The EduNexus Group – BYOD the right way
Nice to meet you. I would love to tell you more about our New Venture – “The EduNexus Group” – an educational technology consulting group that firmly believes that technology should serve pedagogy! I’d like to invite you to follow this link to the EduNexus Investors Information page where you will be able to view our overview Elevator pitch and our in-depth detailed Venture proposal.
Glad you could join us!
Yves Mainville
CEO, EduNexus
Donna Forward 2:37 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello Yves,
What a very professional Venture Pitch! I like the way that you presented with your video on the right with the slides on the left. It gave me a sense that I was with you while you were presenting.
Great research on your company, especially with Marketing and the Competition.
As a critique, I would have liked to have heard what company forecast plans you have for the next few years and what kind of return an interested investor like me might benefit from.
I like your them that your “group places technology at the service of pedagogy and not the other way around”.
Great presentation,
Donna
Yves Mainville 9:53 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Donna!
In order to respect the time limits for the assignment, the executive decision was to forego certain pieces of info as we knew we would address it with any investor wanting to go forward.
The long term plans are dual pronged: To go Canada-wide and branch into deeper into business – many companies also need a solution that goes beyond the actual connectivity of hardware and serves their interests more directly.
Appreciate the comments… as you can see, I have a crack management team! đ
shawn harris 2:41 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Yves!
The elevator pitch for the EduNexus group is direct, engaging and tickles you enough to make you want to view the Venture presentation. The presentation is dynamic and easy to follow as it uses slides and video presentation from the CEO. The presentation flows very nicely and describes the proposed venture very comprehensively. I am also impressed with the quality of the audio, well done!
Management team: A great way to prop up the presentation by listing the photos, names and titles of the management team. Fosters a sense of professionalism and the company is putting it all âout thereâ, nothing to hide.
CEO Credibility: The CEO is speaking in person, was fully focused on the message and the product… we can see that he is taking this âseriouslyâ, and he expects to do the same.
Venture Concept: Very clear – a consulting service that places the focus on the âeducationalâ aspect of technology (in this case, BYOD) and makes it clear that success in a BYOD implementation goes well beyond just the âhardwareâ. Also presents the special âhookâ in their service – a comprehensive âBYOD Profilerâ that collects and analyzes data to build an appropriate BYOD implementation plan. Very thorough and well thought out!
Opportunity Space: Although there is no âhardâ data explaining the lack of direct competitors, it would appear that there are few competitors in this space and that there is in fact opportunity. Little is mentioned about the marketing aspect or specifics about revenue.
Market readiness: The service seems timely and in need in this market. Being active educators with a great deal of experience and connections, they seem to already have their âinâ for the market. There is little said about long term growth, but the way it is presented, one would have to assume that word of mouth and reputation will be key.
Competitive edge: Very clear and well explained – the âpedagogicalâ approach (â technol0gy serves pedagogyâ) along with the BYOD Profiler is what makes them different than the competition. This re-enforced with their claim âWe are educators with a specialization in technology, not technologists that know something about educationâ.
Exit Strategy: There is no clear long term target for market size, although they are focusing on Ontario in the short term. The size of the investment is not stated, but they are clear that they want to bring their consulting services (with BYOD specialization) to the educational market.
Overall investment status: The CEO is credible, presents a comprehensive product that seems to target the âweaknessâ of the current market offerings and seems surrounded by a team of competent professionals. Furthermore, they have what appears to be a very interesting tool to help them design their solutions. I consider this venture very plausible and would like to invest in it, but would need to hear more about the financing spectrum.
~Shawn
Yves Mainville 9:55 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you very much for the thorough analysis – we look forward to working with you!
EduNexus is planning for growth into Canada as well as the business sector by increasing marketing efforts, upgrading the BYOD Profiler capacity and going Canada wide in pahse 2 of the business plan.
We will be happy to share this with you at our investor’s meeting!
Cheers!
Colin 7:50 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Yves,
Thanks for sharing your business idea. I find that the BYOD profiler can be a double-edge sword. I kind of see it as purposely installing spyware on school server. On one hand, it can be used ethically within the educational institution to profile its needs. This can be a very useful tool, especially when educational technology is such a large investment. On the other hand, I sense that it can be used unethically or “in other ways” to capture student information for other marketing purposes (which ironically is worth a lot of money to others). Of course, I don’t question your good intentions. From experience, once you accept money from investors, they can pressure you to alter your goal company goals to meet their needs. Make sure you do your research on your investors. Aside from this concern, good job on the video!
Colin
Yves Mainville 10:00 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you for your input Colin. The Profiler is in fact a data collection tool administered by the team and not ‘installed’ per se on any client network. It is one of the early steps in the planning process. Thus, like any sizeable project, data needs to be collected to do any kind of planning.
