Yes, I would invest in Edufire as I feel it presents an interesting opportunity to expand the area of online learning.
1. CEO & Team: In my mind this area is most likely to discourage potential investors as the presenter of the pitch failed to introduce himself, let alone discuss the leadership team of the site. He consistently refers to ‘we’, but never explains who these people are. Yes, with research this information can be found, but that would defeat the brevity of an elevator pitch. The man does, however, provide a calm and pleasant person to connect with edufire. The fact that he seems quite comfortable in front of the camera is encouraging given that edufire is promoting video based learning.
2. Venture Concept: Though the idea of online learning is not entirely new, the concept of learning from videos put on by various experts and/or teachers is adding to the already successful realm. The basic idea seems quite feasible – learning through a video online is much like learning through text, though it appeals to a different group of learners. As well, the pitch refers to already existing language learning through their site, which suggests that they have already found it to be a viable option. My concern with their concept is the potential lack of times that align between interested teachers and interested students, which is a potential limitation, but is not likely to prevent success at a high level.
3. Marketability: Based on the limitless possibilities for subjects and interests being taught the market is potentially quite large, but one must remember that for edufire to work teachers and students must want to work at the same time and the teachers must set reasonable prices. If teachers set their prices too high or if courses are only available at limited times their market share will be much lower than one would hope. At the same time, online learning is an expanding area and this may be the next logical progression of that option. To hold more of the market it is important that the site be profitable enough – if there is not enough income available then it will not become a mainstay for the teachers.
4. Venture Plan: Edufire’s plan is strong, as they are already successfully running a site which offers video learning for languages. This pitch is seeking to expand their business, meaning that the infrastructure is already in place. Due to this there is less of a chance that they will encounter difficulties with the technology. They are also planning to expand so that teachers can instruct multiple students at once, which will increase their profit/success. It is very clear that their goal is to expand into more subject areas and to increase their availability overall.
Overall, the fact that edufire is already set up for language learning is an encouraging element as it shows there is a market for online video learning. The biggest risk in my mind is ensuring that there is interest from the educators, rather than the students as without people to offer and run the courses the number of students is irrelevant. If nothing else, the pitch by edufire would lead me to look into more about the company as it seems that their idea has potential to fit into the existing market for education.
EduFire is a simple concept that challenges the traditional notions of higher education. As the speaker puts it, “Learn whatever you like whenever you like from world class excerpts.” We need to look no further than the student protests in Quebec to realize that there is a dissatisfaction with the university learning model. Open education and crowd-sourced approaches like EduFire have the potential to address this problem globally. EduFire provides an open platform for teachers and students to connect over their chosen subject matter. It flattens the traditional hierarchy of the student/teacher relationship by allowing students to choose their own teacher and pay them according to their performance. I suppose it could be described as an Ebay for education system that obviously could be a controversial concept with faculty associations.
The speaker instill confidence in an venture analyst. Remember the instructors will come from the open community and be evaluated directly by the students – rather than EduFire recruiting and training instructors. EduFire then needs a strong team of developers to provide the technology platform for the classes, payment gateways, social features, and marketing. It will be very important to secure quality teachers to draw in students. The speaker, who I believe is EduFire founder and CEO Jon Bischke, is enthusiastic about his sector and delivers an elevator pitch that makes you want to find out more. EduFire has an original idea but competitors like WizIQ and now Udemy will challenge EduFire to offer compelling courses. There is a global market rather than a regional one that colleges fight over and this means there is probably room for a few companies in this space.
When I watched the pitch the first and second time, I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what this site would look like. So I went searching and found that it had a lot to offer. Problem was, so did its many competitors. This is why I would have liked to see what Edufire believed they were bringing to the market that these other sites couldn’t. Although I am convinced that there is a market for this product, I would need to know what differentiates it from its competitors, how they plan to market their product in a field already busy with other alternatives, what makes them a good champion of this technology, what kind of return they are expecting and how much money they need to grow to the next stage of online classes. Overall, I found the presenter engaging and passionate, but wondered why he was being so cryptic about where his company fit into the marketplace (red flag).
Interesting, their top rated Spanish tutor hadn’t worked since December despite having logged in recently. There was an even greater lag in activity within other areas such as math and science tutoring. Many of their top tutors hadn’t had a job since last year which makes me question the activity of the site and its competitive edge. Another issue that I perceive with this site is the ability for tutors to meet their clients on the site and then schedule successive sessions outside of Edufire thereby cheating them of their cut. Some competitors seem to get around this by having anonymous tutors (tutorvista) or offering a service for finding tutors (tutornation) by charging a yearly membership fee to advertise your name and profile. With the affordances of cloud computing, is this site just providing an expensive way for clients to meet teachers? If so, maybe they need to consider charging a yearly fee to advertise on their site, rather than providing the means for meeting.
