Just a quick point that many of you are putting too much weight on the personality of the pitchperson rather than the substance of their pitch.  This is entirely reasonable – we are humans after all – but remember that both honest and dishonest people can be very good at conveying trust in situations where better caution might be waranted.   Angels and Venture Capitalists are unanimous that successful investments begin with the ability to both “like” and “trust” the pitchperson, but obviously their due diligence has to go deeper than this.   Try to look beyond the words and image to form an impression of the enterprise that is being described.  Could you also like that entreprise???

Credibility
Dodds was confident in his speech and effectively conveyed the capabilities of UBC IT, along with their successes over the past few years. The evidence of UBC IT’s past successes shows that UBC is highly capable of providing students and the university community with the services they need for an enriching learning environment.

Management Team
Dodds emphasizes the importance of formal and informal meetings and how, as a decentralized university, the units and faculties manage to collaborate to develop and provide solutions to the UBC community; different teams within the University help toward the function of IT Services.

Business Model
The business model is feasible and the arguments toward the mission and vision are compelling. Dodds discusses the notion of a global citizenship where the talent pool is organized so everything can come together harmoniously to reach their goals. The trick toward success is to continuously re-evaluate strategies and raise the bar.

Competitive Products
The realistic market size, share and selling price captured are based on enrolment, but more importantly, the reputation of the institution as well as the reliability of the products and services delivered by UBC IT and similar services to support the reputation of UBC as a whole.

Market Readiness
UBC IT clearly has the ability to face the challenges that helps them succeed, particularly since they are driven to continue doing things with success in mind. By bringing together key members and stakeholders in the UBC community, they formulate strategies that ensure the success of their business model.

Technical Innovation
One of the most innovative learning tools to come from UBC was WebCT, proving that the institution has the edge to advance technologically. As well, Dodds discussed going beyond the community with an open source and community source project that will provide benefits to students, faculty and staff at UBC. Dodds did not mention the name of the project but it makes me wonder if he was referring to the Kuali Student System currently in development?

Exit Strategy
UBC IT recognizes success. The annual e-Strategy town hall meetings and release of monthly newsletters are great examples of how valuable decision-making strategies are from different levels within the University community in order to continuously improve products and services.

Overall Investment Status
As an EVA, I would risk my investment capital in UBC IT Services.

Credibility
The pitch given by Burgess provided plenty of information about what Royal Roads should do with Open Courseware but did not quite convey how they would effectively overcome risks and achieve success with the project. Throughout the pitch, Burgess presented more factual information rather than clearly pitching why RRU could provide uniqueness in their Open Courseware.

Management Team
Other than mention of a marketing team, there is little evidence of a team in place to execute this plan or which existing teams in the University would or could be used as resources. Providing more information on the teams responsible for executing the plan would have been beneficial in strengthening the pitch for Open Courseware.

Business Model
The idea is feasible but the argument is not so compelling. There is evidence of opportunity and weaknesses but not so much how the University can use its strengths or how RRU will face threats to the idea. In the pitch, Burgess could have focused more on what will make students want to go to RRU or any other university with established open courseware in place? How do the courses from RRU differ from the ones offered by other institutions that are part of the Open Courseware Consortium (OCW) and should these other universities be viewed as opportunities or threats for providing similar learning tools?

Competitive Products
The main competition Burgess identified is MIT, although the other post-secondary institutions that are part of the OCW make the service very competitive. Within five years, MIT was able to grow their open courseware program significantly. As pointed out, if RRU were to do the same, they would have to effectively target and market to students.

Market Readiness
Without knowing exactly how students can or will be drawn into the market, the critical path ahead seems challenging and may take more time than necessary if RRU is not prepared.

Technical Innovation
This pitch did not provide strong evidence of RRU having an edge technically.

Exit Strategy
Burgess makes the destination clear, however the success of the project is brought to question.

Overall Investment Status
As an EVA, I would say at this point in time, unless Burgess could provide further proof that this venture would be successful, an investment cannot be made on this proposition.

Michelle Lamberson does not have a job I envy.  Balancing the needs and budgets of her office with the needs of UBC students, faculty and departments is a recipe for the adage. “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.  There is no way to please everyone.

She is intelligent and obviously possesses the skills to balance all of the demands placed upon her and her office.  She gives the impression that she takes in multiple viewpoints and considers them all.  If I had any critique to offer, I would suggest she be more aware of her eye movement during the interview.  While very often intelligent people look away to form a thought it can be misinterpreted as evasiveness.  She is fully versed in her subject and would project this more clearly if she held her gaze more directly.  This small nuance falls into the credibility category.

In a short interview, deeply considered projects can appear to have been quick and easy judgments.  The decision to offer blogs and wikis to all students is almost presented as an experiment.  The endpoint or definition of success is unclear yet, I am not sure in this case it can be clear.  Decision-making within this paradigm is most challenging. An institution like UBC must be willing to try a few ‘experiments’ after intelligent consideration.

As for the question – would I invest in this enterprise? – I believe my tuition bill speaks for itself.

