Everyone should have their final grades for all assignments in ETEC522 via email by now. Please let me know immediately if you haven’t got yours. Questions welcome. It was a pleasure getting to know you all, and I’ll enjoy even more being kept up to date on all of your ventures going forward. I realize […]
Continue reading Everyone should have their final grades … Posted in: AnnouncementsRSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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David Vogt
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adi
My last participation :-(
It was interesting to go back and reflect upon my participation. I agree that a platform that helps you keep a better track of your own posts would be useful, and perhaps doing this same participation reflection half way through the course. Regarding the platform we used, I agree it is perhaps not the best […]
Continue reading My last participation :-( Posted in: General -
David Vogt
Something ventured…
Welcome to December everyone, and the conclusion of our learning adventure. As per my earlier message, you have your A1 & A2 grades now, and should have the balance of your grades by the end of the week. I’m thoroughly enjoying the grading process, as I do ETEC522 and MET overall, because all of you […]
Continue reading Something ventured… Posted in: Announcements -
Lisa Nevoral
Participation Portfolio
I think it is good for MET students to try different platforms. We can use that experience to make educated decisions when trying out LMS for our students (if we are educators and we so chose to). What platform did we like? What lay-out or organizational plan would I want for my students? Do I […]
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David Vogt
Completion Schedule
Nice action on the Venture Forum! Just to let you know, I’ve done my second review of your A2 assignments and you should expect your grades on these later today. I’ve also done a first review of your A3 assignments, so you should expect these back to you, along with your A4 work, by the […]
Continue reading Completion Schedule Posted in: Announcements-
joeltremblay
Hi there David,
I haven’t received anything via email? Is that where you’re sending the feedback/marks to or?-
David Vogt
I’ve just finished relaying all of the A2 grades – so please let me know if you haven’t received them via email yet. Cheers, David
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Patrick Pichette
I might be blind but I only see an email acknowledging reception of the A4 assignment.
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Patrick Pichette
Quick tutorial for those of you trying to locate your contributions
I went ahead and created a short tutorial in case it might be helpful for a few of you trying to locate your course contributions to submit as part of your A4 assignment. If it helps just one person, it was worth the minute to make it. 🙂 Keep in mind that this tutorial allows […]
Continue reading Quick tutorial for those of you trying to locate your contributions Posted in: General-
Peggy Lawson
Great tip Patrick! I’ve been copying and pasting some of my posts as I’ve gone through the course because I dreaded having to go back at the end and try to hunt them down. Your solution is excellent – thanks for taking the time to create & share the video.
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sophiabb
Thanks Patrick.
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C. Ranson
Thanks Patrick.
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Patrick Pichette
You’re welcome.. looks like it helped a few people so even better.
Cheers 😉
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jameschen
Participation Portfolio – Suggestion for A3
Hi all, I think having people to vote for and give marks to the available pitches for assignment 3 would be improved with more detail that explains the achievement for the number of stars assigned. The written comments are more useful and accurate at getting the points across. Perhaps having an explanation for each set of […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio – Suggestion for A3 Posted in: General-
jenbarker
I didn’t mind the peer assessment bit, but felt the specific aspects we were asked to rate could have been expanded a bit to reflect the multiple facets of pitches.
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kstackhouse
Great idea, a rubric for each component would help in deciding the scores for the pitches. It would probably make the evaluations more consistent if we were all going on the same criteria.
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adi
I actually found grading and commenting on other people’s work very useful, it helped me reflect on my own work and how I could have improved it. The feedback everyone gave me and others was also very useful to learn from.
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Suhayl Patel
MultiBoard
Hi Everyone, I have no clue as to why the sound cut out after 3 minutes. I checked my original file and the sound on there is perfect. I have uploaded it again and it seems to be working fine. Sorry for the inconvenience. Venure Pitch: http://youtu.be/i_DfAgmW1Jw
Continue reading MultiBoard Posted in: Venture Forum-
adi
Sorry for the late post. I have had sleepless nights completing other assignments. I do apologize and mean no disrespect.
Hi Suhayl,
The problem you address is not very clear. Your product is clearly better than the others out there, but you need to highlight what problem is being solved. That aside, your product does sound interesting and you have clearly though of how to market it. The fact it is portable makes it very attractive. I would just be weary of how certain existing tools are also portable and have the option to be used in a similar way. This is also part of your competition.
Well done,
Adriana
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melissaayers
Participation Portfolio
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my learning experience through this course. The topics were very interesting and relevant and the OERs I found a great way to deliver content and learn at the same time! However, I agree and echo the sentiments others have about using the weblog vs an LMS. I also found it difficult […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio Posted in: General-
jameschen
Hi Melissa,
I too, agree with the suggestions that you have stated, especially the second one about being able to edit/update comments after pressing the “reply” button. I think not being able to do so is related to the reason why my heartbeat increases every time before I press the “reply” button.
James
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kstackhouse
Great ideas Melissa. I think that being able to provide examples (visuals or video) within the replies would be great. It would be difficult to provide the same response if you had to make a new post and then refer to the original posting that you were commenting on.
Ken
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adi
Totally agree. It’s awful not being able to edit a post you’ve written and later find has a mistake.
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tomwhyte1
Participation Portfolio – Resource Depot
While I see some of the points made by other students regarding the Blog vs traditional LMS to facilitate this course. I myself liked the fact that this information would be live to the Internet. With this knowledge, I had to ensure a more respectful tone (not that we weren’t), but more so, considering at […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio – Resource Depot Posted in: General-
teacherben
I think the same thing could have been accomplished using a discussion forum that was publicly visible (although I would say that the thought of my colleagues in this class, all professionals and working at a master’s level, seeing my work was more than enough of a motivator to try to write something intelligent. My personal opinion is that a blog is best used when you have one primary author and a multitude of commenters. The discussion is guided by that primary individual. With so many authors, it is difficult to keep track of new, interesting posts, or to se who responded to the question that you asked here or there. I definitely prefer being able to open up a forum and see how many ‘unread’ comments I have. I am sure that I missed all sorts of good stuff in this course because of this. People are more likely to check the ‘recent posts’ or ‘recent comments’ and respond to something that interests them in there. If, for example, you happen to be in the same time zone as the majority of people, then you are more likely to get a response and generate a real discussion since more people will see it while it is up. For those that aren’t, their ideas may be buried quickly and by the time they get back 12 or 24 hours later, the discussion has long since moved on. (Either that or my comments were just boring…) Subscribing to a feed was one way to do it, but it’s not so simple to click from there into the wordpress to respond to a comment. So while I believe that there was no shortage of good discussion in this course, I would not recommend a blog for the next time around. (Incidentally, it seems that this was on a wiki sometime in the past, so it is cool to see the David’s experimenting with formats and technologies.)
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tomwhyte1
I am not disagreeing about the intelligence of the community of learners, that was not my thoughts or intentions. However, in many of closed off courses, sometimes discussions are not course related, and yes I realize there is a section for those in those courses, however it was rarely used. I was just getting at the fact that the completely open environment, ensures that we are not only intelligent in our responses, but our cognitive dissonance, which will and should occur regularly, regarding at times, real life products, not only keeps us disagreeing agreeably, but aware that we are discussing real life products and the time and effort multiple people have put forth. Do I like other LMS’s, yes. I have used Blogs, Connect and Vista – and in my mind Vista provides the most services to assist conversations, in that it shows where new conversations have occurred and if any have been directed at you. Both of which are essential, and have missed dearly in this course.
And I am glad to hear that experimentation on delivery happens. For no matter what system you provide, some people will be happy, while others less so. And you never know, with experimentation may one day come my much wanted Resource Depot.
Thoughts?
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visramn
I think that is a good idea. I think for a course at this level, individuals would use such a tool as a resource to help them to concretize and further their understandings not as means of plagiarism. I am a visual person and find that seeing an artifact teaches me a lot more than reading about that same artifact or the components of that artifact. This type of resource would be helpful to individuals who have no prior background in business and would give them more confidence in their ability to create a potent and plausible venture.
Nureen
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Peggy Lawson
I’ll just add to your comments, Tom, regarding the quality (stay-on-topicness) of discussion threads when open to the public vs in a closed LMS. I’ll respectfully disagree. Now in my 9th MET class, I’ve generally found my classmates to be very focused on the topics, always respectful, and very meaningful and rich. There was the odd brief off-topic comment, but those more often than not added to the spontenaity and group-building of the course. As mentioned several times now, in numerous threads, I think the combination of a large class size and the nature of blogs vs discussion boards (Ben explained it well) made it much more difficult to create rich discussions in this course. Rare were the real conversations between more than 2, occassionally 3, people at a time as a reall back-and-forth discussion. Unfortunately I felt very little of the collegial bonding of classmates in this course that I’ve come to greatly appreciate in MET and perhaps the public blog forum was a major reason for that.
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joeltremblay
Participation Portfolio
I found this course to be extremely difficult. Partly because I wasn’t trained in the lingo and also because of other difficulties that have already been aired by other students. The WordPress site was extremely awkward to navigate at times and incredibly inept when it came to the search function, but it provided up to […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio Posted in: General -
kstackhouse
Participation Portfolio: Team Pitches suggestion
I was really challenged by this course and I greatly enjoyed the many avenues we were able to explore. Thank you to all of the teams that presented and the high quality of materials that were provided. Two components that would help me, and possibly others participate more would revolve around communication and collaboration. In […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio: Team Pitches suggestion Posted in: General-
manny
I would agree with the discussion component of the course layout and its limitations. Upon beginning the MET program, vista was the platform for most courses and it worked like a charm. It was easy to log on and easily locate your discussion threads and respond to comments that colleagues have added. This blog roll format does work but makes finding and posting discussions and replies a tedious task. I noticed that complex threads didn’t really evolve within this format as they had in the past with courses offered through vista. The connect platform is not any better either. This is the interesting thing with technology, just because something is newer, doesn’t necessarily make it better. The old saying “If it aint broke, don’t fix it,” is something designers should keep in mind. Then again, if that was the case, they would be out of a job.
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jenbarker
As a note, I know that UBC is moving to a new system called Connect, instead of Vista. Having used both I find Connect much more cumbersome to navigate than Vista. It only shows one post at a time and you have to use arrows to click/scroll through conversations. At least through the blog I don’t have to click on each person’s post to read what they wrote. Just my two cents.
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Peggy Lawson
Thanks for the post Ken. This is the 2nd course that has used a WordPress blog instead of Vista or Connect. I know it can take time to adjust to something new, but I’ve had some experience now and as you said trying to follow threads and new posts is almost impossible and consumes far too much time trying to locate new posts (I didn’t like the RSS method much, either). I’m sure I’ve missed replying to comments on my own posts which I hate to do. As Manny said, the rich and complex discussion threads that, to me, are the real heart of a MET course are very difficult and almost non-existent with WordPress blogs.
Collaboration on the venture project is an interesting idea.
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Doug Connery
I also agree about using the Word Press Blog format, this is my second course as well, and the discussions have not been as rich as it is hard to keep track of them. These courses are all about learning from each other through the postings, so I believe we could have learned a lot more in this course if it was hosted in the normal Vista platform where the discussion threads are better managed.
The other comment that I would like to make which is even riskier as the final grades have not been posted, however it is a specific constructive suggestion, is we have been discouraged from continuing discussions once each group’s emerging market analysis week is complete. In other courses I have been in, continued discussions were allowed throughout the course, and I remember one where they were still going 7 days after the course was completed! I do not see a fault or danger in this, only positives as small groups of students are able to discuss topics to great detail and on a wide array of related topics.
Doug.
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jameschen
Good suggestions, Ken. I would also really like to see future iterations of this course to have the venture pitch assignment structured as a collaborative project because I found it disengaged my learning experience from the collective while I worked through the assignment myself.