The site was also annoying in taking a minute to load each page.
You make some really good points here – although I think it is still worthy of investment. I may be partial to EduFire because I actually used to teach on it! And you are right, I used to set up classes on EduFire or meet student there but often continuous classes would move outside of the EduFire platform. Because of Skype and others, there is nothing really there to keep you there.
Hi Chris,
It’s funny, but I am getting that product investment is a very emotional endeavor. Although we could both share a similar logic, our visceral reactions to a pitch could be vastly different.
I was skeptical of how they would be judging the quality of the teacher/tutor that they would be using to work with students, and further skeptical by his point about teacher/tutor charging whatever price and then edufire took a percentage of that.
Hey Dave – EduFire has nothing to do with vetting teachers. In fact anyone can sign up to be a teacher (possibly good or bad). They then rely on the open market to establish reasonable prices.
You’ve got an interesting idea here – will the backgrounds of potential teachers/tutors dissuade potential investors or will they choose to view everyone as a potential expert in something? At the same time, I wondered if that was something that was simply outside of the realm of a brief elevator pitch and was instead something that I would discover later on? Yes, this may be an optimistic view, but it is possible!
Before I would invest a great deal I would be seeking out answers to these questions and considering the impact that might have upon the venture. I think that most elevator pitches would leave me with unanswered questions, the decision is whether or not those questions are big enough to keep you from investing.
Just curious: would you invest in edufire despite this potential lack of quality?
-Meggan
Sorry for just hopping onto the train like this but I was thinking of the same issue the entire time I was watching the video. Would they quality check?! This would actually be a tipping point for me once I find out more. From the elevator pitch, I said ‘yes’ I would invest more TIME on reading further on EduFire but I think making a solid decision on this venture just from the 2 minute speech is a bit too hasty.
I would be very hesitant to invest in edufire based upon what I saw from this brief elevator pitch. Having hired teachers and then had to deal with the fallout of them not being able to teach effectively leading to parent complaints. I have reservations about edufire not vetting their “teachers” and this leading to poor outcomes and thus a loss of potential clients.
Thanks for all your comments. I enjoyed reading them after reviewing the pitch. Must say I would say No. I thought the pitch was low key, and they really didn’t draw on their strength re the established language programs.
Went on to the site as I I felt I was trying to find out more because it sounded interesting but the pitch had not given me anything. The site just reinforced my perception especially given the number of topics on there with no actual teaching sessions.
As I explore these pitches I think it is a real challenge to get the enthusiasm and the message across succinctly.
Yes, I would invest in this venture based on what I’ve seen in this 2 minute elevator pitch. I wasn’t actually too interested in the idea when I read the short description of it, but after watching the video pitch I became more intrigued by it.
CEO & Team: Assuming that the presenter may be the CEO, I thought that he was confident and I genuinely wanted to listen to what he had to say. His hook into the pitch was an effective one and he certainly did exhibit the capability requieed to achieve success in this venture.
Venture Concept: The concept of the venture is not completely original, as I have certainly heard of Skype one-on-one language learning instruction before, and this seems to be a project of a similar nature. The CEO does allude to this being a fast-growing multibillion dollar industry, which makes you think they have done their homework.
Marketability: The target market here is not only students who want to learn from the comfort of their own homes at whatever pace they want, but also teachers who want to work from the comfort of their own homes. The competitive edge that this company seems to offer is that it is an open marketplace for live video learning which means that the teachers have the freedom to teach what and how they teach which seems to differ from the prescribed video learning sites out there.
Venture Plan: The pitch states that they are currently looking at one on one language learning which will then expand into multi-learner classrooms through a virtual classroom product that is under development. It seems that they are ready for the market and have an exit strategy. The proposition does not seem to be too risky, except for the fact that the teachers who teach off the site are described as the “best in the world” but how can they control, measure or ensure that? And with teachers coming up with their own curriculum, how can they monitor the quality of the teaching? These are the concerns that I would hope to have addressed in a 12 minute pitch but I would give this venture the opportunity to give me their 12 minute pitch.
Yes, I would invest in this venture based on this elevator pitch. However, I have to clarify that my investment would be in terms of time to listen / read further details on EduFire, so this is by no mean my final decision on my financial investment.
