Hello everyone. Here is my venture pitch for network, called CityConneX, to support a Vancouver-based sustainability project. Here is the elevator pitch for CityConneX Network. [kaltura-widget uiconfid=”534″ entryid=”0_bw048z18″ width=”308″ height=”292″ addpermission=”” editpermission=”” /] The venture pitch can be viewed at CityConneX Network.
Continue reading CityConneX Network Posted in: Week 13: Venture Forum
I first started blogging in 2006. In some ways it was an educational experience, where I was blogging about my trials and tribulations on building a sea kayak. From this, I turned my blog into a general purpose weblog, which is a bit of a no-no. However, I use my blog to communicate with friends […]
Continue reading Day 1 on Day 3: My blog experience Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
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mcquaid 6:48 pm on November 27, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
To those coming here after me, I had to download the file attached to the first link to see the elevator pitch.
Jay 10:56 am on November 28, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Sorry about that. I have changed it. Thanks for letting me know.
Deb Giesbrecht 4:47 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey Jay,
Loved your elevator pitch – looks very professional- especially for someone who says he is not so tech-savvy! The green economy is certainly an expanding market and one that holds a lot of potential and sustainability. Great idea about collaboration and network sharing. It appears to be a well thought out venture with great market potential – not sure from your pitch if it is a for-profit organization or more of a social platform – either way I would still invest in it!
Jay 8:27 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Deb. I should have made it clearer in theelevator pitch and venture proposal. pitch is a social platform bringing social and organizational value to groups/institutions that invest and would not benefit financially. So I tried to allude to it being a social venture but should have been clearer about this. Thanks for the comments.
bcourey 5:28 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jay,
I was intrigued to see a venture about a municipality instead of a school board! Nice change. You are proposing an interesting concept – the merging of minds from quite a wide range of stakeholders – from students to city planners all with the same purpose in mind – meeting the city’s goals of sustainability. Too often the students are omitted. Networking is always a great strategy. As a manager of a city department, that is often very entrenched in their “silos” of bureaucracy, I wonder if you would get buy in from all stakeholders to participate in this venture. It would be wonderful if they would! I also worry about the politicization of city management…you could be just one election away from closure…but maybe Vancouver is much better at long-term visioning!
Brenda
Jay 8:34 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It may very well be the case that the not all stakeholders choose to participate. The City may choose to not invest directly, but would be invested indirectly through CityStudio, which is a project that while receives funding from the local government, is not run by them. I believe if post-secondary institutions also invested and contributed partner courses to the program this help maintain a balance and minimize risk of politicization by city staff. The election issue is a weakness, however if stakeholders and the venture took advantage of the re-election and used the next three years to build and obtain non-government investment (universities, businesses, community) the project could become large enough and invested in by too many different groups too be simply dismantled by a new politcal party. But you do point out a weakness of this venture and the narrow, unstable market it attempts to enter. Thanks for the comments.
Keisha Edwards-Hamilton 8:04 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jay,
I love the green concept presented in the elevator pitch. Problems and solutions were easily identified and it looks very professional. However, I think your pitch was too long considering that it should be a presentation lasting for no more than one minute maximum. I think the transitions could be speed up as you were talking very slowly throughout the presentation. Otherwise, it’s a great concept that I would pursue.
Keisha
Jay 8:43 pm on November 29, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Keisha,
Thanks for the comments. The elevator pitch was one of the weaknesses of my assignment and I wasn’t overly satisfied with how it turned out. You are right that its too long and your suggestion to speed up transitions and speak faster would help decrease the length. I was worried about speaking too fast and people not being able to understand what it was about. Thanks for your critique.
hall 2:13 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jay,
I think cityConnex is a good idea. The concept of connecting all components would definitely maximize efficiently and as a result provide more revenue for Canada. I like the sequence and graphic of your pitch, they were good. However, I think you could condense the materials and reduce the time of display for each slide (12 seconds to 5 seconds or 6 seconds). Some of slides were not synchronize with your slides. Overall it is a good venture, well done.
Jay 3:58 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I had a little difficulty with getting everything synchronized and video and media is not my strong point unfortanetly. Thanks for comments and I will take them into consideration for future work.
jenaca 3:17 am on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jay,
I really enjoyed your pitch and loved the green concept you presented. I think you effectively portrayed the problems and solutions as well as statistics that caught my eye. I like how your product targets a global economy and not just one specific group. My only suggestion would be to shorten your pitch, however, I completely understand how difficult this is when trying to include necessary information!!
Great Job,
Jenaca
Jay 3:57 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the comments. The pitch was too long I agree. The market is actually very narrow as the venture is for a network connecting an existing project here in Vancouver called CityStudio (see http://citystudiovancouver.blogspot.com/ if interested). I added the global market in the beginning to show the existing market for green economy but I am attempting to enter a local market through providing a service I think would benefit this project.