James
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rebeccaharrison
My other 3 classes are currently in Connect and I think there are benefits to both. I have one course where our discussions happen on connect and we do assignment posting through wordpress. I dislike going through the extended process of “clicking” and collecting on connect, but it is easier to tell what you have already read.
I think that you are right, Ken, that it would be great to collaborate on an idea, however, I can see that being a bit difficult to coordinate, particularly for those who want to work on a special project/venture that they are actually wanting to launch.
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visramn
Participation Portfolio: Suggestion for potential changes in this course for the future
One suggestion I would make is that maybe A1 or A3 could be shared on the weblog prior to submission. This way, individuals could view each other pitches and provide feedback. Thus, creating a tool that can be learned from and allowing for improvement in the skills being learned during the course. I am currently learning a lot […]
Continue reading Participation Portfolio: Suggestion for potential changes in this course for the future Posted in: General-
kstackhouse
I agree, it was easy to miss parts of conversations due to the blog set-up. It is much easier to follow the threads in a Vista forum posting. This is especially true considering how many groups presented and all of the external sites that were created where we were asked to participate in other locations.
Ken
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tomwhyte1
I really liked the idea of a collective approach to the development of either or both A1 and A3. And for a lot of people, this may have increased value. My only caution, is for those potential students who truly want to use this class to help them develop an actual service/product. For these individuals, that collective environment, would reduce any chance of that product ever coming into existence, or intellectual property battles, if it becomes successful.
For myself, I would like the option of working in groups, or individually.
Thoughts?
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kstackhouse
That is a good point to bring up. As you said, offering the option to work alone or in groups would be a good solution.
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sophiabb
I think sharing our A3 on a weblog prior to submission is a very good suggestion. I have learned a lot for the collective feedback to my A3 as well as to others. I welcome the feedback from peers at this level; that feedback could make the difference between a good pitch and a great one.
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sophiabb
I also think that we could post our A3 ideas in a general pool. This could facilitate a team work approach for students with similar ideas.
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jhodi
Assignment #3: Educational Application of Penveu
Hi, Sorry for being a bit late, I submitted this to David on Saturday, but had problems uploading it to the blog. Hopefully this link works! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8nu030x2g60lzr7/AhgxDlPBaH Let me know if there are any problems finding my assignment! I have done an educational market venture pitch on Penveu, a new technology similar to that of an […]
Continue reading Assignment #3: Educational Application of Penveu Posted in: General, Venture Forum-
Jenny Brown
Hi Jhodi,
I enjoyed both your short elevator pitch and venture pitch. I really liked the design of your venture pitch – very professional and well laid out. I think you described the pain point, investment potential, current investors, team, and differentiation of the product all very well. As it is not your own original venture, I understand why you didn’t show a “face of the product” in the video, but I do find that I am more drawn to a pitch if there is a face behind the voice. To enhance your pitch, I would also recommend letting potential investors know what to do next – visit the website, contact our team for investment opportunities, etc.
As an EVA I expected to get a good understanding of what the product actually was in your venture pitch. I did reread what you wrote, and understand that it has something to do with pixels on the screen but a demo would have been a selling point for me, although I would agree there is a market for this product, I would not invest without seeing a demo of how well it works.
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jhodi
Thanks Jenny!
I agree that it would have been nice to have my face in the video, but as it is not my own product, I thought that I would assume the position of one of the CEO’s and keep it as if it was coming from one of them. I also wanted to feature the product, and since I do not actually have one, I thought that photos would be better. I do also like seeing a face in the video though.
Jhodi
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tomwhyte1
Hi Jhodi,
Thank you for providing information regarding Penveu, never heard of it before, looks intereting. However, before I complete my rating could answer a question for me. I am just unsure what has been “made over” to quote one of David’s posts or what the new venture/idea is. Would you mind clarifying this for me?
Regardless, I like Jenny enjoyed the presentation, as it was engaging and highly information regarding this product.
Thanks, Tom
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jhodi
Hi Tom,
I wanted to market Penveu to the educational market in a way that would focus on the use by a teacher and students in an interactive, engaging way. I have tried to focus the pitch on marketing Penveu to instructors and schools for the purpose of engaging students and creating efficient hand-on learning in the classroom. By highlighting the educational aspects and benefits of Penveu, I hope to intrigue potential educational investors. I felt as though the original marketing of Penveu was not focused on the education market enough in terms of benefits in the classroom.
Jhodi
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Doug Connery
Well done Jhodi. I enjoyed your elevator pitch and like Jenny, it would have been more convincing to see your face. This would have given some visual cues and body language indicating your excitement towards the product.
Both your elevator pitch and venture pitch certainly convinced me on the more affordable price and flexibility of use in the classroom as big features of the product. Your venture pitch is very convincing and realistic to the point that at first I was wondering why you were just re-publishing or plagiarizing their marketing material. Once I was part way through, I then realized it was your own material thus I believe you did a fine job of role playing and creating new and unique marketing material.
Doug.
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jhodi
Thanks for the input, I agree that having me in the video would have allowed my body language to show more. If I actually had a Penveu, I would have definitely gone that route.
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Colin
Jhodi, I like the idea behind Penveu and the approach of positioning it against whiteboards with the idea of cost savings and portability. Though the price is a bit misleading as a whiteboard already includes the projector where this product needs a laptop, projector and pen. Depending on what resources the school already has this might not be that much cheaper. Since it is portability that might be appealing as well to a school over a Whiteboard. As for the product I would really need to use it to determine its effectiveness before I would decide if it is worthwhile. Since it has to go through wireless to a laptop there might be a lag involved that could be annoying to teachers. Overall a good job I would definitely look further into investing into this kind of company.
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Pat A Son
Hi Jhodi,
I can see that your venture has a solid team from the biographical sketches you have provided and they have put together a solid product.
With the current thrust to get schools up to scratch with information technology you have convinced me that you have a possible game changer for those teachers who are intimidated by the hardware side of some of the products that are available today. As matter of fact our school was provided with two of a similar product but no one uses them because they have to be calibrated and you are ‘pinned’ to the front of the class when using them. I am just stating the fact because you did a great job of identifying the competitive edge of penveu and as such did not need any help from me. So the penveu team certainly did their homework and got their act right in this respect.
There is certainly a lot of room in the education market for penveu but you did not say how potential customers are exposed to the product. Also I would have liked to know the market size in terms of how much money it is estimated to have and how this market is projected to grow in the future. In addition penveu’s parent Interphase Corporation seem to be a solid company with a deep pocket so I do not think they need my money anyway. As long as you can provide me with the answers to these questions I will invest in penveu.
After all is said and done you did a great job.
Cheers
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jhodi
Hi,
Given that this is such a new technology, it has been grouped with the IWB market. As such, I explored the potential market growth for this market, but I was unable to determine what portion of the market would move to Penveu. This is an area that I would have liked to have found more information about (but with all of my searching, I was unable to). I agree that for a potential investor, this would be very valuable information.
Jhodi
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teacherben
I think the product is sound. I just went to a learning technologies expo last week and the one thing that I saw over and over was interactive whiteboards. Probably a third of the companies that were there were showing something like a Smartboard or something like a Mimeo. And, coincidentally, my wife is helping prepare a bid to a Central American government for the purchase of thousands of these things for schools. And I didn’t see anything like the penveu so I thought it was your own invention until I looked it up. I think you know your stuff. You present a myriad of facts and include a few figures that shows that you did your research.
I watched your elevator pitch a couple of times though and I spaced out each time. I think that the elevator pitch needs a bit more style and a bit less substance. I guess I am being a little picky about technical and performance issues, but I could hear you gasping for breath as you were trying to get everything out. There was a lot of information in there that would have been better in the venture pitch. The elevator pitch just needs to get my attention so that I listen to the venture pitch. It is not about making the sale. It is just about getting in the door. I watched the video that they had on their site (Dr. Yoram Solomin, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development) here:
http://www.penveu.com/products.html?video
and he was able to sell the idea without nearly so much information.On the other hand, your venture pitch was beautifully presented and the little touches made it look very professional. You may have wanted to slide yourself in there as a senior level administrator though. It was not clear who you are in the company, unless I missed something.
I was also not clear on what you are asking. It seems that the project already has sound financial backing from Interphase. And from my experience, there is no guarantee that you will make any money investing based on a product that is produced by a huge company. If this is their only product, and it takes off, you can make money. If they are part of a huge conglomerate, then success of one product has little impact on the balance sheet.
So, before investing, I would want to know more.
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jhodi
Thanks for your input! It is funny that you mention too much information in the elevator pitch because I have a tendency to want to put as much as I can into things like this and I know that sometimes less is more. I think that overall, investors with some sort of tie to the education market would be the target market for this product as they would be able to invest capital and help make connections at the same time, which is what I think this device may need.
Jhodi
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jameschen
Hi Jhodi,
Your elevator pitch has a lot of information, so a provision of closed captioning would paint a clearer picture for me as an investor. As an EVA, your pitch would hook my interest more if you provided a description of what the students can do with the product (i.e., write on any surface?) in addition to information about how it is better than the IWB.
Upon reviewing Penveu’s website, I do wonder how your pitch is steering the company from its original direction?
Thanks,
James
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jhodi
Hi,
The only thing that I found when I explored their marketing was that it somewhat lacked emphasis on the impact that it would have on teaching style and student engagement. This is in line with the company’s vision, but my goal was to emphasize how this could make a bigger, stronger impact.
Jhodi
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jameschen
Hi Johdi,
It appears that most of us who were re-pitching for existing companies had the same problem. I wanted the company to focus more on the education market instead of the commercial one, but did not specifically emphasize how in my pitches. There should have been an extra section on both my elevator and venture pitches comparing which direction Knewton is currently going, how it differs from the direction I want the company to move towards and the results this new direction will have in comparison to the results they have now.
In any case, this assignment was a great learning experience for me, and I hope it was the same for you too.
Have a good break!
James
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pcollins
I appreciated the cleanness and succinct message from your elevator pitch. I did find it contained a lot of information to digest in a short period of time. Almost like a very short venture pitch – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing? Just something that I noted personally. Your recording was also very clear and overlaid well with the visuals that you provided. It was quite interesting to see that penvue compared to the smart board technology which many are now questioning the validity of. I hope that wouldn’t detract from the marketability of this neat little device.
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cunnian
Hi Jhodi,
Great job on the elevator and venture pitch. I found that they were both very professional and informative. Like others, my concern is that this is already a well-established company that is not really hurting for money. As such, being an investor, I am having a hard time finding a way that my investment is needed.It was a good idea, however, to take this product in a new direction in order to fully move into the educational market. You would think that the parent company would have considered this!
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melissaayers
Hi Jhodi,
Great work both you pitches were very professional!
From the elevator pitch I was not able to workout exactly what this product does unfortunately (I am a newbie when it comes to white/smart board technologies sorry) and for this reason I needed to look further into it. The pitch clearly states a pain point but I am not sure how this device actually works to meet this pain point from the video. Although the pitch does clearly identify how this provides value by means of a cost reduction compared to other products. My confusion for understanding the product lead me to view the venture pitch, which was professionally presented with most of the investment information I wanted to see as an EVA.
However unfortunately I do not think I would invest in this venture. While not because of anything related to the ventures pitches themselves or their contend purely as I think its something the competitors can reproduce and integrate into their own products or even buy the company if the product is something they find great.
Thanks
Melissa -
adi
Hi jhodi,
Sorry for the late post. I have had sleepless nights completing other assignments. I do apologize and mean no disrespect.
I am going to base my feedback on what we saw in week 3 regarding the content of a venture pitch(Perfecting Your Pitch).