CEO & Team
It is a shame that the presenter did not identify himself as to what role he plays in EduFire, however, from the confidence and passion that he speaks with when introducing the EduFire program, I have a gut level feeling of being able to trust this person’s initiative. He effectively summarized the key features and benefit of EduFire in his phrase “learn whatever you like whenever you like from world class excerpts,” which provide at least a ground for me to be confident in their team and leadership. They have ‘talked the talk’ per se.
Venture Concept
As Megan and Sheza stated, this venture concept is hardly new. eLearning on its own promise the same portability as EduFire. Although YouTube does not market themselves as the place to learn through videos, many individuals do pick up a few tips and tricks from fellow YouTubers. Furthermore, sites such as ExpertVille is already huge pitching online learning on just about anything under the sun. However, I am particularly interested in their concept as the presenter seems to lay more structure in EduFire. He explained that they have already launched EduFire as a language learning platform, which is more specifically focused than the other examples I have mentioned just now. Hence, giving me more confidence in their results as they are more focused.
Marketability
They are pitching this idea to both teachers and students. I think the key is to stress on the expertise of the presenters (that is if EduFire regulates the quality of the video lectures). The presenter did not mention rather these lessons would be quick and to the point. I think one of the potential strength of EduFire would be its speed of delivering knowledge to the learner. It is just my pure guess that this speed is the Fire in the name.
Venture Plan
It seems like EduFire is currently looking for ways to expand its horizon. By not defining which direction in particular they are venturing into actually gives them more space to grow in my view. That is, which ever subject matter seems to be the ‘hot topic’ at the moment could possibly be the next exploration. Not to mention that the ‘hot topic’ would probably draw more learner and teacher interests at a particular time frame. This makes EduFire always up to date and trend.
As I have mentioned in my introduction, I am going for this venture ONLY to spend more time learning about it. Until I learn of how the team is structured, how they regulate their videos and what their solid plans are, I would hold off on any financial commitments. They have to reel me in now with more juicy details!
Meggan Crawford 7:04 pm on May 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes, I would invest in Edufire as I feel it presents an interesting opportunity to expand the area of online learning.
1. CEO & Team: In my mind this area is most likely to discourage potential investors as the presenter of the pitch failed to introduce himself, let alone discuss the leadership team of the site. He consistently refers to ‘we’, but never explains who these people are. Yes, with research this information can be found, but that would defeat the brevity of an elevator pitch. The man does, however, provide a calm and pleasant person to connect with edufire. The fact that he seems quite comfortable in front of the camera is encouraging given that edufire is promoting video based learning.
2. Venture Concept: Though the idea of online learning is not entirely new, the concept of learning from videos put on by various experts and/or teachers is adding to the already successful realm. The basic idea seems quite feasible – learning through a video online is much like learning through text, though it appeals to a different group of learners. As well, the pitch refers to already existing language learning through their site, which suggests that they have already found it to be a viable option. My concern with their concept is the potential lack of times that align between interested teachers and interested students, which is a potential limitation, but is not likely to prevent success at a high level.
3. Marketability: Based on the limitless possibilities for subjects and interests being taught the market is potentially quite large, but one must remember that for edufire to work teachers and students must want to work at the same time and the teachers must set reasonable prices. If teachers set their prices too high or if courses are only available at limited times their market share will be much lower than one would hope. At the same time, online learning is an expanding area and this may be the next logical progression of that option. To hold more of the market it is important that the site be profitable enough – if there is not enough income available then it will not become a mainstay for the teachers.
4. Venture Plan: Edufire’s plan is strong, as they are already successfully running a site which offers video learning for languages. This pitch is seeking to expand their business, meaning that the infrastructure is already in place. Due to this there is less of a chance that they will encounter difficulties with the technology. They are also planning to expand so that teachers can instruct multiple students at once, which will increase their profit/success. It is very clear that their goal is to expand into more subject areas and to increase their availability overall.
Overall, the fact that edufire is already set up for language learning is an encouraging element as it shows there is a market for online video learning. The biggest risk in my mind is ensuring that there is interest from the educators, rather than the students as without people to offer and run the courses the number of students is irrelevant. If nothing else, the pitch by edufire would lead me to look into more about the company as it seems that their idea has potential to fit into the existing market for education.
chrisaitken 6:16 am on May 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
YES, I would invest in this venture.
