Hi all, If you’re interested in a ventu…
Hi all,
If you’re interested in a venture dealing with postsecondary science, have a look at my venture pitch and proposition, both available here:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/dubienetec565a/2012/07/29/etec-522-venture-forum/
Cheers,
Dan
Posted in: Venture Forum
jtpatry 12:16 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for sharing your pitches! I can recall back to my high schol science days and you describe exactly how it was, and I never pursued much after that. Your pitches are very well put together and I think would be of interest to the market targeted. I think Youtube will give you some solid competition as there are many videos on there that relate to some of the content of your proposal.
Thanks,
Jon
Danielle Dubien 11:25 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jon,
It’s too bad you got turned off of sciences. Sometimes it’s the teacher’s own fears or negativity that cause students to lose interest. That’s why one of the values I highlighted in my venture description was the need to instill confidence. A lot of the time, science students are just as afraid as anyone else of making mistakes in the lab, and proper instruction and the right attitude can change that.
I mentioned that YouTube videos are a threat. However, as I said elsewhere on this page, my videos would be done professionally, with proper safety procedures and with a pedagogically sound foundation.
Thanks for your comments!
Danielle
Allan 6:17 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
These are excellent pitches. For your venture pitch, I especially felt the effectiveness of the SWOT analysis. Certainly as CEO I trust that your knowledge and expertise of science is strong. I’m glad you touched on your experience in science education as a teacher’s assistant in chemistry labs and courses and also as an instructional designer of multimedia courses for high school in a variety of science subjects. I’m most impressed that as an investor, you have assured me with the financial analysis. You argue that the aim is to sell 200 modules in the first year for a gross profit of $180 000, and to achieve an increase in sales of 30% for the following year and renewal of licenses starting in the third year.
Allan
Danielle Dubien 11:25 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your positivity Allan!
gregcamp 9:29 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
Thanks for sharing your venture pitches. It is difficult for me to comment on your venture as I have an extremely limited science background. You sound like you are very qualified to act as CEO and your background would bring credibility to investors. Your PP was not very fluid as I had to click through the various slides and so I would be maybe try to create a timed PP or use a different program for your pitch.
Greg
Danielle Dubien 11:17 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Greg, thanks for your comments.
Ideally, I would have experimented with a variety of media for the venture pitch, but I wanted to see what I could do with PPT. Also, as I explain in a lower response, the extra clicking was purposeful. It was meant to break up the pitch into sections that were easy to search through for someone who wanted to repeat certain parts. With more content, the purpose of this format would have been more evident, but it’s still something I wanted to try. A nice alternative that I saw was Voicethread, and I’ll be experimenting with that soon.
Cheers,
Danielle
janetb 7:34 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
A very well thought out and laid out venture. You provided the viewer with evidence of a need in the system, a solution, your credibility, sound financial reasoning and possible issues with the venture. I think you covered everything comprehensively. I agree that there is a need in the market, but also agree with the threats you listed. YouTube and professor reluctance might cause the venture problems. Consulting with a marketing specialist might provide some insight on how to present your product in a way that could overcome those possible threats.
Overall, a very well written venture.
Janet
Danielle Dubien 11:34 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Janet,
The thing that I feel this venture needs the most is what you mentioned: someone with experience in marketing. It would take a lot of skill to know how to approach just the right people without offending them by saying that their courses need to be improved. In the institutions where I make sales, I would follow up and see how well the students perform. If the results are strong enough, I could prove that my materials add value to the course content. The institutions could use this information in ther own marketing and attract more students.
Thanks for your comments!
Danielle
chrisaitken 7:38 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle
I think there is definitely a market for this idea. Your venture pitch did a great job of leaving me wanting to know more. You establish some credibility with the description of your background. I would need to know more about the competition after your product differentiation. With the wealth of open educational resources available investors would need to be convinced that the quality of your learning material far exceeds what is freely available on the web.