1. Pain Point: the market gap or problem the venture is addressing
– Though this is an interesting product, I don’t think it is necessarily a very much needed one. Some people say the IWB is on its way out, and there are only 600,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_whiteboard ) out there, so it would appear to be a limited market.(http://eddigitaltribe.blogspot.mx/2012/01/are-interactive-white-boards-dead.html )
2. Solution: the new product or service that resolves the pain
– Yes, the gadget solves the problem3. Differentiation: the reason someone will buy or use this new product or service, versus the alternatives
– The report does not state if here is anything else similar in the market4. Marketing: where and how buyers/users will be reached
-It is not clear. Also, though the report states this gadget will enhance the IWB market, I read pages that suggest it may replace this market, so I got a bit confused http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/penveu-electronic-pen-could-replace-whiteboards/112705. Championship: the competency of the venture’s leaders and advisors
– Good6. Competition: an overview of competitors and partners
-Not mentioned.7. The Ask: how much money, etc, is required to take the next step
– Not mentioned8. The Return: how much and how soon will an investor be recompensed
– Not mentioned9. The Message
-Overall the presentation, especially the PDF, was well presented. Some things to keep in mind: speak more slowly and have less text so investors actually read your proposal. This aside, however, I feel the look was good and if tweaked could work.Good luck,
Adriana
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David Vogt
The Home Stretch!!!
Hi everyone – Just to say THANK YOU that the Venture Forum is now live with all of your pitches, and you should feel that you`ve now accomplished the lion`s share of your work for the course, so BRAVO! Via separate email you each should have received your review assignment for this week – the […]
Continue reading The Home Stretch!!! Posted in: Announcements-
Doug Connery
Thanks David for a “random list” of great pitches.The hardest part will be choosing three best to do detailed comments on.
Doug.
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Peggy Lawson
Thanks for the reminder Doug. I do recall reading somewhere our procedure and tasks for reviewing the pitches, but a refresher would be helpful or pointing me in the right direction as to where I saw that information before.
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tomwhyte1
Three? I was under the assumption, that the expectation was all?
Thoughts?
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Doug Connery
Hi:
Under 4 Launch there is a dcoument that states quick comments for 7 and in-depth for 3. I was refereing to choosing 3 for the in-depth review. Hope this did not cause too much confusion!
Doug.
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tomwhyte1
See that now… opps… Oh well, I have done a detailed write-up on 9 of the 10… Yours and Peggy’s are part of that…
At least I got a bit more practice… 🙂
Thanks for showing me that.
Have a great night.
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Peggy Lawson
Thanks Doug. I knew I had seen it somewhere. In hindsight it seems to be the obvious place for instructions for this venture project, but I’ve never fully been comfortable with the blog format as an LMS
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adi
Thank you from the Week 12 OLE team
On behalf of this week’s group, we would like to thank you all for being a part of our OLE. An OLE should promote hands on experiences, self-directed and mediated learning, learner autonomy, personal inquiry and divergent thinking. You all embraced the challenge in different ways and held different opinions regarding the various platforms and […]
Continue reading Thank you from the Week 12 OLE team Posted in: Announcements -
frank
Assignment 3: Venture Pitch DolFin
It’s been interesting and, i have had my share of technical difficulties. I tried about 20 different permutations of technical fixes while recording this pitch, but couldn’t get it to come out both a compressed and, well not an art piece. If anyone has suggestions on tech support, I can repost if it works. […]
Continue reading Assignment 3: Venture Pitch DolFin Posted in: General, Venture Forum-
kstackhouse
Franc,
I tried to view your video but it looks like the link you sent is for the location within your video. You might have to update the link to show the url for the video outside of your video manager. Also, you can embed the video directly into the blog if you wanted to. Just click on the youtube button and paste the video url into place. Hope this helps.
Ken
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lullings
Hey Frank,
The youtube link doesnt work as it is linking to your videos you uploaded page rather than anyone in particular. This just brings me to my video upload page so cant see yours at all.
The Prezi is giving me an error as well.
You said that you were having trouble with the export. Lash me off an email with details of what program you are coming from, what OS you have, and what you recorded it using and hopefully I can help.
Cheers
Stuart -
Ranvir
Frank, the YouTube link does not work..
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Kent Jamieson
Not to sound too redundant, but I can’t view your video or prezi either.
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frank
Hi Guys, I did a complete re-install; try this now:
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Frank,
I can see your YouTube video, but not your prezi.
Lisa
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jkotler
Hi Frank,
While I too was unable to find your prezi, I did watch your elevator pitch on YouTube. From that I think you have a great concept but it was somewhat unclear to me if the key features or purpose is to teach users about finance, create a budget for them or both? As well, I saw there was mention of users interacting with one another and I would have liked to know more about how that would work.
Julie
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Kent Jamieson
I agree with Julie that your concept seems great, as i think there is a need for this type of learning, but it was a little confusing knowing exactly what ‘Dolfin’ does.
I’m sure your venture pitch will add greater depth, but i’m not sure with the limited information gained from the initial pitch that investors could go any further.Do you explain where the 500K goes as well? I may be off base, but that number just sounds huge for the application you’ve explained.
Thanks,
Kent -
frank
Hello,
Thank you for your feedback. The Prezi is embedded in the Youtube video, so I did not post it separately.
DolFin is a LMS/CMS Platform that brings together budgeting tools, financial education content and social applications to make financial learning simple and fun. It can be utilized by teachers and and education providers as an all-in-one reservoir to draw from for tools, content and connectivity, so that they can focus their efforts on facilitating the learning process.
The budget is further laid out in the Venture Pitch; and the $500K covers both the Pilot and Alpha Launch development. Since you have $1 Million to invest on this, Investing in DolFin will allow you to fund something that’ is uniquely different and innovative, while having $500K left to invest in an another venture as well.
Cheers! -
rebeccaharrison
The elevator pitch is intriguing, but I don’t think it provides enough information for who would use it and what they would use it for. People are typically private about finances so I’m not sure whether that social media bit would be a good thing (as it would encourage sharing of ideas, etc.), or whether it would just turn people off. Finances are an area that everyone has interest in, but just based on the elevator pitch I would not invest further.
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Peggy Lawson
Hi Frank – An interesting venture idea. I think there is a market for people who would enjoy online classes in financial education, based on their needs. For evaluating the brief elevator pitch, I like focusing on these guidelines, realizing that the brief elevator pitch likely won’t touch on all aspects:
* Pain Point: the market gap or problem the venture is addressing;
* Solution: the new product or service that resolves the pain;
* Differentiation: the reason someone will buy or use this new product or service, versus the alternatives;
* Marketing: where and how buyers/users will be reached;
* Championship: the competency of the venture’s leaders and advisors;
* Competition: an overview of competitors and partners;
* The Ask: how much money, etc, is required to take the next step; and
* The Return: how much and how soon will an investor be recompensedYou managed to touch on most of these during the brief pitch which I found impossible to do – well done. However, for me I would have liked to have been drawn into your vision a little more deeply; perhaps spending a bit more time highlighting a few of your more essential or engaging aspects, rather than briefly covering many of them, would have attracted me more towards your venture. With my limited ability to fund ventures, I may have to pass on this particular one. But I wish you success, as I do think there is some potential here.
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manny
Hi Frank,
For some odd reason, when I click on your elevator pitch it goes to my videos in my personal video manager for youtube. The prezi also doesn’t seem to work, I get a message of ….
The presentation you wanted to join either did not exist, or it has already ended.
Please check the URL and come back!Thank you for your patience,
The Prezi team -
frank
Hi manny, please see my post: frank 8:48 pm on November 27, 2012
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jhodi
Hi Frank,
I think that you have a very marketable venture here. As a math teacher that teaches finance to high school students, I am always looking for engaging resources such as this that would help students learn in practical situations. I watched your elevator pitch and read what you stated would be in you venture pitch. I would like to invest in this venture, but I would want to know more about it first. I would like to know exactly how it works and what the future plans are for this venture.
Overall, I think that you did a very good job creating your pitch and have caught my attention!
Jhodi
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adi
eLT-PD online professional development
eLT-PD is an online professional development site for English Language Teachers. I wish I could have produced and edited this project with the high quality many of you achieved in this course; unfortunately, I lack the know-how. However, I welcome your honest feedback to help me improve it and to hopefully one day be able to […]
Continue reading eLT-PD online professional development Posted in: Venture Forum-
jenbarker
Hello Adriana,
I appreciate your honesty about your skills. I was also impressed by others tech savvy skills. I wished I knew how to impose graphics alongside the video of me speaking in iMovie. I liked your Elevator Pitch. You address the pain point and the fact that your venture is free makes is more accessible than going back to University for a diploma in supporting English Language Learners. I also thought your Venture plan was really good. My only suggestion would be to make your ask and return more clear. Are you asking investors for money or personnel? Great job, Jen-
adi
Thanks for the tips Jen. I guess because there are so many people that could invest, e.g. government, private educational institutions, language associations, British Council, ELSA NET, etc., I’m not really sure how to pitch to them all. I guess I could perhaps adjust the pitch depending on the possible investor. However, I also felt very ‘green’ when putting this together; I hope to learn from all the tips I’m given, and from everyone else’s work.
Thanks a million.
Adriana 🙂
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avninder
I liked the consistent look and feel of your slides. The images against the white background created a very clean look. Unfortunately I could not hear any audio and the clip on the slide that said “2 billion” did not play, it just said “codecs unavailable”. So I was unable to get the full impact had I known what the numbers were representing. Based on the text I believe that your venture has a lot of potential as ESL may be a very global issue which was captured through your use of graphics.
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adi
Thank you. I’m sorry to hear you could not hear the audio. I really appreciate you taking the time to view it.
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Ranvir
I really liked the venture concept and believe it has lot of potential. It would have been great to know bit more about yourself and your marketing/venture plan…
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adi
Thanks Ranvir. I hope to learn from other people’s projects regarding where and how to insert more information on myself and how to best market the venture. I am still a bit confused as to hoe pitch a non-for profit venture and to investors who gain different things from their investment.
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joeltremblay
Hi Adrianna,
I don’t think that technological savvy played any sort of detrimental role in your pitch. The venture plan was cohesive and made logical sense. Good work.-
adi
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
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Jonathan
I’m going to have to concur with my colleagues. Wouldn’t even worry about the tech savvy aspect. I thought the Powerpoint did the trick just well. You had simply slides, spoke clearly and your message was delivered very effectively. I actually quite enjoyed it. It’s really the message that is the most important and I got it from watching your powerpoint (audio worked just fine for me!).
I definitely would have liked to have a bit more detail about how you were going to roll out your plan? How you would attempt to attract users to your site. But I loved the delivery of your message for the need of this product!
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adi
Hi Jonathan,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I felt it was a bit slow, but recording a voice-over using PPT is a bit complicated. I will work on the details regarding the users.
Thanks again 🙂
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tomwhyte1
To facilitate and objectively review the venture pitch you have put forward, I will be utilizing the guidelines provided within our course, Section 2.7 – Deconstructing a Pitch.
CEO & Team:
Throughout this venture pitch, it was clear that the CEO is not only aware of the need for such as service, but is a significant member of the current English Language community. These essential pieces, speaks to the CEO’s confidence in their venture and the passion they have to make it succeed. Furthermore, the venture is further strengthened by the addition of two other members, who also have significant experience within this field. The only concern regarding this team, is the inclusion of individuals who are experienced at taking real world information, and effectively and meaningfully translating it to the online world. A key element, that will not only attract users, but keep them.
Venture Concept:
Online professional development is beginning to be explored in various areas of the educational world, from university courses to webinars. However, at this time, I am unaware of ventures specifically focusing on English Language Learners, therefore, even though the venture may not be original, the concept is. Furthermore, the CEO did provide evidence to create a foundation of knowledge which supports this venture. Even though I have no experience in English Language, I am interested to see if this is a necessary or only perceived service.
Marketability:
The CEO did a good job of providing information regarding the potential market of students who require instructors better trained in this area. However, I am unclear on the actual number of teachers who provide instruction in this area. For without this key piece of information, a determination on market size, share and revenue cannot be made, all of which needs to be within a certain range to make eLT-PD a viable venture. Furthermore, even though the specific idea is relatively unique at this time within the online professional development market, in the long run, if this venture is found successful, any market share will be threatened by competitors do to lack of intellectual or proprietary right.
