Brainscape
Yes, I would invest in this venture. Do I like flashcards? No, but this presentation was successful at getting my attention and making me want to learn more about the company. In other words they succeeded in getting their foot in the door. I can also understand the advantage of and need for this technology for certain areas of learning (rote memorization).
- Pain Point: We forget up to 90% of what we learn before we need it.
- Solution: Brainscape’s hopped-up flashcards. Its promise to “simplify and accelerate the learning process” is intriguing.
- Differentiation: These “flashcards on steroids” involve new technology informed by brain science and common sense. The result is the learner can learn twice as fast and save valuable time compared to…other methods of learning?
- Marketing: This is a web-based product that is made available wherever and whenever learners want using mobile technologies (there is an App for this).
- Championship: The Brainscape team includes learning scientists, techies, and gurus from reputable institutions – they seem to have it all!
- Competition: There was no specific description of the competition (“regular” flashcards – e.g. flashcardmachine which if FREE!).
- The Ask & The Return were not part of this pitch.
David Vogt 9:54 pm on May 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Ronna –
Thanks for posting on Brainscape!
This video illustrates an important core concept in 522. It is really a “commercial” rather than an “elevator pitch”. It was created to get you to buy/use their product (aimed at customers) rather than to buy shares in their company (aimed at investors). It may seem like a minor difference, but no matter how cool they make their product sound, without the cold hard facts about business model, etc, its tough for an EVA to buy in. For example, they only talk about their team from a marketing perspective (scientists, etc) to make you believe the product is good, but does anyone in this company have any business experience (that’s what an investor wants to know)?
So yes, this is definitely a ‘pitch’ (of the product), but not an ‘elevator pitch’. If we had to decide on investing in companies based on their product commercials alone, success in investing would be impossible.
It’s a really interesting distinction. Both commercials and elevator pitches try to present the rosiest possible picture of their subject, so it is “caveat emptor” in each case, but the elevator pitch talks about the product only briefly and as a means to generate excitement about the company, and the commercial doesn’t usually talk about the company at all.
A good analysis based on what the video actually revealed.
David