. The piece I like the most is the AI-powered creative guide that give educators ideas based on available inventory – a fabulous example of a creative use of AI to augment, not replace, educators. As an investor, my biggest question would be around the potential cost and logistical complexities of moving so much physical material between different locations and if this would be a sustainable model but it seems more like a problem to be solved creatively than something insurmountable. Nice one 🙂
Hi Ken,
I appreciate your feedback! Your point about the logistical complexities around moving physical materials connects to Patrick’s point about ensuring this tool that aims to be a support to teachers does not end up creating more work in the end!
In terms of moving the supplies around within a school, I envisioned the teachers just going to a colleague’s classroom or the school supply room, similar to how things are now.
On a district level, some school districts (including mine) have existing intra-district courier systems. Integrating CircAI with the intra-district courier request systems is something I could include in my pitch! Thanks for pointing that out!
REVIEW:
Hi Anna,
Great work on your venture! Here is my EVA recommendation for CircAI:
CircAI presents a timely and socially impactful solution by integrating AI into circular economy in education.This venture aligns with global sustainability goals and addresses a critical gap in school systems. By using AI to analyze data, CircAI allows teachers to acquire the materials they need and allows for the budget to be rearranged to better support other needs in the classroom. The venture pitch clearly outlines the problem, how CircAI solves this problem, and provides a detailed analysis of the current market and competitive landscape.
The use of AI to personalize learning pathways and simulate real-world circular systems is innovative and has a broad market scope with the potential to serve educators, students, and organizations interested in sustainability. The passion and experience of the team is clearly outlined, and the slogan “Reduce. Reimagine. Repurpose.” captures the ideology behind why this venture was created.
The competitive analysis provided clearly outlines how CircAI stands out amongst its competitors. In terms of pricing, a subscription based model is provided which outlines various pricing tiers for customers. However, the pitch could benefit from more detailed financial projections for investors and stronger evidence of early traction or pilot testing.
Recommendation:
I recommend funding CircAI as it fills a critical gap in sustainability in education and has strong potential for impact, growth, and scalability. The team is passionate, experienced, and demonstrates awareness of key stakeholders and potential for future growth.
Rating: 9/10
REVIEW
Hi Anna! First, great job on this incredibly detailed and innovative venture idea. Even though you outlined a potential weakness of CircAI (needing to build the community/network before it can be used to its fullest potential), I can imagine how successful CircAI would be once that network is built. One person’s “trash” is definitely another person’s treasure, and creating a system that redistributes resources to places that need it can drastically reduce waste.
One question I have about CircAI is: is there a labeling or sorting system that separates resources that are “like new/barely used” and resources that have been used but are no longer needed? And would users that only provide used and take newish items pay the same costs for this service as those who provide new and take used items?
Hi Didy,
That is a great question! At this point, no, I don’t think I would do any sort of tiered system. Your tagging/sorting idea pushed me to think about creating something like that within the CIRCAI system, so that Circ could ask teachers a short series of questions/prompts about the supplies they are logging. I think that would help reduce the mental load on teachers in the sense that they won’t have to think about what details to include. Thanks for this!
FEEDBACK: I loved your elevator pitch. Funny, gets the message across, and does a great job at making me want to hear more. Clever name too. Your full pitch is also incredibly thorough, hitting a long checklist of things I’d want to see as an investor, from your SWOT analysis, your pricing model, to your growth plan.
The only thing I think you could elaborate on is the “Value Added”. You allude to an existing pilot, and “2.4% reduction in costs per student”. As an investor, I would want to hear so much more about this! How much is each pilot school saving per year because of CircAI? Since CircAI is already operating, what are its customer acquisition costs? How do these five pilot schools reflect the companies current financials? Is 5 pilot schools to 50 elementary schools a feasible jump in Year 1?
These are minor questions in relation to a really solid pitch though, great work.
Hi Duncan,
Thanks so much for the feedback! You bring up great points about fleshing out the numbers behind the customer acquisition and current company financials. I definitely think this is something my venture pitch could improve on. Thanks, Duncan!