Venture Plan:
At this time, no specific market readiness timeline has been provided, creating concerns about their ability to enter the market before or after other competitors, especially considering this market is gathering momentum both offline and online. Secondly, seeing that other products are becoming a reality, is it possible for this venture to maintain its viability if it is simply focused on one product, where as larger companies could attract more users by providing multiple opportunities under the same online platform.
At this time, I feel there is a need for better professional development opportunities in English Language, and with more focus, and the inclusion of web training specialists, this venture might prove worthwhile in the near future.
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adi
Thank you very much for your very useful and through feedback. You are right about the number of teachers; unfortunately I only managed to get certain statistics per country and still need to do the math and get figures from other places. Your observations regarding the specific market readiness timeline is also very important.
In terms of competition, our product complements rather than complements with the private market. The private market has well structured courses/books designed to teach very specific elements related to teaching and often designed/written by people with little or no classroom experience. The workshops on the site are from conferences where speakers range from being well-known authors and teachers with years of experience, to everyday teachers who want to share what they do in the classroom. Publishing companies and teacher training schools can complement rather than compete with the site, but I need to get this across in the presentation.Thanks again. All your observations will help me improve the overall project very much. You have pointed out lots of things. Cheers ☺
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tomwhyte1
Thank you for providing more clarity in regards to the overall project, much appreciated. As well, I remember there being mentioned a Journal? Would this be online, offline… follow the peer-editing model. I found this interesting, but forgot to mention it before.
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visramn
Hello,
I do not think the level of tech used to create a pitch or plan impacts the message being sent.. You did a good job of getting your point across. Your slides very aesthetically pleasing and your facts did a good job of addressing the need for this product. I worked in Africa for a year and I saw the need for training and the lack of teacher education. This product would do great globally.
I did find that there were some missing components in your presentation overall. For example, I would suggest maybe appealing to your investor and directly stated what you would like (i.e. an investment).
Thanks for sharing. Your hard work is evident.
Nureen -
sophiabb
Hi Adriana,
I appreciate your honesty and challenges with the technology; for me it did not detract from your pitch. I thought your elevator pitch did a good job at addressing the two of the three key components: problem and solution. Your venture pitch clearly showed the viability of your venture re assessment of your market, your position, your team and business model. I agree with Nureen’s feedback that your pitch could be strengthened by clearly stating your ask. I had no problems with the audio.
Sophia
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Scott
In short Adriana, I found your pitch well articulated and concise. While it may not have featured all the production ‘sizzle’ you wanted, it delivers a substantial helping of EVA ‘steak’! Thank you for your hard work and for sharing such an original idea.
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jameschen
Hi Adi,
I enjoyed your elevator pitch. It is well organized and well pitched. I wish there was more information on the ask and return because that would’ve allowed me as an investor to get a better picture as to what I need to put in and what I can get in return.
Thanks for the well-presented pitch.
James
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melissaayers
Hi Adriana,
I enjoyed both your pitches and found them informative. You identified clearly a market need and the target customers as well as a solution. Also I like your idea for generating revenue via sponsorship and advertising. Before investing as an EVA I would be interested to know more about whether this is feasible as a marketing strategy, i.e. that you can generate enough revenue from these sources to keep up an running.
Thanks,
Melissa -
Pat A Son
Hi Adriana
No matter how I tried I could could not view your elev
With the popularity of the internet and English being its main language you have a feasible venture.-
Pat A Son
Sorry for the previous incomplete pose. It was an accident.
Hi Adriana
No matter how I tried I could could not view your elevator pitch so my opinion is based on your venture pitch. With the popularity of the internet and English being its main language you have a feasible venture that can succeed.
Cheers
Patason
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Pat A Son
The Pitches Patason’s_Elevator_Pitch.wmv http://youtu.be/y0h7UmugwjM Patason’sVenture_pitch.mp4 http://youtu.be/xbwpeNLPC5E Reflection My idea for the product designed for this course began some years ago with the release of the ipad. It started when my colleague and good friend that sits next to me- a Macappresiendo complained about the new device that Steve Jobs was making and his dissatisfaction with […]
Continue reading The Pitches Patason’s_Elevator_Pitch.wm… Posted in: General, Venture Forum-
avninder
Patason,
I choose to view your entire pitch because I was intrigued by the tablet notebook folding motion in your elevator pitch. I think you totally hit the mark in terms of using the media to portray your message in the pitches and the images you used were interesting and relevant. I also liked that you used reviews from various sources to increase your credibility.
You mentioned that there are who competitors have the ability to use the portal ability but only for certain types of phones. Is your competition also able to use the notepad/keyboard function? Even though it is patented, does something similar exist?
I am currently not an avid tablet user, although I use my smartphone all the time. To be able seamlessly move all of your information to a bigger screen with more flexibility is a huge advantage.
There was also a lot of information in your pitch regarding the growth of cell phone use. But since your venture is the tablet and its patented features, you may want to consider keeping the focus on how a tablet could be marketed to current smart phone users in the education field.
The only other suggestion I would have is giving more information about yourself and the development team. Your pitch was convincing and knowledgeable but if there were more details regarding your educational background and relevant work experience, you would gain credibility.
If I had a million dollars lying around, I would consider investing. Good job!-
Pat A Son
Thank you avninder.
Your Comments are valid and would certainly help my venture
Patason
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Ranvir
An excellent venture concept considering the mLearning market is booming. I also like the ability of smartphone plugging into a tablet device – very novel ideal indeed.
As an investor, I would like to know more about you, your experience in this market and proposed marketing plan to recoup the investment of $1million.
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Pat A Son
Thanks Ranvir,
I was going to do some financial projection but left them out when I discovered we did not have to do any ‘money’ since my video was getting big and unwieldy.Patason
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Mike Rae
Patason,
I love the idea of being able to turn a smart phone into a tablet. This device could be especially useful for schools wanting to employ a BYOD program, considering that a lot more students have smart phones on them than tablets, the school could purchase something like your product in bulk and have the kids use their smart phones in them.
part of my problem with doing work on my tablet is that I miss my keyboard, and this product would be a solution for me.
I would have liked to hear more about your marketing plan and where you would sell your product, and of course a little more about you and your background.
I felt a little hypnotized by the repetition of the animation of the product, but in a good way. It may have brain washed me into thinking that people would use it! good work,
MIKE
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Pat A Son
Thank you Mike,
Your point are all valid but rendering took longer than I planned and I had issues that I do not care to mention here that got in the way so I did not do as good a job as I had planned.
My target is education, business and emerging markets that will be serviced by our distributors as I imagined the company to be an O.E.M. Customers can still purchase directly via our website however. We will pay special attention to schools as we want our customers to be ‘hooked for life. So to this end we will have special deals with volume discounts for academic institutions.’
Within the next five years we expect that 40% of tablet owners and 30% of smart phone users will be using our product.ME:- An educator with 25 years experience, For the last ten I was director of the educational technology unit of the ministry of education.
Tooooo Late 🙁
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frank
Hi Pat,
You have a great Idea here!
I think you have good know-how related to the business elements of this venture: the pain point: marketing, the Ask, the Return etc.
If you want to people to invest real money into this idea of yours, I suggest you do 2-things:
1) I would go and study successful spin-off products from popular technologies and study how they worked with OEM’s to develop their Spin-offs. If you can get the even 1 of the Tablet providers on board, this will go a long way for you in getting their support: they will share their design specs with you and you can potentially get exclusive rights to being their supplier if you can earn their trust – if they compete with you like Microsoft did with Netscape, you’ll be dead in the water before you start.
I would not spread myself too thin here; you’re better off creating a solid product for 1-technology platform, then something mediocre that suits several different ones. Even if you work with India’s $20 project, I think this venture will eventually pay off.
The key thing is to build a relationship with the OEM you want to support.
2) If you want to be the next Steve Jobs with this product, you’re going to have to find a couple of Wozniak’s who can design and deliver a solid product for you. I would search high and low for those guys and get them rolling ASAP. If you have a solid product, everything else will follow. To do that, you’ll need some Angel money from family and friends, line of credit etc ($100k) to fund the prototype in the first year. If you have the right guys, I think it’s a risk worth taking.Great idea and Good Luck!
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Pat A Son
Thanks for your suggestions Frank.
You make me feel as if am ready for the big times.Patason
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kstackhouse
Great presentation and very thorough. I loved the animation with your presentation. There is a children’s toy that let’s you connect a smart phone (I think iPhone) to it to access more information. I thought of it when I saw your presentation. It is similar to your idea, where the resources of the phone are being drawn-upon to make the original device more powerful and provide more features. You can take a look here: http://itikes.com/. It would make sense that this is something that would be useful for adults too. Nice work.
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Pat A Son
Thank you Ken
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C. Ranson
Hi Pat,
I agree, great idea! I think your product would be very marketable and you have identified the student target group that would be a very interested in this product. Your elevator pitch and presentation are very impressive. I would invest in your product! BRAVO.
Catherine 🙂
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Pat A Son
Thank you Catherine
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jenniferschubertubc
You had me at adapter, Patason! I do think that mobile computing is certainly the wave of the future, especially having gone through my own hardware woes during my travels. I have had to learn about many different ways to communicate, collaborate and work, through necessity over interest. You product has me extremely excited about the future of this technolgy.
Your elevator pitch was very thorough, containing lots of valuable information, including research backup, flaws in currently available devices, and description of your new product. (I think the biggest thing for me was unlimited power supply! Well done there!!) Your venture pitch naturally brought in more specific information, including relevant facts and figures outlining the market share, which I found helpful in evaluating the importance of such a product.
My only question relates to the adapters. Will they indeed be able to accommodate every type of mobile phone, or those that are touch screen technology only. (Only touch screens are shown in the animation, but “all phones” is mentioned several times in the pitch.) Will even the old flip phone work here? I suspect that most mobile owners will have the latest, but undoubtedly there will still be students who cannot afford that level of technology. That is not a primary concern for your product however, but may be a question asked by an administration who is determining whether or not to integrate it into the educational system.
Overall, I was very impressed with the product! It reminds me of the Microsoft Surface they keep advertising here in the UK, but your adapter technology (and unlimited power supply) are what make it unique and pioneering. If I had the money, I would back you tomorrow!
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Pat A Son
Thank you Jennifer,
The technology is for smartphone because they share the same technology with tablets so it easy to make a portal to convert a smartphone to a tablet. To do this with a feature phone would be a more expensive and less profitable affair.
Cheers
Patason
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Scott
Indeed, at its core this is an original idea which shows potential.
As a CEO Patason, you seem very knowledgeable and passionate about your product, which is a critical strength. I am also quite impressed by your team as presented in your written reflection – thank you by the way, for sharing a well written summary of your venture.
Where I begin to have reservations about the idea is with its concept and marketability. The concept of a folding ‘dock’ is novel and addresses many of the pain points of mobile technology as you note, however at least two concerns immediately come to my mind:
Firstly, your case, takes away to a certain degree, from the ultra portability and desecrate size of tablets and smartphones. I love my phone because I can take it anywhere and use it with one hand. I love my tablet because I can cozy up with it in my lap to read and type. After Jon Ive struggles with the form factor for a device for years and sources durable materials to construct it with, I’m just not inclined to add an extra case to it.
Secondly, how does the hardware you add, particularly the stylus integrate with existing apps? Can I still use Evernote, GoodReader and the other apps I enjoy, as I always have?
In terms of marketability, you have some solid references to support your products need, however some of the charts in your venture pitch were a bit dated – one from 2010 which notes that RIM’s market share is near what Apple’s is, which of course is no longer the case.
Finally, I am left feeling somewhat uncertain of what I am getting for my 1 million dollar investment – how will the money be used (though numbers were not an explicit component of our projects).
