As the Director of Educational Technology I would not invest in this venture.
The CEO and Team appear to come from a solid background in software development, providing credibility to their web-based software program and the speaker is passionate about why such a program is needed and works to champion this product and the potential benefits it can provide.
The Venture concept is not new (I actually had individual demo a similar looking program a few months back) and it appears too idyllic. One small advantage this program does hold is that it is web-based, meaning increased accessibility for students, parents, and teachers. The speaker does illustrate real areas of concern: student frustration, inadequate communication, and high administrative time for teachers. As a user of technology both in and out of the classroom red flags are raised when the speaker claims that there is “seamless” integration of technology into the learning process, as I have never seen this occur.
In terms of Marketability, the venture has a focused market and projected areas of growth. The math market is about 175 million dollars, but I do not see this venture capturing a large portion of the market as there are already a number of such programs out there and many school districts are facing budget cuts, which means the number of potential clients could decrease. I do not see a real cutting edge advantage that would allow this venture to grab a foothold and keep a place in a competitive market.
The venture plan at least indicated the steps they were currently undertaking for development and revision before releasing the product. However, they were seeking 250K dollars for cycles of development, with no delineation of how long the cycles would be and when an actual product would hit the market and thus no timeline to see returns on investments.
Once again as the Director of Educational Technology I could potentially bring our small school to the table as a testing ground. However, I feel that my teachers are already almost overwhelmed with our new technology program and this would be just another program that they had to learn, manage, and coordinate; providing another reason not to invest in this venture.
NO, I would not invest in this venture. I thought the pitch was very good but I felt that it was unlikely that program could deliver what it promised and that it oversimplified how mathematics is taught and learned.
The presenter stated his credentials and seemed to have the background knowledge to create and maintain this venture. He clearly explained the frustration that parents and students sometimes feel with mathematics and how his program would help alleviate those issues. He also described how it might reduce the administrative task load for teachers. He did a credible job of indicating who the market was, how much money was needed and what their plan of action for the near future was (pilot, get feedback, update). However, he did not give a timeline for the research cycle or when the investor might expect the product to be finished.
I felt that he did a good job of presenting his pitch persuasively and succinctly. However, I felt that his initial target market of mathematics education in the United States, and then other countries, was too broad and unrealistic for the assumptions made in his program. One of the major functions of his product appeared to be providing immediate feedback to students as they did homework. This makes the assumption that all students will have daily access to a computer and that all students do homework at home. It also implies that all teachers assign homework in such a way that a program can mark it – that both the type of homework and their approach to it would fit “seamlessly” with his program. With the current trend in mathematics towards problem solving, problem based learning and deeper learning of concepts over rote learning, I feel that it is unlikely that one program will be a great panacea to all mathematics teachers in international settings. He also claimed that this could all be done with no teacher training. I felt that statement was completely unrealistic.
Overall, I thought the pitch was good but that the product was lacking. It could not possibly be as flexible as it claimed and I felt that it missed a basic understanding of where mathematics education is going.
The CEO raises excellent problems but does not provide any confidence that he has the platform that will deliver as viable solutions.
The concept is flawed as is promises to be adaptable to any content. No teacher has the time to re-publish the content they have created. A venture like this would need to include the resources to allow teachers to implement resources: learning media, practice tests ect.
There may be a school district or two that would fall for such a ploy but it would need to be a get paid and run scheme.
There is no room in this market for a resource that requires teachers of face to face full time classes to have to publish an entire courses content on their own.
Dave Horn 11:12 am on May 21, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
As the Director of Educational Technology I would not invest in this venture.
The CEO and Team appear to come from a solid background in software development, providing credibility to their web-based software program and the speaker is passionate about why such a program is needed and works to champion this product and the potential benefits it can provide.
The Venture concept is not new (I actually had individual demo a similar looking program a few months back) and it appears too idyllic. One small advantage this program does hold is that it is web-based, meaning increased accessibility for students, parents, and teachers. The speaker does illustrate real areas of concern: student frustration, inadequate communication, and high administrative time for teachers. As a user of technology both in and out of the classroom red flags are raised when the speaker claims that there is “seamless” integration of technology into the learning process, as I have never seen this occur.
In terms of Marketability, the venture has a focused market and projected areas of growth. The math market is about 175 million dollars, but I do not see this venture capturing a large portion of the market as there are already a number of such programs out there and many school districts are facing budget cuts, which means the number of potential clients could decrease. I do not see a real cutting edge advantage that would allow this venture to grab a foothold and keep a place in a competitive market.
The venture plan at least indicated the steps they were currently undertaking for development and revision before releasing the product. However, they were seeking 250K dollars for cycles of development, with no delineation of how long the cycles would be and when an actual product would hit the market and thus no timeline to see returns on investments.
Once again as the Director of Educational Technology I could potentially bring our small school to the table as a testing ground. However, I feel that my teachers are already almost overwhelmed with our new technology program and this would be just another program that they had to learn, manage, and coordinate; providing another reason not to invest in this venture.
Dave
janetb 3:56 pm on May 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
NO, I would not invest in this venture. I thought the pitch was very good but I felt that it was unlikely that program could deliver what it promised and that it oversimplified how mathematics is taught and learned.
The presenter stated his credentials and seemed to have the background knowledge to create and maintain this venture. He clearly explained the frustration that parents and students sometimes feel with mathematics and how his program would help alleviate those issues. He also described how it might reduce the administrative task load for teachers. He did a credible job of indicating who the market was, how much money was needed and what their plan of action for the near future was (pilot, get feedback, update). However, he did not give a timeline for the research cycle or when the investor might expect the product to be finished.
I felt that he did a good job of presenting his pitch persuasively and succinctly. However, I felt that his initial target market of mathematics education in the United States, and then other countries, was too broad and unrealistic for the assumptions made in his program. One of the major functions of his product appeared to be providing immediate feedback to students as they did homework. This makes the assumption that all students will have daily access to a computer and that all students do homework at home. It also implies that all teachers assign homework in such a way that a program can mark it – that both the type of homework and their approach to it would fit “seamlessly” with his program. With the current trend in mathematics towards problem solving, problem based learning and deeper learning of concepts over rote learning, I feel that it is unlikely that one program will be a great panacea to all mathematics teachers in international settings. He also claimed that this could all be done with no teacher training. I felt that statement was completely unrealistic.
Overall, I thought the pitch was good but that the product was lacking. It could not possibly be as flexible as it claimed and I felt that it missed a basic understanding of where mathematics education is going.
Brian H 11:56 am on May 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
No, I would not invest in this venture.
The CEO raises excellent problems but does not provide any confidence that he has the platform that will deliver as viable solutions.
The concept is flawed as is promises to be adaptable to any content. No teacher has the time to re-publish the content they have created. A venture like this would need to include the resources to allow teachers to implement resources: learning media, practice tests ect.
There may be a school district or two that would fall for such a ploy but it would need to be a get paid and run scheme.
There is no room in this market for a resource that requires teachers of face to face full time classes to have to publish an entire courses content on their own.