EduFire is a simple concept that challenges the traditional notions of higher education. As the speaker puts it, “Learn whatever you like whenever you like from world class excerpts.” We need to look no further than the student protests in Quebec to realize that there is a dissatisfaction with the university learning model. Open education and crowd-sourced approaches like EduFire have the potential to address this problem globally. EduFire provides an open platform for teachers and students to connect over their chosen subject matter. It flattens the traditional hierarchy of the student/teacher relationship by allowing students to choose their own teacher and pay them according to their performance. I suppose it could be described as an Ebay for education system that obviously could be a controversial concept with faculty associations.
The speaker instill confidence in an venture analyst. Remember the instructors will come from the open community and be evaluated directly by the students – rather than EduFire recruiting and training instructors. EduFire then needs a strong team of developers to provide the technology platform for the classes, payment gateways, social features, and marketing. It will be very important to secure quality teachers to draw in students. The speaker, who I believe is EduFire founder and CEO Jon Bischke, is enthusiastic about his sector and delivers an elevator pitch that makes you want to find out more. EduFire has an original idea but competitors like WizIQ and now Udemy will challenge EduFire to offer compelling courses. There is a global market rather than a regional one that colleges fight over and this means there is probably room for a few companies in this space.
mackenzie 4:43 pm on May 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
When I watched the pitch the first and second time, I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what this site would look like. So I went searching and found that it had a lot to offer. Problem was, so did its many competitors. This is why I would have liked to see what Edufire believed they were bringing to the market that these other sites couldn’t. Although I am convinced that there is a market for this product, I would need to know what differentiates it from its competitors, how they plan to market their product in a field already busy with other alternatives, what makes them a good champion of this technology, what kind of return they are expecting and how much money they need to grow to the next stage of online classes. Overall, I found the presenter engaging and passionate, but wondered why he was being so cryptic about where his company fit into the marketplace (red flag).
Interesting, their top rated Spanish tutor hadn’t worked since December despite having logged in recently. There was an even greater lag in activity within other areas such as math and science tutoring. Many of their top tutors hadn’t had a job since last year which makes me question the activity of the site and its competitive edge. Another issue that I perceive with this site is the ability for tutors to meet their clients on the site and then schedule successive sessions outside of Edufire thereby cheating them of their cut. Some competitors seem to get around this by having anonymous tutors (tutorvista) or offering a service for finding tutors (tutornation) by charging a yearly membership fee to advertise your name and profile. With the affordances of cloud computing, is this site just providing an expensive way for clients to meet teachers? If so, maybe they need to consider charging a yearly fee to advertise on their site, rather than providing the means for meeting.
The site was also annoying in taking a minute to load each page.
chrisaitken 5:30 am on May 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
You make some really good points here – although I think it is still worthy of investment. I may be partial to EduFire because I actually used to teach on it! And you are right, I used to set up classes on EduFire or meet student there but often continuous classes would move outside of the EduFire platform. Because of Skype and others, there is nothing really there to keep you there.
mackenzie 3:08 pm on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Chris,
It’s funny, but I am getting that product investment is a very emotional endeavor. Although we could both share a similar logic, our visceral reactions to a pitch could be vastly different.
mackenzie 4:48 pm on May 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
As per my previous post, NO, I would not invest in this venture.
Dave Horn 9:42 pm on May 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I was skeptical of how they would be judging the quality of the teacher/tutor that they would be using to work with students, and further skeptical by his point about teacher/tutor charging whatever price and then edufire took a percentage of that.
chrisaitken 5:32 am on May 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey Dave – EduFire has nothing to do with vetting teachers. In fact anyone can sign up to be a teacher (possibly good or bad). They then rely on the open market to establish reasonable prices.
Meggan Crawford 2:02 pm on May 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Dave,
You’ve got an interesting idea here – will the backgrounds of potential teachers/tutors dissuade potential investors or will they choose to view everyone as a potential expert in something? At the same time, I wondered if that was something that was simply outside of the realm of a brief elevator pitch and was instead something that I would discover later on? Yes, this may be an optimistic view, but it is possible!
Before I would invest a great deal I would be seeking out answers to these questions and considering the impact that might have upon the venture. I think that most elevator pitches would leave me with unanswered questions, the decision is whether or not those questions are big enough to keep you from investing.
Just curious: would you invest in edufire despite this potential lack of quality?
-Meggan
Sherman Lee 10:35 pm on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Meggan and David,
Sorry for just hopping onto the train like this but I was thinking of the same issue the entire time I was watching the video. Would they quality check?! This would actually be a tipping point for me once I find out more. From the elevator pitch, I said ‘yes’ I would invest more TIME on reading further on EduFire but I think making a solid decision on this venture just from the 2 minute speech is a bit too hasty.