I hope I am not being overly critical here, but in my mind, the concept and plan need some clarification and review before I could consider investing.
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Pat A Son
Hi Scott,
I love your thoroughness because this approach will bring the best out of any product you look at. As for the case it is valid concern but the main idea here is that you have to weigh the protection factor, creative affordances and unlimited battery life against form factor. Students will overlook the latter because the others will make the difference in their education. Considering that this is all you would need for school it is not an unreasonable assumption. The stylus is compatible with the current crop of drawing software.
Cheers
Patason
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Patrick Pichette
Hi Patason,
I appreciated the enthusiasm you showed in your venture and although you attack a pain point regarding the limitations of a smartphone by adding additional affordances, I just felt as though you were adding bulk to a perfectly working device for its function. If I want a tablet, I’ll buy a tablet while as if I want a smartphone, I’ll buy a smartphone. I don’t see much reason for buying a smartphone and then having to carry around the additional bulk that will likely not see much use. I’d rather carry around a VGA adapter, HDMI adapter or make use of an Apple TV along with a bluetooth keyboard when the need for projecting my screen’s content to a larger screen arises. The built-in Airplay functionality of an iPhone tackles much of what you propose and with a charger cable, there is unlimited battery power for using your device in this way. Still, your passion and motivation were evident and although it is an interesting proposition, I would likely look to invest elsewhere as I’m not convinced that it’s a feasible product.
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Pat A Son
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for your suggestions. It is clear that the creative product line is not for you. However you must remember that students are one of the main target groups of my products and they will have to weigh the tradeoff between added bulk and creative tools with unlimited battery life. From your scenario we have to remember that there will be times in the field when a plug is not available and the creative package is less bulky than an apple TV plus a keyboard. Finally not everyone lives by the all things apple mantra.
Cheers
Patason
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jameschen
Assignment 3 Venture Pitch: Knewton
Hi all, I chose an existing venture, Knewton, to build my role-playing elevator and venture pitches on. Please have a look and let me know what you think! ETEC 522 Assignment 3 Venture Pitch: Knewton Thanks! James Update: Sorry for not including my elevator pitch here on my initial posting. Here is my elevator […]
Continue reading Assignment 3 Venture Pitch: Knewton Posted in: Venture Forum-
jenbarker
Hi James,
Although I think you have a great marketing idea here, suggesting you bring Knewton to BC schools, I don’t see a new venture idea. In my opinion, you are using Knewton’s pre-existing venture but haven’t done a “makeover” to take it in a completely new direction. Perhaps I am missing something but when I went to the Knewton site I couldn’t see any difference between your product and theirs. Your website was well designed and easy to follow. I liked how you set up the sub-headings, addressing the many facets necessary in a pitch. Given that this was a fictional assignment, I might have added some fictional names and beefed up backgrounds to your management team. This would have given your venture more credibility.
Thanks for sharing, Jen-
jameschen
Hi Jen,
Thank you for your evaluation of my pitches. I felt that Knewton was already a well-established company going in the right direction (i.e. partnering with major publishers and doing trials with large universities), so my take on this assignment was to try to help potential investors see that there is a need in the public sector for Knewton’s Adaptive Learning technology and that such an investment will provide investors with a lucrative return.
Thank you for pointing out what I need to be aware of from the pitches I have made. I will keep your suggestions in mind when future pitching opportunities arise.
James
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avninder
I watched your elevator pitch and think that the “two minutes” comment was a good way to hook the viewer. For me to be excited about the venture, I think it would be helpful if there was more enthusiasm portrayed. I am guilty of not seeming very passionate in my own pitch, but I can see how it would make a big difference to a potential investor.
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jameschen
Hi Avinder,
Thanks for your feedback! I too feel that my lack of enthusiasm would deter potential investors from investing. Perhaps having a red-bull before doing an elevator pitch late at night wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all…
🙂
James
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joeltremblay
Hi there James,
I agree with Jen in that it’s not clear as to what the new direction is that you’re taking the software in? Also, with regards to return, it’s a little unclear as to how they will see a return on their investment beyond the philanthropic route. Otherwise very thorough and polished.-
jameschen
Hi Joel,
Actually, when I started this assignment I found it a bit of a challenge to think of something that would steer Knewton in a new direction because I felt that they were already doing very well. But then I thought that if Knewton can establish itself in the public sector early as THE platform for personalized online learning then there could be potential to make good profit because currently no other companies can offer what Knewton has to public school students. Public schools need to rely on teachers/IEPs to provide personalized learning content for students, and most teachers are overstressed with the workload they already have.
Regarding the return, I did not write how investors will get their money back in the venture pitch because I do not know the routes that are available for investors to take. I also have no idea about the numbers needed to calculate how long it would take for investors to get their money back. Perhaps another look at how to devise exit strategies would shed some light. From this perspective, “success” for implementing Knewton’s technology in public schools would mean having established Knewton infrastructures for personalized online learning across major cities in Canada. When this happens, Knewton can sell their Canadian public school infrastructure to companies such as BlackBoard or SMART Technology (ones that are already established in the public sector). Hope that makes sense 🙂
And thank you, Joel, for pointing out the points my pitch did not address satisfactorily. I will keep them in mind for future references.
James
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Jonathan
Hi James —
Good presentation. You got right to the point. It seems like a solid proposition although as an investor I’m curious as to how your company will differ from the competition. I think it might be beneficial to highlight one or two of the big differences that your take on Knewton would be different. Nice site to complement a good video pitch otherwise!
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jameschen
Hi Jonathan,
The differentiation of my pitch is that Knewton’s technology is the only one I know of on the market that can help teachers in their teaching by recommending content for remediation AND be incorporated into 3rd party learning platforms if one already exists. BlackBoard Analytics for Learn, for example, only analyzes user information. It does not let students know the fundamental concepts they are having trouble with and recommend the content that would address these challenges. I am, however, not sure if BB’s analytic technology can be incorporated into 3rd party platforms and so have assumed that it cannot, so in a real pitch this would need to be addressed by contacting BB directly.
In any case, thanks for letting me know of your concern, Jonathan. Much appreciated!
James
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Paula Poodwan
Hi James,
You pain point is outstanding in that it showed that you did your research; you pointed out the relevant percentages of the current learning and teaching situation in BC, so investors can see quite clear why Knewton is needed. However, I agree with the comments above that the return is not clear, (I think this is the most important part that investors want to know) and the credibility of your team is not that convincing.
Too bad that we can’t hear you well in the elevator pitch, However I think I can hear the passion you have for Knewton in your voice 🙂
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jameschen
Hi Paula,
Thanks for your comments! I think you made a very good point about the return being the most important part that investors would want to know before making an investment decision. As I’ve mentioned in my above response to Joel, there is some information I need to gather before I can come up with an acceptable plan regarding the return.
Regarding the credibility of my team, yes, what I have on my venture pitch is not enough to exude credibility of carrying out the plan. My notion is that since my pitch has been based on a role-playing approach, in a real venture pitch the people suitable for those positions will be identified before pitching my idea to investors.
Thanks for letting me know your thoughts!
James
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Mike Rae
Hey James,
My laptop has bad audio and with the elevator pitch it wasnt a great combo. thanks for the subtitles though. I agree with your pain point and it is one that needs to be addressed, perhaps knewton would be a good alternative to the status quo, but I don’t see the new idea. As a potential venture capitalist, I want something that jumps out from your product that maybe knewton doesn’t do or is lacking in.
thanks for the pitch!
MIKE-
jameschen
Thanks for your comments, Mike!
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C. Ranson
Hi James,
Your website is very attractive, and very easy to navigate. You have identified the problem and how Knewton could be a viable solution to better teaching and learning in BC schools. I agree you have identified the competition but why is Knewton a better product. You have taken this existing enterprise can you share how you are launching it differently as the new CEO? I am thinking you are improving the marketing and selling of the learning Platform!.
Catherine
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jameschen
Hi Catherine,
I tried to create a situation where the people with a limited budget can save money in the long run by investing in Knewton’s technology. My take is that by using what Knewton (the real company) already has and pitching for investment in the Canadian public school sector, the establishment of the company’s presence there will allow investors to make money from government funding.
If I were to launch the product from scratch, I would not do it differently from what Knewton has already done – by offering free trials of its technology to large universities and then using the user feedback to promote its product to large publishers, because publishers need schools to buy their product in order to make money.
Hope that answers your questions, and thank you for your input!
James
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frank
Hi James,
I like how you laid out your site; it’s beautiful 🙂
As others have mentioned, you’ve done a good job talking about the pain point, marketability and the solution.
And, I think for investors to get excited about giving you money, they will want to have a better handle on venture plan and the returns/exist strategy associated with it. Regarding the latter, I’d be careful about pitching your idea as a means to make money from government funding. Any government rep will immediately shut you down if they see that they could be implicated in a scandal in which public money was seen to be funneled into the hands of private investors. In this case, greed is not good.-
jameschen
Hi Frank,
I hadn’t thought about how pitching an idea to make money from government funding would have such negative effects. Thanks for letting me know this important point! I will be sure to frame my pitches so that potential investors know exactly how the money will be used by the company.
Thanks,
James
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jenniferschubertubc
Hi James,
First off, what a lovely site. It was extremely clean, uncomplicated, and easy to navigate, which for some strange reason is often hard to find nowadays! I applaud your design.
I found two subpages of your site particularly interesting: Pain Point and Competition. It was very clear that you did your research to come up with the numbers and narrative explaining the importance of a product such as Knewton. The Competition page was an EXCELLENT resource that I very well may bookmark for future reference. You can see the effort you put in to express the knowledge you have of the market here.
I understand that Knewton is not a new venture, nor are you taking it in any particularly “new” direction. It is hard to reinvent a well working wheel, isn’t it?! I do applaud your effort to explain the importance and value of the program as it currently exists however. I would have liked to have seen a more well-developed Championship page (even if it meant creating something just for the sake of the project). Championship is often very key to investors; a more well developed page would make the proposal much more effective.
Overall, I think you did a good idea showing us the benefit of Knewton; it would have been interesting to see it taken to a new level, though even I have no idea where to go from here! Good work.
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jameschen
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for your feedback! I think my pitches did not do a good job of explaining the differences between what Knewton already has and what I will do differently if I were the CEO of the company. Perhaps this explains why I am not the CEO of Knewton… 🙂 In any case, I agree with your point about further developing the Championship page because why would investors invest in a company run by people TBD? I will keep these in mind for future reference.
Thanks again,
James
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Lisa Nevoral
Lisa’s Avatar in Second Life
Hey All, Here is my avatar from Second Life. Her name is Larovenas. I found that I didn’t change much when compared to me. I guess I am not quite comfortable with doing something totally different online. I haven’t explored Second Life very much, but I did find it disconcerting walking around and seeing […]
Continue reading Lisa’s Avatar in Second Life Posted in: Week 12:-
Eva Ziemsen
Hi Lisa,
Great avatar. Mine is also close to what I really look like (well, mostly). I agree with you, it is very odd to interact with complete strangers in SL. I found it much better to meet with my actual classmates. In that situation, it was very gratifying. There are definitely privacy settings for creating educational spaces. I encourage you to keep exploring the educational opportunities of SL.
Best,
Eva
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rebeccaharrison
Mentoring Me
Hi all, Here is my first attempt at creating my own online hypothetical venture. It was quite the process, but it was well worth the journey. Basically my venture, Mentoring Me, is an online mentorship program that follows the structure of an online dating site. Please have a look and tell me what you think. […]
Continue reading Mentoring Me Posted in: Venture Forum-
jenbarker
Hi Rebecca,
I really like your Venture idea. I think you have clearly addressed the pain point and solution. The fact that you present mentees with a real life mentor and do this through a “dating” like format gives you differentiation, or a cutting edge. I felt your marketing ideas were solid. As someone who has been directly involved in setting up mentoring at the district level, I know it can be very costly. When our district releases many beginning teachers for a morning mentoring session, the amount that they pay out to TOC’s to cover is high. I think your idea could save districts a lot of money. On a side note, how might you choose your mentors? Would there be an application process? How would you guarantee quality mentors? Would they be paid or volunteers? Overall, I think both your pitches met the necessary facets required. Great work, Jen-
rebeccaharrison
Good questions. I’m not so sure about choice of mentors, but was thinking that those who are active participants (based on data), may be provided with a day in lieu, or some other form of recognition.