Danielle Dubien 10:41 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your interest! Here’s information about my competitors and ways in which my content would be different.
Brigham Young University offers fantastic simulations, but the licenses are more expensive than mine. BYU’s forums are not used at all for discussion, whereas I would strongly encourage forum use for collaborative purposes.
MIT offers free courses on a lot of experimental science topics for graduates and undergraduates, but in my venture, I would cover more topics and I would be showing links between theory and practice. MIT also doesn’t appear to have any place for students to communicate, but they may have a forum for active classes.
There are a lot of experimental science videos on Youtube, but they may not be pedagogically sound, and there may be safety issues if the videos are created in an amateur fashion. They would not cover the same amount of material as I would and my material would all be in one place, eliminating time lost in searching for necessary information.
I hope that helps!
Danielle
Claire Burgoyne 4:35 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
In your pitch you establish that you’re well qualified to lead this venture and clearly describe the need for students to prepare for labs. I was left questioning the need for Prep Labs as I wonder how well received by institutions this idea would be. I don’t have experience in post secondary science courses but understand that some if not all institutions require that students attend each science course for a total of six hours weekly. Lectures account for three hours per week and labs for the remaining three. Does lecture time includes preparation for labs? It’s hard for me to imagine that students go into labs without being required to prepare. These questions sent me to your venture proposal looking for answers.
Reviewing your proposal answered my questions and convinced me that your idea is well thought out with benefits to students clearly defined. You outline the requirements for a team of professionals and suggest that office space may be needed. You also note the requirement for a lab. Your cost estimates may be low as they seem to include only wages not equipment purchases or rentals, and rental of office space, lab space, and insurance. You also address obstacles to the marketability of the venture but it’s not clear how you will meet these challenges. With a cost of $900.00 per module you’ll need a convincing marketing strategy that clearly defines the benefits of Prep Labs to institutions. At this time I would not invest in this venture.
Claire
Danielle Dubien 10:57 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Claire,
Thanks for responding. The cost for the licenses in my venture is on par with that charged by Brigham Young University, where site licenses cost between $850 and $1050 for an unknown length of time. Considering that a Teaching Assistant’s salary is about $4500 per semester, the licenses don’t cost very much for the value they would bring.
Given that this venture would be just one project launched by my company, the costs that are unaccounted for would be taken care of using funds that I have accumulated. The cost estimates that I made are strictly related to this venture, but the remaining resources could be used for other purposes within my company.
As for marketing issues, I would hire someone for that purpose. There are a lot of administration and accounting tasks that would need to be taken care of by people trained specifically in those fields.
Even if these arguments are not enough to convince you of the worth of my venture, I thank you for presenting these points, which allowed me to discuss them in greater detail.
Thanks again for your comments.
Danielle
ping 9:50 am on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
I like your idea. I think you are very qualified to lead this venture, and I can see that design of lab & course supporting materials will have optimistic market out there. From an EVA point of view, I’d like to see a more fluid elevator pitch such as a video rather than slides. I’ve faced this issue myself, my tip is that you can use QuickTime Player to capture the screen while playing your PPT, and then you can export a video from the player.
For the proposition of your venture, I would like to know more information about the targeted market. Why do you eliminate the pre-secondary market from your scope? As I know, the content of K-12 education is more standard than the high education, that will make a larger group of users for your products at each release. The buyer is not clear to me too. I wonder if a professor will buy your modules out of his own pocket, or an academic board will be involved to make the purchase. I think different professors might have different style of teaching, so they would probably more like tailored materials rather than common ones. Has your venture prepared for customization? How does it impact on the business mode? On the other hand, if your buyers include students, will you sell your products by single module besides the bunch package? Generally, I doubt that students will prepare their lab works based on non-free materials, I’d like to see more details about differentiation and competition of this venture to alternatives.
Ping
Danielle Dubien 12:57 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Ping,
Thanks for the information about video creation, but the use of PPT for the venture pitch was deliberate. When I was analysing pitches at the start of the course, I found myself having to replay the pitches over and over to get specific information. This way, the listener only needs to replay the sections that he or she is curious about.