Sherman
Dave Horn 2:42 pm on May 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I would be very hesitant to invest in edufire based upon what I saw from this brief elevator pitch. Having hired teachers and then had to deal with the fallout of them not being able to teach effectively leading to parent complaints. I have reservations about edufire not vetting their “teachers” and this leading to poor outcomes and thus a loss of potential clients.
Denise 12:55 am on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
HI,
Thanks for all your comments. I enjoyed reading them after reviewing the pitch. Must say I would say No. I thought the pitch was low key, and they really didn’t draw on their strength re the established language programs.
Went on to the site as I I felt I was trying to find out more because it sounded interesting but the pitch had not given me anything. The site just reinforced my perception especially given the number of topics on there with no actual teaching sessions.
As I explore these pitches I think it is a real challenge to get the enthusiasm and the message across succinctly.
Denise
sheza 11:06 am on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes, I would invest in this venture based on what I’ve seen in this 2 minute elevator pitch. I wasn’t actually too interested in the idea when I read the short description of it, but after watching the video pitch I became more intrigued by it.
CEO & Team: Assuming that the presenter may be the CEO, I thought that he was confident and I genuinely wanted to listen to what he had to say. His hook into the pitch was an effective one and he certainly did exhibit the capability requieed to achieve success in this venture.
Venture Concept: The concept of the venture is not completely original, as I have certainly heard of Skype one-on-one language learning instruction before, and this seems to be a project of a similar nature. The CEO does allude to this being a fast-growing multibillion dollar industry, which makes you think they have done their homework.
Marketability: The target market here is not only students who want to learn from the comfort of their own homes at whatever pace they want, but also teachers who want to work from the comfort of their own homes. The competitive edge that this company seems to offer is that it is an open marketplace for live video learning which means that the teachers have the freedom to teach what and how they teach which seems to differ from the prescribed video learning sites out there.
Venture Plan: The pitch states that they are currently looking at one on one language learning which will then expand into multi-learner classrooms through a virtual classroom product that is under development. It seems that they are ready for the market and have an exit strategy. The proposition does not seem to be too risky, except for the fact that the teachers who teach off the site are described as the “best in the world” but how can they control, measure or ensure that? And with teachers coming up with their own curriculum, how can they monitor the quality of the teaching? These are the concerns that I would hope to have addressed in a 12 minute pitch but I would give this venture the opportunity to give me their 12 minute pitch.
Sherman Lee 10:23 pm on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes, I would invest in this venture based on this elevator pitch. However, I have to clarify that my investment would be in terms of time to listen / read further details on EduFire, so this is by no mean my final decision on my financial investment.
CEO & Team
It is a shame that the presenter did not identify himself as to what role he plays in EduFire, however, from the confidence and passion that he speaks with when introducing the EduFire program, I have a gut level feeling of being able to trust this person’s initiative. He effectively summarized the key features and benefit of EduFire in his phrase “learn whatever you like whenever you like from world class excerpts,” which provide at least a ground for me to be confident in their team and leadership. They have ‘talked the talk’ per se.
Venture Concept
As Megan and Sheza stated, this venture concept is hardly new. eLearning on its own promise the same portability as EduFire. Although YouTube does not market themselves as the place to learn through videos, many individuals do pick up a few tips and tricks from fellow YouTubers. Furthermore, sites such as ExpertVille is already huge pitching online learning on just about anything under the sun. However, I am particularly interested in their concept as the presenter seems to lay more structure in EduFire. He explained that they have already launched EduFire as a language learning platform, which is more specifically focused than the other examples I have mentioned just now. Hence, giving me more confidence in their results as they are more focused.
Marketability
They are pitching this idea to both teachers and students. I think the key is to stress on the expertise of the presenters (that is if EduFire regulates the quality of the video lectures). The presenter did not mention rather these lessons would be quick and to the point. I think one of the potential strength of EduFire would be its speed of delivering knowledge to the learner. It is just my pure guess that this speed is the Fire in the name.
Venture Plan
It seems like EduFire is currently looking for ways to expand its horizon. By not defining which direction in particular they are venturing into actually gives them more space to grow in my view. That is, which ever subject matter seems to be the ‘hot topic’ at the moment could possibly be the next exploration. Not to mention that the ‘hot topic’ would probably draw more learner and teacher interests at a particular time frame. This makes EduFire always up to date and trend.
As I have mentioned in my introduction, I am going for this venture ONLY to spend more time learning about it. Until I learn of how the team is structured, how they regulate their videos and what their solid plans are, I would hold off on any financial commitments. They have to reel me in now with more juicy details!