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joeltremblay
Hi Rebecca,
Being a teacher in B.C. and being able to relate directly to your project idea I was quite taken with it. The concept and elevator are logical and comprehensive. I wonder how marketable it would be to either the government or different districts? -
Jonathan
Big thumbs up for the idea Rebecca,
Felt like you were speaking to real needs of a new teacher. I’ve always liked the idea of a mentorship program and have felt the need for a service like this. I know that my district offers it on a one year basis to new teachers but it takes many years of mentorship, practice and training for a teacher to be able. To add to Jen’s points about finding qualified and quality mentors how would this company retain a subscription service of a user?
I’m imagining that a match has been made for the user ($50 charged in the first year). Once that connection has been made there is no more use for the site? Does the site get discarded?
Love the idea though.. a lot!
Great work,
Jonathan -
Doug Connery
Great concept Rebecca. This venture provides opportunities for teachers from K-post secondary to have mentors inside or outside their school or institute. I also see the market beyond education for anyone in any sector needing a mentor.
Doug.
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tomwhyte1
To facilitate and objectively review the venture pitch you have put forward, I will be utilizing the guidelines provided within our course, Section 2.7 – Deconstructing a Pitch.
CEO & Team:
The CEO of Mentoring Me, recognizes their limited experience as a classroom teacher, which in most cases might be a determinant to any venture, actually is a strength. For their experiences as a new teacher, requiring effective mentoring in many aspects of teaching shows the potential for such a service in the field of education. Furthermore, the team is strengthened by the partnership, with an individual who has a Computer Science background, a necessary element to design, and deploy the required infrastructure to make this venture successful. One key member of the team, which was mentioned by the CEO as currently absent, is the involvement of a marketing specialist, which would be able to effectively position this venture for success.
Venture Concept:
Education long ago, discovered the importance of mentoring, not only for new teachers but for the more experienced ones as well, for the sharing of ideas and energy strengthens everyone throughout the process. What Mentoring Me does different, is takes this relationship online, through a dating service like platform, to provide meaningful mentorship opportunities, regardless of time or space. On the surface, this approach does appear to be feasible, and demonstrates an answer to a potential issue. However, further research would need to be conducted, to demonstrate that this platform would enhance current mentorship programs.
Marketability:
Even though the market size for this service is not provided, and right now, are only focusing on new/younger teachers, it is clear that this service can be used by all teachers to enhance their skills and understanding of various topics, thereby creating an effective professional development resource, based upon small groups, and common interests. Furthermore, this venture recognizes that teachers in remote locations, or within small buildings have limited opportunities to receive mentoring, and that this service would alleviate this concerns. At this time, Mentoring Me is an innovative approach on mentoring, as it has taken a dating style format and applied it to matching people for mentor relationships. As well, they hope to enhance this service through communication tools, reduced costs, and training videos. Unfortunately, this service could be easily duplicated, especially by existing dating sites, wishing to expand their into new untapped markets. Therefore, it may be essential to create partnerships with an already existing venture, to ensure continued success.
Venture Plan:
Mentoring Me, has developed a specific plan of rolling out their services, which include periods of reassessment to ensure their approach is meeting the goals they have set forward, clearly demonstrating a strong vision for their product.
At this time though, I am concerned that districts or even individual teachers would “buy” into this service, as many educational institutions have developed their own mentorship programs, which focus on what the district feels is essential. However, by potentially partnering up with an existing dating service (to gain access to their back end software, to create effective matches), and refocus this service to all teachers for potential PLC’s, I feel there is an opportunity here.
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rebeccaharrison
Great points Tom and some stuff to consider. A partnership might be a great way to ensure viability and sustainability.
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tomwhyte1
Furthermore, I have been discussing around my school the possibilities of this venture, it has received positive comments from each.
I think yours was an innovative approach at a relevant issue, using already established technology in a new way.
Thanks for sharing your great idea.
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visramn
Hi,
I think you did a great job of conveying the need of this product. You covered all components of what is needed in a successful market plan and addressed any concerns a potential investor may have. You were confident and clear when you spoke and your enthusiasm made your message stronger.
I think this is a great idea and after watching your pitches I would definitely invest in this product.
I really liked how you started off by pointing out that you are new teacher who struggled because this shows that you based this product on a need that you yourself have felt. I felt this made your argument more compelling.
Great job. Thank you so much for sharing.Nureen
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jameschen
Hi Rebecca,
Your elevator pitch has a good flow, and I think your pain point would need more emphasis on the hook to really grab my attention as an investor. A provision of tangible figures for the ask and return here would also increase credibility. I really like the idea of an online mentoring program compared to what the districts currently have for beginning teachers.
Here is my analysis on your venture pitch using the guidelines found in section 2.7 of our course blog – Deconstructing a pitch:
Mentoring Me: The Content
Pain Point: I am unsure if the problem portrayed in the pitch is a problem big enough to yield profitable returns, because my assumption is that these uncertainties would eventually be clarified as the new teacher gets to know more of the fellow staff members and becomes integrated into the existing community at the school where she teaches. Nevertheless, from the perspective of a TOC high anxiety levels are hard to avoid and would therefore create a need for such online mentoring programs.
Solution: The solution you presented will improve with more concrete examples. How will the teachers be paired with more experienced teachers? Exactly what will the mentoring program help new teachers overcome? Addressing these questions would paint a better picture of your product for the investors.
You do provide information about how the solution will be implemented later on in the pitch at the part about teacher training under Marketing as well as the beginning part of Differentiation. Moving those parts here would be more fitting.
Differentiation: In the video, your differentiation explains what is proprietary about your product. Your pitch would improve if it explains how the product differs from the competition. What does your product offer that current mentorship programs do not? To answer this, you would need to explain what is currently available, what your product offers that is unavailable under the current programs, and why customers would choose to pay for your service over the free ones offered by school districts.
Marketing: At the beginning of your venture pitch, you paint a very clear picture about how your product will be marketed. The provision of price tags for the service also adds to this. Later on in the video under Differentiation when you elaborate about marketing, a technical side note here is that the fading in feature of the volume at 4:28 made the topic “Marketing” hard to hear. This caused me to be unsure of what your following explanation is about, because you have combined the marketing aspect of your pitch into differentiation. As an EVA, I would suggest separating these parts so that investors can be clear about how your product is different from its online competitors and the marketing strategy you’ll be using.
Championship: Credentials of the venture’s leader is established, but a provision of positions that are necessary to bring the product into the market is not found.Competition: This section is combined with Marketing under Differentiation in the pitch.
The Ask: Your ask of $100,000 is realistic, and you also provide information on how your investors can help improve the venture as well as the risks that are involved.
The Return: The return is 2-3 years. Additional information on your exit strategy would add to the credibility of your pitch.
In all, I think your venture pitch was well presented. You put in a lot of thought on how you would market the product which helps make the venture pitch into a viable investment.
Thanks,
James -
pcollins
Great idea piggy backing on the success of the online dating websites! I’m chuckling at how savvy that was. That’s a fantastic proposal! Your presentation was very natural – it didn’t appear overly rehearsed at all. And your personal belief in this idea came through in your vocalizations. I appreciate that your venture contains a balance of gains for everybody involved learning and mentoring… the older teachers with new ideas/ a refresher in research and the youngsters with well established/seasoned professionals. I was instantly attracted to choose your venture for a more detailed analysis because I can relate so well to the pain point. But I am involved in education and in our district’s mentoring programs. I couldn’t help but wonder if other’s outside of our professional body really see the problems? Your venture was well researched but specific numbers would have gone a long way to support some of your details. I loved how you used a pre-existing concept, with massive technical parallels to your venture. And bringing in the usage of pro-d funds to pay for the 60 dollar yearly fee is reasonable. I’m not sure what you think, but maybe there should be a cost differential to attract more mentors. It was also great that you identified the professionals that you would target – those in isolation. And it struck me, that even in large schools a lot of new educators still work in isolation because of the workload they have to shoulder. The market analysis was well done and I would undoubtedly support this venture.
Job well done Rebecca.
PC -
Scott
Rebecca, in my opinion, this is a solid venture idea and pair of pitches – you had me at ‘dating website’!
Beyond the wealth of suggestions already written here, I might simply add that you should consider expanding on the dating concept of the venture just a bit more in your elevator pitch. With 60sec. of available time, why not spend another 15sec adding in a sentence or two from your venture pitch, to really sell this very original and key feature of your service.
Bravo,
Scott.
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melissaayers
Hi Rebecca,
Great elevator pitch. You identify a real pain point and a real solution as well as manage to identify how it differentiates itself from other current offerings. Overall it makes me what to find out more and go listen to your venture pitch.
The venture pitch is also very well though out and researched. You seem an enthusiastic founder and team member who clearly believes in the service/product. A great start for any venture. You use a successful business model already proven in one context in a new and different context as the base of the venture concept. This is interesting and I believe adds to the likelihood of its success and uptake – users can quickly and easily understand what you are trying to do (as can potential investors).
Seeing the responses from others already to your venture proposals this is potentially a highly marketable product at a fair and affordable price. There is a clear market plan and road map and the investment required and expected returns are also clearly stated and seem reasonable.
Overall great work and this is definitely something I would consider investigating further to invest in as an EVA.
Thanks,
Melissa -
Pat A Son
Hi Rebecca,
Great venture. You were very thorough and convincing.
Cheers
Patason -
sophiabb
Hi Rebecca,
Love the idea of piggy backing on the dating site concept. Your pitches clearly outlined the pain points, solution and the ask and return. I believe that this is a worthwhile and viable concept. Well done.
Sophia
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sophiabb
AEP-Online
The social services is rich and rewarding environment to work in but one that is often slow to adopt technology. The adoption community of families, social workers, and other professionals is no different. Yet, this is a sector that provides a lot of education for its constituents. Adoption education is mandated by law for families […]
Continue reading AEP-Online Posted in: Venture Forum-
avninder
I am unable to view your pitches as there are “private” in YouTube. thx
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sophiabb
Avninder, my apologies. They are now public.
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avninder
Hi sophiabb,
I viewed your elevator pitch and I think your concept is great. I never knew that there was a educational component to adoption. Potential parents not completing the requirements in a timely manner can have many negative consequences as you pointed out. Good luck if this is something that you will pursue.-
sophiabb
Thanks Avninder.
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Paula Poodwan
Hi Sophia
I believe your venture is very unique, interesting, and viable. It will help save time and cost for your organization, you will not have to spend money for organizing the workshops. Your buyers will also save time from attending the face to face workshops, just attend it online. Very good idea!
I clicked your venture pitch to find out more details because I am interested in your venture. Basically I got the info I wanted like the marketing, the team, the competitors etc. But I’m wondering how come your venture pitch is only 59 secs long. Did you provide the wrong one? Is it supposed to be 7-8 mins long?
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sophiabb
Hi Paula, I did provide the wrong one – without audio. I have provided the link to the correct one but have left the other link up, because that was posted by the due date. Thanks for the interest in my venture and your feedback.
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Mike Rae
Hi Sophia, I thought your elevator pitch was great and it sounds like there is a real pain point there. Too bad I couldn’t see your full venture pitch though (no audio and only 59 seconds)
MIKE
looking forward to seeing it though-
sophiabb
Hi Mike the correct link is now up. Thanks for your feedback.