We certainly appreciate your concerns with regards to data mining and such, however, plese note that the data collected is strictly BYOD related and not used or sold for any other purpose and certainly not shared. As for the collected information, here is a large subset of the kind of data that is collected:
http://metstudies.ca/?page_id=286
I appreciate your input and will be sure to share it with the team!
take care!
Kenton Hemsing 9:18 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Yves,
Your business idea is a great one and I am ready to invest. It is reassuring that you have considered the importance of servicing pedagogy with technology and emphasis that there is no “cookie-cutter” solution to deploying and creating a BYOD initiative in institutions. School boards and districts will be very eager to use your services for deployment but how are you going to get in the door with the schools to convince them that BYOD is the proper choice for them? I have seen many schools that shy away from these initiatives because of the risks to security and logistics of the programs. Will you be willing to provide the foot work first to convince schools that BYOD is the proper solution, or will EduNexus simply wait for schools to come to them?
Also, as an investor I would be wanting to see this program expanded to include services to businesses as this is where there would be a lot more potential sales than school boards. I feel that if this profiler for schools works well in an educational setting, would it be possible to create one that would profile a business solution. This would require hiring experts in fields other than education and expanding your team of individuals. If I were to invest, you would need to be willing to accommodate this type of expansion and be willing to create two branches to EduNexus one for education and one for private business.
I do like how you have been able to create a unique solution to a problem that plagues many school districts and have created a solid presentation of the facts and needs for a program and business like this. Like I said, I am willing to invest, but will require an expansion of the company into the business world.
Kenton Hemsing
Yves Mainville 10:10 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Mr. Hensing, we very much appreciate your interest and especially your questions as they will will help us ‘tighten things up’!
Being educators that are well places in our school boards with many educational connections and participating at many conferences, we will make out presence well-known in these circles with a variety of marketing material. Furthermore, we have a strong social presence, a targeted marketing campaign and key partnerships. We will be happy to share the full marketing campaign details with you at the investors meeting.
We strongly agree with you that we will need to do some footwork and this is part of out ‘foot in the door’ strategy in our marketing campaign as school boards rarely ‘scan the horizon’ for available services, they typically use word of mouth connections and information that they happen to come by – hence EduNexus wants to be par tof that ‘information they come by’.
Expansion – excellent, you are already ‘guesstimating’ at our long term business plan, and correctly! Yes, in fact, phase 2 involves us branching out into business sector as many of these institutions put solutions into place that focus primarily on ‘making wifi available for all devices’ without building a solution that aligns with the business priorities or long term goals. Phase 3 involved going Canada-wide.
Excellent feedabck Mr. Hensing, look forward to discussing this further with you at the investors meeting.
Cheers!
Brian H 10:12 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yves,
As per the investors above me I am interested in your venture.
There is a market for educational consulting and the companies currently offering services are lacking the services Edunexus could provide. There is a question of sales or more directly a lobby.
This is a messy market that may take a few rounds of golf with a hospitality suite with key decision makers to get things going. I have seen a large corporate do this in BC successfully in educational consulting.
Great Pitch!
Brian Hotovy
Yves Mainville 11:41 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Brian, comments are much appreciated. I agree about the golf and hospitality suites, and will make sure that my Policy Planner participates in these. đ
Cheers.
Hussain Luaibi 2:07 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yves
You did a great job. I like the presentation in general. The theme you are tackling in your venture can trigger a lot of discussion. One of the great things your venture has reflected is the uniqueness of such project. Educational consultation as a private entity is something unique in our current market relatively speaking.
The project is really complex and needs special investors, investors who have a wide horizon in the field of educational market. The marketability of your venture depends on a lot of educational factors. One of these factors is how ready our educational system in in regard to it expansion horizontally and vertically.
Great job, Yves
Hussain
Yves Mainville 4:45 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the comments Hussain… agreed, expertise is essential and investors with experience as diverse as the team I’ve put together would be essential to really help move this forward.
Cheers.
Ronna Hoglund 4:12 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Yves,
Thank you for sharing your pitches. I really appreciated your personal touch – video is a very effective means to draw potential investors in. I am unable to invest in your great idea because I am all out of $$$, lol. But good luck with your venture!
Ronna
Yves Mainville 4:45 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
All out of money!!! Arrrrgh!!! nooooo.
ok. Hehe, thanks.
đ
Dave Horn 12:08 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Yves
I thought your presentation was very and I liked your concept, though I wasn’t 100% sure how it was going to be used by companies. While like Ronna I currently out of resources, it is definitely a venture that has growth potential and as an investor I would keep an eye on it for a time when I could invest.
Dave
Yves Mainville 8:12 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the comments Dave.
The consulting services would be purchased by school boards, schools, etc. any institution that wants to deploy BYOD. We would help them from the moment they want to make part of the strategic planning or just peice it out according to the areas they need help with.
Cheers.
mariefrancehetu 7:06 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello Yves,
I think your elevator pitch is catchy and holds your investor’s attention. You are direct and appear confident in delivering your product and held my attention till the end. I also love the way you put both your elevator pitch and venture pitch in a package, which is something I never thought of doing.