Brad McFee tries to make a compelling case for his company.  They seem to have gone through early growing pains about how to position themselves as a product or service company. He talks about a year of transition.  They seem to have a product which up until recently was not being purchased “off the rack” but is now being better represented to customers.  I would like to see more discussion of this boxed product and what they think it’s potential is as it stands, without customization.  It sounds as if Mind Leaders got a customized product. How much in sales have been attributed to their boxed software?

Mr. McFee proudly discusses their new, large partner – Lighthouse Publishing.  He seems very optimistic that they will share their 700+ customer base with them.  He is perhaps a bit too optimistic.  Will Lighthouse risk losing a customer of their own for a small incentive?  I worry that he underestimates the corporate change the doubling of a small workforce can bring.  An expansion from 12 to 22 in a few weeks is extremely rapid and it will not be seamless.  As the number of staff doubles there will be a friendly period where everyone sizes each other up followed by internal re-positioning struggle as old and new employees ‘stake their claim’ to areas of the business they deem important.  Hopefully, their HR department is adept at interviewing for ‘fit’ as well as qualifications.

Innovation in b2b programming is fleeting.  Unless Recombo can get a boxed product out which fits a needed business solution they will be customizing to prove the product works but not really producing a product that has a high enough sales potential.  Very quickly someone else can (and will) customize a single solution for each of the larger customers leaving the market shallow.  India and China are producing a generation of very savvy programmers who will be cutting into Recombo’s market with one off, customized solutions for less.

If  Recombo could show me a large customer base to sell boxed software into and could show me it would need little or no customization then I might consider investing.  I would have to make sure my exit strategy matched theirs or there may be issues about when to sell the company.

UBC IT Services

Ted Dodds Chief Information Officer

Strengths:

Ted Dodds is an articulate, credible speaker who seems to have a clear vision where the UBC IT Services e-learning strategy is headed.  The e-strategy framework is an excellent idea.  It is inclusive and flexible plan, designed to reach out to early adopters of technology and faculty communities, avoiding centralization.  The management team seems very strong.  The team building process is inclusive where “thought leaders” and early adopters are invited to participate in the process from the early development stage, contributing to the over all vision.  This inclusive and empowering strategy may have helped establish strong links to the university community, and there is a nice balance of leadership and community participation.  The plan also has a built-in strategy for dealing with mavericks and innovator whose talents are used to further support the efforts of the university by providing input to the direction of the program, as well as, providing links to university faculty—playing critical role of liaison between IT and faculty.  Moreover, the e-learning venture may also have some commercial potential and may find open-source applications that go beyond the campus.

Weaknesses:

In theory, the “inclusive” community based e-learning strategy should be effective; however, the “inclusive” design has the potential to disrupt the focus of the venture by trying to meet the needs of too many.  Moreover, there maybe times when a greater top-down strategy may be needed to make change possible. In addition, the potential for open-source application beyond the campus seems problematic, and there seems to be limited commercial or inter-university potential.

Was the pitch effective? The pitch is very effective, and I am convinced that the venture is worthy of investment.  Most appealing is the inclusive e-strategy framework; it seems like an ideal model for a university setting: flexible and dynamic.

Ingenia-training Pitch

Strengths:

One of the strengths of the pitch is company president, Ramona Materi.  She is a very convincing speaker who seemingly has excellent credentials.  The company has a small highly skilled management team.  Given the weak domestic market, and stiff international competition this may be an advantage.  Ingenia seems to have a clear vision and is aware that survival may be determined by how well it positions itself in the international market place.  The company has identified potential in the Vietnamese market and has developed a strategy to tap into that market.  The company is aware that needs to establish business relationships with multinational companies—such as Shell—operating within Vietnam, and that the Vietnamese, as a whole, highly value education. Ingenia has also recognized that the Vietnamese market is essentially free of competition.

Weaknesses:

The pitch also has a number of weaknesses.  Ingenia doesn’t seem to have a competitive product or technical innovation to set the company apart from its competitors.  Moreover, the domestic market is very weak and, if for some reason, the company were to be excluded from the Vietnamese market, it may experience financial difficulties.  It also seems that the company does not have a great deal of confidence in it ability to enforce contractual obligations entered into with the Vietnamese Government, and for that reason, stresses that it will seek business relationships with multinational corporations who can be held responsible to their legally binding agreements.  On the surface, this may add weight to Ingenia’s pitch; however, one of the key advantages alluded to in the pitch is that the company is the company is positioning itself to take advantage of an untapped market—“off the beaten track”—but its relationships are with internationally based companies, and the target market is not really all that insular.

Was the pitch effective?   The pitch was effective enough to get my attention; however, I am not convinced Ingenia has identified a secure enough target market, and for this reason I would not be interested in investing in the venture.

Background

A pitch is presented to make the case for Royal Roads University to establish an Open Courseware initiative.