It turns out that short clips made it easier to control the sound quality. I had to record many times before I could get prevent there from being loud static noises. For this reason, a video taping of me was definitely out of the question because the audio would have been impossible to deal with. I wanted a pitch that, at the minimum, had my voice in it, so I wasn’t going to play catchy music while showing the content. The pictures are not moving around either, because I want the listener focused on what I’m saying. In fact, both ventures are presented using a the principles I mention in the proposition.
Why not market this venture to the K-12 system? High school science labs are, by definition, supported by teachers, as opposed to higher education where students are supposed to be more independent. The problem I’m highlighting in my ventture description is that TOO much independence is given to the students. They still need some support. As for K-8 labs, I think the product would have to be targeted at teachers rather than students. Students of that age shouldn’t be asked to go through multimedia material on their own. I would have to come up with something that can be integrated into science lessons done at school and that also helps the teacher to learn the science better, given that the majority of primary teachers don’t have a science background.
As for the buyer, some profs may have a budget for teaching expenses, but none are certainly going to pay out of their own pocket. The main target is department heads who can get into contact with instructors, and together make decisions about purchases.
Customization is achieved by discussing different equipment that can be used for the same type of experiment. I would be doing research on different ways of teaching the same experiments. Organic chemistry equipment is fairly standard, and first year labs and courses usually cover the same material. Beyond that, there is more differentiation. To address this, some of the modules could contain more labs such that the instructors choose which ones are suited to their needs. The cost for producing more videos would of course be higher, but that’s why there would only be 8 modules released at a time – to figure out how the product is received, and to make more money to re-invest in creating the next set of modules. Students aren’t meant to be buyers. I believe I mentioned that in the last segment of the venture pitch.
Thanks for being so thorough!
lisamallen 11:10 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
I don’t have much to add to what everyone else here has already pointed out. Just wanted to say that this is a great pitch and is clearly well-thoughout. I would invest.
Cheers,
Lisa
Danielle Dubien 10:57 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the encouragement, Lisa!
maybacon 11:38 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Danielle,
This is a good idea that could save colleges a lot of prep time and money. I really like the idea of establishing understanding of experiments before having students perform them, since it establishes students’ prior knowledge without the expense of using materials for the initial trial. As someone who liked to understand what her science experiments were about instead of just writing painstaking (and sometimes nonsensical) lab reports, I certainly could have benefitted from this product.
All the best,
May
Danielle Dubien 11:42 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi May,
There’s a lot of lab work that I did blindly. Luckily, as a TA, I got the chance to learn many skills that I didn’t as un undergrad. When you’re supervising other students, you realise just how much unnecessary stress the students feel. That stress doesn’t make them better scientists, and it doesn’t make students better at figuring things out on their own. Unfortunately, a lot of professors don’t understand this and think that the current way of doing things makes students more independent. As such, there is definitely a marketing challenge in showing how helpful this venture is. The solution might be to show a lot of facts and hard evidence of what the students need and what skills are sought by employers.
Take care,
Danielle
danishaw 10:12 am on August 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Danielle,
I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing your pitch and venture analysis for I believe it was well thought out and delivered. You have a solid idea based on experience and expertise within scientific community and have based the majority of your project on research-based evidence and theory. I appreciate that you have incorporated some of the theory and applications learned throughout the MET program and I t is evident that you are able to apply such to varying learning environments. Although you do mention the fact that videos are available on YouTube I think that having textbook companies and/or school-specific videos custom created will differentiate your product from that of the competition. I hope you further pursue this en-devour for I believe it is a worthwhile venture. Well done and all the best in the future!
Danielle B.
Danielle Dubien 11:45 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your encouragement Danielle! Every time I create educational content, I try to see what research applies so that I can make it as effective as possible. There’s still a lot to learn!
The best to you as well!
Danielle