Your venture pitch is well laid out and you outlines the problem and proposed solution quite well. Your really relay that your venture has growth potential and I found your pitch realistic. I would want to invest in your venture, for I feel it is viable – I feel the educational domain is ready for such a change, not only at the K-12 level, but also at the corporate and higher education level.
Just for fun, how many times did you have to record your pitch over until you got it just right? I know how time consuming it is to try and incorporate videos . . .
Kudos!
Marie-France
Yves Mainville 8:17 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Much apprecaite the comments about the production as well as the sincerity of my itch.
I recorded in ‘pieces’ pausing here and there, and certain parts I had to redo a few times, but a few I rolled right through. I do webcasts and videoblogs within other projects and have been doing video montages for a long time, so I already had the tools and the know how… in this case, I didn’t go all bonkers with the montage and special effects and such as we are rarely rewarded for Bling in the MET program. đ Thus, I settled on this simplified format…. and specifically, i wanted to stay true to the concept of ‘elevator’ pitch – there are no slides, powerpoint, music, etc. when you corner a potential investor in an elevator. But that is me… so many people did these far out pitches and put a lot of time into the, very nice work.
Anyways, thanks again… c u at the investors meeting! đ
-y
mariefrancehetu 6:42 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello,
I am always looking for help in the video montage domain. What tools do you use to do your montage?
Marie-France
Yves Mainville 7:10 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
For the elevator and venture pitches here, I used ScreenFlow to kepp it ‘quick and dirty’. When I produce stuff like I have for the last few years with my board (DVDs, promo vids, testimonials, Our Board ‘idols’ project, etc.) that require multi-tracks, effects, etc., I usually use FInal Cut Studio and its tools, mpeg streamclip and iMovie…. ohh, and I love Adobe Encoder as well.
Hope that helps.
Cheers.
-y
mariefrancehetu 2:43 pm on August 3, 2012 Permalink
Wow it sure sounds complicated, I thought you had used one or two programs . . . Thanks for providing the info, I’ll explore these programs when I get a chance.
Marie-France
Sherman Lee 11:39 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hello Yves!
After reviewing all the educational ventures that were pitched today, I am quite impressed with the quality of both your elevator and venture pitches. The elevator pitch was very investor focused, which, quite frankly, was lacking in most others. I think youâve hit the spot there. Your pace of speech was great; it was neither too slow nor too fast.
CEO & Team: I love how you showed all of your team members and clearly introduced yourself. As the CEO, you spoke passionately about your product and the flow of your speech alone gave you that credibility in my view. A person who knows less than what they are talking about would probably stumble with this.
Venture Concept: I think this is a great concept. It addresses the pain point that impedes or even drives organizations in throwing away their opportunity to implement BYOD. I have worked with many organizations that would forbid such devices, but with your service, it would definitely save big bucks in the long run. Therefore, I think you have captured my interest.
Marketability: With the pace that technology is traveling at right now, I think profiling BYOD is definitely a full time job on its own. Rarely would an IT department be able to do that, so I think you already have an edge there. Furthermore, because your team needs to be highly specialized to carry out your business, I agree with most other investors you have shook hands with already that it is easy to see why you have little competition.
Venture Plan: I may have missed a bit of it, but do you have separate plans for companies that wish to subscribe to continual services? That might be a mean of sustaining your customer-base. Or is this strictly a once and done service? Those are really the only questions I have for you
With such a great pitch, I would like to invest in your venture. Prior to committing a solid amount, I would like to further discuss with you in regards to the EduNexus business model.
Thank you and great job!
Sherman
mackenzie 4:53 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The elevator pitch seemed a little one dimensional, you talk we listen. The venture pitch has you reading the slides with your video playing. You have obviously done a great deal of work putting this all together, but I wonder how much money a school would pay for your services. Just last year we tried to implement a free program to a school district and they needed us to provided the bussing for the students to attend. I just donât see a need for your product in education that would get districts to invest in your services.
Yves Mainville 6:09 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
LOL!
Thanks for the input.
Denise 3:10 am on August 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
HI Yves,
Like the others I really was drawn by your elevator pitch to go on the the venture pitch. Having them embedded together made it much more likely as an investor that I would “read on”. I also was taken with the invite to meet the team, but I would have liked a bit more background on your team (which could have been embeddd with the pictures).
I too enjoyed the mix of video and slide but I felt that a number of your slides had too much text -more graphic slides would be easier to view and digest (and were when you used them).
As an investor I was drawn to the variety of solutions you would provide thus a breadth of offerings.
BYOD seems to be a disruptive innovation, and so selling your services on to schools who are in the early or late majority may require you to find 1 or 2 schools or organisations who use your services and can then act as respected, pragmatic referees for EduNexus. They should help open the market.
If you can identify 1or 2 interested schools for your startup I would certainly be wanting to know more, with a view to invest.
Denise