Category — Uncategorized

Here is a link to a summit held by Standford regarding Venture Capital and education.

Here is a link to the summit home site and a few of the associated companies.

VC Investment Summit 2009

Questar Assessment

George Lucas’ site

Eduventures

Here are a few things I found while surfing:

The Entrepreneurial Foundation of Saskatchewan has some information on what is necessary to be investment-ready:

http://www.efsk.ca/services/investment-ready.html

This column has some good tips on pitches, including the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides, 20 minutes including questions, 30 point font.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/oct2007/sb20071019_563293.htm

This article caught my attention, especially after listening to the Ingenia pitch. Canadian investors are looking at education in India as a potential market. At the end of the article they list some of the investments, one of which is eLearning. Maybe Ingenia should be looking at India as well…..

http://canada-indiabusiness.ca/2009/04/vcs-give-india-education-high-marks/

More business resources:

https://www.envisionfinancial.ca/Personal/CorporateCitizenship/BusinessEducation/

http://www.albertaventure.com/

http://www.lesley.edu/offcampus/general_info.html?src=adwords&gclid=CM7WiOfI_pwCFShGagodChQcbg

http://www.mbtmag.com/

 Regards,

Jen

http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html 

Sage advice from Paul Graham

http://www.bdo.ca/library/venture/documents/Jun07-MakeYourBestPitch.pdf

Polish your pitch  from the Financial Post

http://www.venturepitches.com/

A beta site with some sample pitches. Youtube meets VCs.

Ingenia Training

As a CEO, I found Ramona Materi personable and she seemed to know her market. However,  I didn’t find her very charismatic or interesting to listen to. I did enjoy having the power point to refer to as she spoke. She talks about Ingenia’s core team and it seems that they are capable, well-trained people. The fact that Ingenia contracts work out can be a plus and a minus. Contracting means you can hire people only when you need them but on the other hand, you have to rely on their availability.

Materi seems to have done her home work and have an understanding of   the market. Ingenia is attempting to enter an area of the world that is growing and that can be quite exciting but also risky. However, the CEO states that they will be targeting multinationals and Asian banks in an attempt to limit the risks. I would have liked to know more about what makes them stand out from their competition – what is their competitive edge?

Materi never talks about an exit strategy. She does have a goal – to enter the market in Vietnam – but she does not mention plans beyond that.

While I find that Materi’s pitch had some positive aspects, as an EVA I was not convinced that the positive outweighed the negative or unknown. I did not feel inspired to let go of my money and would not likely invest in this company.

Just a few links to resources that you may find useful.

Canadian Business Online Get advice, tips and strategies on starting and running a small business in Canada. A decent resource if you can handle the large number of ads.

Instigator Blog Entrepreneurship, Business, Social Media, and Marketing. Down to earth blog articles.

Dragon’s Den TV and Online Business hopefuls pitch their ideas to millionaire investors.

TED TALK: David S. Rose on Pitching to VCs

and I can’t leave this one out:

Richard St. John’s 8 Secrets of Success

Ok, here’s my first pitch analysis.  Next one to come later.

Royal Roads University Pitch

• CEO Credibility – Does this person exude capability and convey confidence that they will achieve success against all obstacles?
  • Based on the pitch presentation, Burgess does seem to have done her research and has a good working knowledge of the university.  She provides a confident, enthusiastic pitch, but to me, this appears to be due to her charisma rather than track record.  She does not present anything at all about her credentials or personal background that would help further sell her pitch.

• Management Team – Have they assembled a stellar team along with the other human and material resources required for success
  • There is no mention of a management team or who may be involved in instituting such a program.  I’m assuming there would be some faculty members or key people at RRU on board already.  This can’t be a solo effort, can it???  If so, forget it!  Establishing the management team clearly is needed in this pitch.

• Business Model – Is this feasible? – have they done their homework? – are their arguments and information accurate and compelling?
  • Burgess seems to provide good information on opencourseware, including some history, current opencourseware consortium, and how RRU fits in the market (benefiting and altruistic relations).  She has done her research based on a model of opencourseware from MIT, a much larger school.
  • Importantly, Burgess seems to suggest having opencourseware available to prospective students would help attract more tuition paying students to the school.  However, is there a guarantee that this would happen?  What is the cost of marketing this free, opencourseware?  Is there a guarantee that the university will be able to recover its marketing costs over time?

• Competitive Products – What is a realistic market size, market share and selling price that these products or services can capture in a very competitive world?
  • In following the footsteps of the much larger school, MIT, RRU would be in competition with MIT’s reputation, established program, and larger financial budget.  Burgess mentioned that there were over 200+ institutions involved in an opencourseware consortium so there must be many other universities that would be in competition with RRU.

• Market Readiness – How long and difficult is their critical path to success?
  • There does not appear to be any timeline provided for this venture.  How long will it take before the university sees a profit from attracting paying students to RRU by marketing their opencourseware?
  • There does not appear to be a market analysis performed to show the demand for opencourseware among prospective students.

• Technical Innovation – Do they have an edge, and can they keep it?
  • To me, what Burgess is pitching appears to be something that other universities are already doing.  There isn’t anything that sticks out that is different than what is already being done by RRU’s potential competitors.  This plan is obviously taking after MIT’s model.

• Exit Strategy – Do they really know what success looks like – is their destination clear
  • It appears that success would be measured based on attracting paying students to RRU as well as more experienced faculty.

• Overall Investment Status – Am I going to risk my investment capital on this proposition?
  • Though the presentation was well-prepared, it seemed somewhat ‘amateurish’ to me.  The video was filled cheesy text messages inserted on top of still-framed pictures of the university.  Between still-frames was low-quality, handy-cam video clips of Burgess providing some commentary.  Though the information presented was fairly good, I thought the low-quality, amateur-style video detracted from a ‘professional’ pitch.  As an EVA, I’m not sure I would entrust my money into what may seem like an amateur venturist.
  • Furthermore, I think more market analysis needs to be done and presented to demonstrate that there is demand for opencourseware.  Burgess needs to provide more persuasive evidence showing how the university stands to gain financially, not just in reputation, and how long it will take to recoup marketing costs.  After all, if this venture is a money losing one, then there is no way the university should go for it.