Analysis

Referring to the successful open courseware initiative at MIT, the pitcher presents some compelling arguments in favour of her venture. She suggests that providing open access to courses will help with student and faculty recruitment and the marketing of Royal Roads’ high-quality programming thereby enhancing the university’s reputation. Additional benefits of using open courseware are also mentioned including increased global access and contributions being made to the building of a learning society. The pitcher also sets up and proceeds to knock down what could be the two greatest arguments against the open courseware initiative: a possible decrease in tuition paid by those who are content to learn for free and the chance that others could steal content and profit by resale. According to the pitcher, academic credit is not given to students who don’t pay tuition and course content is subject to copyright laws.

Interestingly, only seven minutes were used to pitch the idea and, as an EVA, I felt the pitcher left me hanging with too many unanswered questions. For example, the pitch provides no information regarding how the plans will be carried out, so an EVA is left wondering what types of resources are necessary to start and maintain the venture. Since the initiative has already been implemented at MIT, it would  help to have highlighted what kind of return was seen on their investment. Lastly, while the pitcher promotes Royal Roads as a place of innovation, specifics regarding the qualifications personnel that will potentially run the venture were missing from the pitch.

Overall, I would not be willing to risk my investment capital on this proposition mostly because I think MIT already has the stronghold on this market. No offense to Royal Roads, but MIT is a well-known and prestigious institute. If people simply want to use Open Courseware for learning, they’ll turn to MIT first. After all, it is free. While I acknowledge that Royal Roads might be rewarded with a modest increase in student recruitment through this venture, I think there might be other ways to promote and market a university if they wish to increase the number of paying students.

Background

Ingenia is a consulting service based in Vancouver, which offers “E-learning strategy development and instructional design of classroom and online courses”. Ramona Materi, president of Ingenia pitches a plan to establish her company a major learning services provider in Vietnam.

Analysis

In her pitch, Ramona mentions several potential challenges to her company. First she states that although her team is based in Vancouver, there is no home market for her venture plans. However, she claims that conditions are favourable for targeting the country of Vietnam because there are presently few e-learning players in the market place, the country’s population is relatively young, and there has been recent global investment from other countries. Ramona is also realistic about her North American competitors stating competition is strong, yet appears confident that some prior experiences in Vietnam and the timeliness of her opportunity gives her company somewhat of a competitive edge.

Ingenia claims to be an industry leader in E-learning comprised of a highly qualified core team. Many members of the team hold masters degrees or higher. Ramona proclaims herself as a “guru” in the field and supports her claim by highlighting her involvement in several international speaking arrangements. The need to host their data on a low-bandwidth server based in Vancouver is mentioned along with the obvious need for quality language translation resources. Although it is unclear whether these resources have been secured, it seems reasonable to assume Ramona will be able to do so.

Though I would need to further investigate the potential E-learning markets in Vietnam, Ramona appears to have done her homework and presents a fairly compelling case. I would to have heard more data and statistics regarding the potential market size. I need to know more information about access to the required technology as well as literacy rates, living conditions, education levels etc.

As an educational venture analyst, I have a few concerns about Ramona’s pitch. First, I would like to know more about the competitors in this market. Ramona mentions that a public/private Japanese consortium is already active in E-learning in Vietnam, but to what extent are they involved? One could reasonably assume that the Japanese consortium would have more experience and background in the Vietnamese market. This doesn’t mean there is not room for Ingenia in Vietnam’s e-learning market; however, the potential for the competition to limit large-scale clientele and revenue certainly exists in the long run.

Secondly, as an EVA, I question Ingenia’s plans to charge its investors $40,000 to fund market development trips to Vietnam for two people, four times in 15 months. If the company truly wishes to establish a presence in Vietnam before the competition does, why limit yourself to business trips for only two people. While I acknowledge times have changed and the beauty of Ingenia’s services is that they can technically be offered from a distance, I would have like to have heard plans to relocate some staff to Vietnam. The plans to only travel there made me question the level of commitment toward the venture. I could be wrong, but since I’m the one deciding to hand over $100, 000 I think I’m entitled to an opinion here.

For many of you, the concepts within Module 2 this week may be the most unfamiliar in the whole course.  The world of start-ups and venture capitalist seems a long way from the classroom.   However, every new venture has to start somewhere, and this critical phase of constructing a viable business framework around a great new idea is as essential as training before running a marathon.   Academics tend to believe otherwise – they come up with original ideas all the time and expect that the idea itself is all that matters.  It’s analogous to the conceit of a man who believes his contribution to creating a baby is all that matters.   The vast majority of ideas never become born as ventures because the gestation phase is so tough.

When we first launched 522 we included a module where we taught students how to read and analyse corporate financials.  While that skill is essential to every true entrepreneur (and educational venture analyst), it was too much for 522.  This isn’t a “business” course.  We decided instead to concentrate on the “pitch” because it is the purest, most concentrated, most accessible, and most social form of any venture.  It’s all in the story.  Just remember that you’ve got to be clear-minded and humble about your abilities to evaluate venture pitches.  If there isn’t something incredible or very hard to understand in any pitch, then it almost certainly isn’t breaking new ground.   Try to imagine what the pitches for applications like Twitter or Facebook might have sounded like before everyone knew what they were.  This module is aimed to help you start tuning your venture instincts.

Dive in and have fun!