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C. Ranson
Hi Sophia,
Your venture pitch is very interesting. I didn’t realize there was such a problem in the adoption process and that there was a mandatory educational component. I was under the impression that adoptive parents were waiting patiently for adoptions to come up but your information is telling us otherwise. Your solution to this problem sounds very viable, your team is credible and your marketing strategy is strong. Being the first online program will give you a competitive edge and create better access for the consumer. Will your revenue be generated through families paying for the course or through companies that will use your services, or both?Well done.
Catherine-
sophiabb
Hi Catherine,
Thanks for your feedback. At this time we are thinking of both. Families paying – cost will match the face-to-face at launch as well as partners paying for our service.
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jenniferschubertubc
Hi Sophia!
What a unique find in the venture presentations! I think when most people think education, typical classroom lessons come to mind, whether they be K-12 or adult education. To see a project in action which placed it in broader terms of requirements for something so unique and special as adoption was quite refreshing!
The elevator pitch really brought the pain point across about affording more access to the educational piece required for these families to adopt. It is painful to see children waiting for families, especially when something as trivial as access to the education stands in a potential family’s way. I do believe that your product would serve to remedy that issue and bring many more children home to families who desperately want them.
The team all seem to be quite qualified with experience in both the educational and social services fields. I was very impressed and touched that a member of the team is an adoptive parent. There is nothing like first hand knowledge of these situations. I also felt, as a potential investor, somewhat secure knowing that the government guarantees a rate of return if social outcomes are met.
I would also like to know how the revenue would work going forward. Would your service be something included in the general adoption fees? (Would your course be compensated as the face to face courses are now?)
Well done!
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sophiabb
Hi Jennifer,
At this time are not thinking of including the price in the general adoption fee – which can range from a few hundred dollars for local adoptions and as much as $60,000 for international. We are seeing this as at the price for the face-to-face is at about $750 per person.
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Patrick Pichette
Hi Sophia,
I appreciated the research and presentation of the pain point. I can see how this venture would be beneficial for adopting parents but in terms of an investment, I don’t see how I could get my money back through the limited market that would benefit from its implementation. I get the feeling that this would need to be pitched more towards a government grant than a typical investment venture. Still, I was very captivated by the efforts you are making to attack a very essential pain point felt by people in this situation. Thank you for sharing!!
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sophiabb
Thanks for your feedback Patrick.
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frank
Hi Sophia,
This is a great niche market opportunity.
You build your pain point out of a legislative demand and a market need that is currently frustrated and not adequately met via traditional methods.
I can see how the accessibility and scalability of your business will give it a competitive advantage over the current alternatives.
I think your venture concept is original and feasible and has credibility to help it gain leverage and support over time.
You have potential partners and sponsors ready to go, great!
I don’t think marketing will be an issue, as long as the users are happy with your product.
In that regard, I recommend you conduct talks with stakeholders and hold focus groups with past participants to really understand their needs pain points.
In terms of the business model and venture plan, I recommend you do not do the NPO thing, and instead vie for a standard business model or a social venture. As far as the impact of the business itself is concerned, I think any model you use will have both an economic and a social impact. This idea saves clients money, while making adoption easier and it can still make money as a business and with its exit strategy, should you ever choose to use that. An NPO will wash out the latter two benefits for you.
I’m ready to Invest.
In fact, I’m ready to work with you if you need an intrepid business analyst/developer.
GL!-
sophiabb
Thanks Frank. I will give some thought to your suggestions.
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kstackhouse
Ken Write is a fictitious bluetooth device that allows multiple users to collaborate in real time with a SMART Board from their desk. It offers Multi-touch and multi-user collaboration which promotes inclusion and engagement. Here you will find my Venture Pitch: Reflection: I must admit that this is one of the assignments that I have […]
Continue reading Ken Write Posted in: Venture Forum-
jkotler
Hi Ken,
I really like your Ken Write venture and thought that you did a great job in putting together a professional elevator pitch. As well, I think the concept behind such a product could have a lot of potential and wonder if this is something you are actually going to (or already are) pursuing?
Julie
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kstackhouse
Thank you Julie. I think it is a great concept. I am not sure about the technical aspects of it though. I know that there are bluetooth dongles that can support 7 devices, I am not sure if the technology for more users and multi-touch is actually available at this time or not. I could see issues with lag if there were too many people at one time trying to use the problem. I guess that is where someone that is capable of building the product would have to answer.
Ken
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Ken,
Great job on your elevator and venture pitch! In your elevator pitch, I got a sense of who you were and what you were pitching. As well, you had an “Ask”. I think that there is a need for this product because of the reasons you have stated. Too many times I have seen only one or two students come to a SMART board to work on a problem or answer a question while the rest of the class sit there watching, not engaged. Good idea to use Bluetooth to connect SMART boards to individual devices. I am assuming that “Ken Write” can be used on other interactive whiteboards as well. Or is this just a SMART board product?
Here is some constructive feedback on your venture pitch:
• I liked that you had a “Ken Write” logo and website (that’s something that I did not do myself).
• The Prezi was easy to follow and included videos.
o Instead of the links to the Inclusion report by McKay or the SMART board information, I think you should have maybe done a summary of these facts.
• You included the pain point – 2 million SMART boards in use with limited abilities for multiple users and network issues (WiFi or restricted WiFi).
• You included the solution – “Ken Write” a Bluetooth device which allows for multi-use, multi-touch, and collaboration.
• You did include the competition, but I think you could have stated why your product was better than these other products. You may have wanted to do a little blurb at the end of your “What are Some Other Options” section to state this.
• Marketing – You did state the market size for SMART boards (2 million boards with 6 million users in 175 countries), but I would have also liked to know how the buyers were going to be reached. PR, ads, commercials, social media, etc…
o As well, who will your major market push be towards?
o Will you target schools or school districts that have established BYOD programs? I know that in my school district we have SMART boards, but I don’t think any of the schools are utilizing mobile devices; therefore, I’m not sure my district would invest in “Ken Write”.
• Will students be able to project any of the work they do on their mobile devices onto the SMART board screen using “Ken Write” or is it just to get whatever is on the SMART board onto their devices?
• I’m not sure if I got a strong sense of the strengths and weaknesses of “Ken Write”. What are some of the issues that may arise?You did a great job on your elevator and venture pitch. Depending on who you were targeting, I could see a need for this product.
Lisa
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kstackhouse
Thank you for your feedback. You are right, providing a summary of the reports might have been beneficial for an EVA. I was worried that an EVA might not be in Education but rather an investor and they might not want to hear about the reports but know that they the push was there. As I admit in my reflection, I am not a business person, so when you mention some points and even after I started looking at other venture pitches I do see areas where I could have made my case stronger. Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate the constructive criticism.
Ken
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Ken,
After watching other people’s pitches, I also saw where I could have done better. I didn’t do a very good job at the ask and return. Also, like you, many people added a logo or showed their product which I didn’t do. I also found this assignment quite challenging, but after reviewing everyone’s work this week, feel I actually have learned from this experience. Good luck next semester.
Lisa
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lullings
Love it – great idea, I would definitely engage with you to discuss funding.
One of the best prezis I have seen. I have more questions but all are a positive and exciting reflection of your idea and a want to explore more.A major question I would ask would be how do you limit the confusion on the smart board if everyone was engaging with it, all at the same time. Also the health implications of having so many bluetooth connections in one room. But these are further exploring questions – you have already gotten my attention for investment.
Nicely done –
Stuart-
kstackhouse
Thank you Stuart. I am not sure what the health implications would be. I think that the Bluetooth signals being sent are all around us most of the time anyway. In a regular school, mall, or home there is Wi-Fi and bluetooth being used all the time. Maybe it would be an issue in a such a confined space. Great question, because I hadn’t even considered that. Your point about confusion at the board is also valid. One way to do this would be to have a user tag hover above the cursor, such as is done in a Google Doc. At least this way it could be seen by all who has making changes or accessing the screen.
I think having a team working on this would help raise questions such as these before trying to take the idea to investors. I appreciate the feedback.
Ken
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Peggy Lawson
Thanks for the interesting pitches Ken. I was quite intrigued and your passion for your product came through – good points for CO credibility. Very nice production values, especially with your venture pitch. It’s clear you’ve worked through the key details of your venture. I liked that your elevator pitch focused on a few key aspects, notably identifying the pain point and the solution. I have some questions about the viability of parts of the solution – how would it work to have a classroom full of children simultaneously collaborating via their personal device on one smart board and the technical realities of that. However I’m willing, during only 12 weeks of development time, to give some leeway to some specifics and actual viability.
I liked your information on marketing and your advantage and distinctions from the competition. You provided the ask but not the return, but David had mentioned some forebearance with money aspects.
So despite some minor reservations about the product, I liked your pitches. I’ve some other pitches to ponder, but I did enjoy your venture.
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manny
Hi Ken,
Your pitches were very clear and concise. The Ken write is a product that seem viable in the educational market. My only concern as an investor was the reliance on bluetooth versus Wifi. It seems as though your venture emphasized the advantages of having global collaboration via smart boards but didn’t quite explain what this feature that already exists ties in with your product. I like the fact that all the students are engaged with your device as a student is working on the whiteboard. If students are connected to the whiteboard via bluetooth, can you have multiple users on at the same time? There are a few things that need to be ironed out but overall, I enjoyed the pitch and would consider investing. -
jhodi
I think that this is a great idea and a great product! Both of your pitches are highly engaging and informative. You were able to gain my attention initially through the elevator pitch, which made me want to read the venture pitch.
Your venture pitch does a good job of stating the pain point of inclusive education and how your device will help provide a solution. With current trends in education pushing inclusive education, I think that your device is very marketable. I think that I would have liked to know more about how your device compares with others in the market and what makes yours superior to the others. I also do wonder which part of your CEO team would take care of the marketing aspect of the company. It seems as though you have plenty of experience to cover the educational aspect and the applicability, but the marketing and selling may be a little more difficult. I also appreciated that you provided an ‘ask’ and informed me what you would do with that investment and what your future plans are for the company.
Overall, I really liked the concept and the pitches. I would invest in this device because I think that there is a definite market and demand for such a technology.Jhodi
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Lisa Nevoral
Wizard Portfolio
Hi All, I am pleased to present my elevator pitch and venture pitch on my fictitious product of Wizard Portfolio. It is a e-portfolio platform that is part of Microsoft Office 265 SharePoint. This is a for-profit venture and I hope you enjoy both the elevator and venture pitch. Thanks for any feedback. I have […]
Continue reading Wizard Portfolio Posted in: Venture Forum-
Kent Jamieson
Hi Lisa,
Great work with your Wizard Portfolio venture. Your pitches were visually easy to follow and your script had all the necessary elements. Personally, I like the comfort of knowing that people still use Powerpoint.
In response to a few statements made about e-portfolios and the proper storage of artefacts: I know of many schools with working portfolio programs, that still rely on paper copy portfolios for student work. Especially in the lower grades when many of the skills students need and the work they do is not necessarily done on a computer.
I realize that taking photographs of student work and storing them in an e-portfolio is the way to start that process (Grades 1-3) but to state that there are no organized portfolio systems available could be misleading. Starting your ‘pain point’ requirement with this point may also need revision.For me, the real pain point with portfolios is the fact that, as an educator, I really don’t know if universities and employers are even looking at these portfolios. In fact, I know many are not. I’m all for storing and organizing a portfolio of work, but i’m just wondering how beneficial a Grade 7 English essay or a piece of artwork from Grade 11 will be in an interview, etc. Perhaps i’m off base with that though.
During the presentation I felt I wanted to see the eportfolio in action. Perhaps a few screen shots or videos of kids actually using the service (or a similar service would add to the presentation as a whole.
As well, while talking about marketing to schools and districts who weren’t using e-portfolio services i was wondering how you would go about doing that? Would it be ‘cold-calling’ individual schools to see if they do in fact need or want an eportfolio service brought in? That had me thinking a bit.