Thanks for the comments.
Jay
carmen 1:37 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jay,
Great job on the pitch – the graphics are very effective. I’m convinced by your pitch that having a centralized “studio” in the virtual space in addition to the existing physical space can really help collaboration between all partners. I wonder what would be the affordances of this of CMS), and what might be the cost of building and maintaining one.
carmen
Jay 2:11 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Carmen,
You raise good questions about my venture and one of its weaknesses. I specifically avoided financials because they were not a requirement and I have little background in areas such as investment return, cost-benefit analysis, or other financial considerations however admit this would have strengthened the venture considerably and would likely be required should this idea be taken seriously.
I know little about the costs of implementing or starting up networks. I suppose I could have done more research into this. I suggested that these could be minimized by having CityStudio recruit IT or communications students to help with design and logistics. But I am unsure of costs but would be curious to find out and will look into it further once I have a little more time. Thanks for the comments.
Jay 4:05 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
A note on my venture:
I think I have confused my audience with my elevator pitch. CityConneX (my proposed venture) is not attempting to enter a global market, although this would be possible but would be dependent on many factors so unlikely. Rather it is a centralized network for an existing inter-institutional Vancouver-based project called CityStudio (see http://citystudiovancouver.blogspot.com/ if interested). I was unsure how to get this across in the limited time and instead I think I focused on the features of the system rather than focusing on what it is and the market it targets. I appreciate all your comments as they have made me aware of this error.
Thanks
Jay
I hope this might clear things up for any future reviewers.
schiong 8:37 pm on November 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jay,
I like the project.
Yes, the funding could come from the government (directly or indirectly).
Since different Universities are involved, is it possible to get funding from them ?
Actually, there are several CMS open source software. Are you planning to use any of those ?
Jay 10:13 am on December 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the comments and questions. With regards to universities, participating institutions would be approached for funding and the amount would be dependent on whether the institution is participating through partner courses, network courses (or both).
With regards to CMS this is where my tech weaknesses are revealed. I thought about this after completion and realized that I should have provided discussion around this. The original thought was to that software be created so it could be tailored to fit the needs of the project and all stakeholders involved. However reflecting upon this, this might be an expensive route to go and it may be better to research and use existing software that would be flexible enough to incorporate needs and wants of this very hetergenous group. This would be much less expensive, I would think, as it there would be no costs associated with development. Thus minimizing investment required at start-up. Thanks for the thought provoking question. Something I also was struggling with.
Jay
khenry 9:05 am on December 3, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jay,
Thank you for this addition to the fold. It is a well needed venture not just for this instance but in other instances connecting business, schools, projects and lessons learnt. Check out this site http://www.idea.org/blog/ presenting a network for connecting persons on projects where they share ideas and develop together.
See below for my extended EVA.
Elevator Pitch: I figured out that you were doing a not for profit venture and welcomed the opportunity for an alternative analysis. I agree that more clarity is needed as to the nature of the venture (profit vs. not for profit) and where/how investors would be positioned.
Interestingly, I do not mind not see CEO et al in elevator pitches but funnily enough because your venture is about people I felt like seeing people incorporated or perhaps some visuals of who or what you are connecting. I liked your tone, very neutral and engaging. Very good timing with your voice and visuals but yes as you already said it is a bit too long.
In both your elevator pitch and your venture pitch I think you should start with the problem earlier and from there you flow into your solution and then background.
Venture Pitch
Team: More discussion of the team and their competence to lead the project would add weight to your pitch.
Venture: The problem and solution are clearly stated but as I said above think the problem could be stated at the start more succinctly and then move from there. The venture is an attractive one in connecting stakeholders, a collaboration space and ideas and lessons sharing within a specific project setting.
Market: The target market is clearly defined, stakeholders within the Vancouver City studio project on multiple levels: schools, business and community organizations.
Market Readiness: A step by step process of the project implementation is given. The use of online content management systems and networks within a blogging sphere is ideally chosen for the nature of the venture.
Competitive Advantage: Information regarding benefits is presented. However, competitive advantage is not clearly articulated or capitalized on. Benefits to investors are mentioned but even though you are proposing a not for profit venture I believe that you could organise information for investors who would like to partner could see exactly how they could contribute and/or benefit. For example identification of needs and communicating and operating set up costs et al., where persons might contribute monetarily et al. and benefits such as corporate responsibility in community development etc., cutting green costs, and publicity (there was some mention of the latter two).
Exit Strategy: Information on strategies to attract investors and users is needed.
Good job overall. I hope it goes well!
Kerry-Ann
themusicwoman 9:54 pm on December 3, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dear Jay,
Won’t go over again what people have already said but will say I found your project to be very professionally laid out and organized. Kinda interesting to be late on this review as I find the comments and your post to pull the picture together for me very nicely. Again, always nice to have all the info after, right? lol.
Thanks for the post.
Michelle