Your ‘weaknesses’ slide was also a little redundant, as you mention that this service would require computers. I would imagine, however, that this is an obvious requirement that could even be left out of the presentation. If a school or company had no access to computers, i’m sure the last thing they would be looking for is an eportfolio service.
Your point about working offline and some other strengths of the service were great. As well, Mr. Great Guy and Ms. Awesome sounded quite generous…can i get their number?
The last little critique i can offer is through your ‘financing’ page, and the point you make about ‘seeking more funding’. It just sounds a little too vague. Is there a number in mind that Wizard would need in order to provide service?
Lisa, you’ve obviously done a great job, and the constructive critiques I have hopefully have been just that, constructive. Your clean, polished presentation offers a great service that definitely fills a need…especially as more and more students begin to go ‘paperless’ in their work at school.
Thanks for your efforts! I enjoyed learning more about Wizard Portfolio.
Kent
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Kent,
Thank you for your feedback. If you like PowerPoint, check out Slide Rocket – http://www.sliderocket.com/ (free) or Presenter Media – http://www.presentermedia.com/ (has a fee).
In my school district, we are going towards no final exams for middle school students and instead towards “Presentations of Learning”. I wasn’t quite sure how to spin that very well, but I thought that storing the student’s work and having a way to showcase what they did would be the answer. As well, my district is big into the “Attributes of a Learner” (essentially 21st Century skills) and want students to be able to show these skills. What I was trying to get at was that employers and future schools want students with these skills, but I may be promoted too much that they wanted these as portfolios.
Good point about wanting to possibly see the product or what it does. After reviewing other pitches, I realized how I could have made my pitch better. But I guess that’s how you grow. As well, for the “ask” and “return” I felt that I didn’t have enough background knowledge to put anything there, but I understand what you are getting at.
Thanks again for the comments,
Lisa
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Doug Connery
Hi Lisa, great elevator pitch and venture pitch. However I did find the elevator pitch a bit too much focused on the consumer rather than the investor. The venture pitch had a better balance and did focus on the investor.
I am of two minds on the purpose of e-portfolios. I agree with Kent above as to why the majority would want to keep their “early work”. There maybe a bigger market in post-secondary programs for students to build up a portfolio for career hunting. We currently have a few programs with an e-portfolio requirement and when we were hunting around for a system we settled on using Word Press as nothing else seemed suitable. So you could be selling yourself short on the post secondary market as some may have a system, but it probably is not that good. If an organization has D2L for example, don’t assume that they have bought the e-portfolio module or if they have that they happy with it.
Doug.
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Doug,
Thank you for your comments. Yes, I have to agree that my elevator pitch was geared more towards the consumer than investors. I should have tried to have an “ask” in there somewhere.
Good idea about maybe targeting the post-secondary schools market. In this program, I have only seen portfolios made on WordPress, so there may be a need.
Lisa
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Colin
Hi Lisa, good job on your presentation but I have to agree that I don’t think there is a real market for Wizard portfolios. I needed to do an e-portfolio when I was completing my education degree at UBC but when I went to an information session for a school district their comment to us was they don’t want to see them. They have very limited time to go through applications and come to a decision. I have to agree that no employer really has a time to look at portfolios. Also the use of Sharepoint is problematic as I know my district is using it but they made so many adaptations to the program that a lot of the options you mentioned might not work. The other problem is that a lot of work isn’t done on computers as many students don’t have access to a computer so only limited documents would even be included. Good pitch and use of graphics but I wouldn’t invest in Wizard Portfolio.
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Colin,
Thank you for your comments. Our district is also using SharePoint (that’s why I decided to use them as my main company) and I saw the potential to possibly have something like Wizard Portfolio being used. But I have to agree, there are many glitches in SharePoint and I hope that they can smooth out some of these problems soon. My vision of storing student work that wasn’t done on computers was to finish a unit or chapter and then have students pick out what they wanted to store and take pictures to store. This may seem a little unrealistic, but it could be a solution.
Lisa
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teacherben
I loved the music. I think the elevator pitch looked clean and professional but I would caution against using clipart and images that people have seen a lot of. I’ve seen those first few images a million times. I agree with Doug that this is too focused on the consumer though. As an investor, I didn’t feel that it spoke to my interests. I also didn’t see anything about how your product is different from the other products on the market. Student websites are nothing new and are available for free from some other pretty heavy-hitters in Google and Weebly and more. What makes your product stand out. (Is your company Microsoft? If so, I agree that they have missed some significant opportunities with the education market and this is a glaring hole in their own portfolio.) If on the other hand, your product is separate, but leveraging Sharepoint, then I would have other concerns. Too many schools are shifting away from this sort of self-hosting model and moving to cloud-based solutions. If your idea is that this eportfolio follows the students everywhere and lasts throughout their academic career, then I would again be concerned about a self-hosted solution. What if the next school doesn’t use Sharepoint? What if it’s a Mac school?
Good luck.
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Ben,
Thank you for your comments. The song is called “On & On” by Friska Viljor.
Our district is using SharePoint (that’s why I decided to use them as my main company) and I saw the potential for something like Wizard Portfolio to be used. But I have to agree, there are many glitches in SharePoint and I hope that these problems can be smoothed out soon. SharePoint does have the ability for students or teachers to store information using cloud computing; therefor it wouldn’t necessarily be self-hosting for a school district. Students could move school to school within a district and still be able to access their information. If they moved to another district, they would need a Microsoft Office 365 account, but they should still be able to access their information once they had one. One weakness I did miss (as you pointed out) was if a school or district used Mac products.
Lisa
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rebeccaharrison
Lisa,
Although I like the idea and could see how well it could be introduced, I know there are other similar programs out there to create portfolios. I think, for your pitch, it might have helped me if you had stated how exactly this product is different. Why is it better, and how could you ensure that it remains better? It is absolutely an attention grabber, as far as the video, but it is perhaps a better commercial than pitch? As an investor I think that other points of your program might need to be shared. I would be interested to learn more as a teacher, but as an investor, I would say no.
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Rebecca,
Thank you for your comments. I did try to state how Wizard Portfolio was better than other products on my comparison of companies slide that included the ability of students to work offline, e-portfolio templates, 21st Century skills reflection questions being included with the product led by a school district, archiving student work from grades 1-12, and using familiar tools that are used by a majority of companies in the business world. But I didn’t add how they could have remained better.
My elevator pitch was probably geared too much towards consumers than investors. Reflecting back, I should have probably added an “ask” or what I wanted out of the investors.
Lisa
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jameschen
Hi Lisa,
I enjoyed watching your elevator pitch. From the perspective of an EVA, I think your pitch would improve with information on how your product differentiates itself from its competitors (i.e., blogs, BlackBoard) because potential customers would wonder why they need to pay for something they can get for free. What is proprietary about your product?
I was unable to find information on your credentials in both the elevator and venture pitches. Your venture pitch is thorough and the plan on how to bring your product into the education market seems viable.
Hope that helps, and thanks for a well-presented pitch.
James
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi James,
As I look at other people’s pitches and read the comments made on my own, I see ways I could have made my presentations better. One area I think I could have put more effort into was showing the product and how it worked. How I envisioned Wizard Portfolio differentiating from other companies in its ability to store work from grades 1-12 in pre-made grade folders, where students could store their artifacts. As well, our school district is big into the “Attributes of a Learner”, so I thought I would add that school districts could create reflection questions students could answer for each grade.
I am unsure what you are asking about when you state that you couldn’t find any credentials in my pitches. Do you mean references? Thanks,
Lisa
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jameschen
Hi LIsa,
Maybe I missed it, but I am referring to the information about the Championship of your company.
James
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi James,
I had a slide near the end of my venture pitch stating that Bill Gates and another person were involved with the project, as well as myself as the lead designer and another who was the lead IT personnel. Thanks for asking!
Lisa
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pcollins
Hi Lisa,
That was a very professionally made elevator pitch! I felt intrigued by watching it and was drawn to do a further analysis on the wizard venture. I couldn’t concur more that the wizard combined a repository for students work with an innate ability for students to demonstrate their flexibility and comfort with 21st century technology. It was great how you identified some competitors that employers might be more familiar with, but then you showed how wizard was potentially a stronger venture. The cost point wasn’t clear to me, but your projections were easy to understand and bespoke your well thought out target audience and marketing strategies. I did feel that the overly thorough identification with the problems that wizard might encounter actually worked against me wanting to consider investment. I couldn’t imagine how these would be overcome – and it diminished my interest in the product. At this point, I was really struggling to see how the free offerings (mentioned in your slide… with googledrive etc..) wouldn’t be just the same, as well as being more familiar to industry standards. And I’m sorry; even though I looked twice I couldn’t see it clearly mentioned what exactly you were asking for in the way of financing. Nor what the expected return would be. As much as I was impressed with the quality of your research and the suaveness of your presentation I couldn’t see some of what I was looking for with the wizard venture presentation. I would however (I know it’s fictional) be willing to give it a trial in my personal classroom to see what the affordances could be.-
Lisa Nevoral
Hi PC,
Thank you for your comments. In my school district, we are going towards no final exams for middle school students and instead towards “Presentations of Learning”. I wasn’t quite sure how to spin that very well, but I thought that storing the student’s work and having a way to showcase what they did would be the answer. As well, my district is big into the “Attributes of a Learner” (essentially 21st Century skills) and want students to be able to show these skills. I admit that I may not have added enough to my presentation and that my “ask” and “return” were a little weak. I just felt that I didn’t have enough background information to answer these questions.
Lisa
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cunnian
Hi Lisa,
I’ve found it fascinating to review your elevator and venture pitches as, essentially, you and have proposed the same solution using different software! Needless to say, I think that it’s a great idea and one that is long overdue.
Your venture pitch was very comprehensive. I felt like you had a good understanding of who your market is and how your product will be sold to them .You were honest and forthcoming with the product’s weaknesses, though I wonder to what degree using a Microsoft product will limit what sort of artifacts a student can collect. You comparison of Wizard Portfolio to competitors was very informative and a good selling point. Your plan is detailed and clearly presented. That said, if Bill Gates is part of your team, then you already have the financial backing that you need. You don’t need my help!On the whole, you’ve done a great job!
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Lisa Nevoral
Hi Mr. Cunnian,
Thank you for your feedback. I only choose to use Microsoft because our school district is using them instead of FirstClass now. I saw that several people were also doing pitches for portfolios. I haven’t had a chance to check out your pitches, but I will definitely look at it now.
Lisa
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adi
Hi Lisa,
Sorry for the late post. I have had sleepless nights completing other assignments. I do apologize and mean no disrespect.
I enjoyed viewing both your pitches. Your elevator pitch was very clear, visually attractive and well put together; however, it did not contain all the elements needed to attract investors. Nevertheless, your detailed pitch did go into depth and shows a very clear knowledge of the buyer and end user and why there is a need for the product. A clear problem is addressed and a solution proposed. Perhaps the one thing lacking is information about the competition. Overall, though, you did a great job!
Adriana
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C. Ranson 6:10 pm on December 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Adriana,
Congratulations to you and cheers for your completion of MET!.
What a great idea being able to go back and make some final revisions to Assignment 3 after all the peer feedback. The other suggestion would be to make the font larger and a different text style in the reply section so those of use that can’t see as well as we use to could actually see when we have made a typo, once you hit reply there is no turning back or method to make any corrections. But I do agree with your comment about how brilliant this course is.
This course provided a significant amount of new knowledge construction and created some very interesting and meaningful discussion.
Catherine 🙂
adi 4:50 pm on December 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you Catherine. Good luck with the rest of your courses. 🙂
Peggy Lawson 5:33 am on December 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Congratulations Adriana on completing your MET program! I’m sorry we didn’t cross paths earlier. I’ve enjoyed your posts and your work in this course. All the best!
Peggy
adi 4:51 pm on December 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you Peggy. I enjoyed your posts and venture pitch. Good luck with the rest of your courses 🙂