Early Learning Portfolios
My fictitious venture is for an integrated system to easily capture & manage portfolio evidence for early learning classrooms and generate portfolios of student development. As I’ve described in my relections section, I’d love to see this actual product. The elevator pitch is below, and you can find both it and my website venture proposal here. The elevator pitch and reflections are found as subpage links on the bottom of the home page.
Posted in: General, Venture Forum
jenbarker 8:23 pm on November 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy ~ I have a genuine interest in this area as well – as evidenced by my venture pitches. Your elevator pitch was great and has me hooked. I am going to follow the link now to your venture pitch. Best, Jen
Ranvir 12:07 am on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Peggy, I really liked the elevator pitch and supplemental information on your website. Like Jen, I would be interested in knowing more about this initiative if this were to be pursued seriously. Fictitiously, I would be interested to invest although I wonder how much investment is required… Did you come up with any investment figures and how could investors re-coup their investment?
Peggy Lawson 10:42 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Ranvir. I am definitely not a money person, and was very happy when David posted his comment that we could forgo concerns about the $$ aspect. Completely mandatory for a real venture pitch I know, but for me I simply would not have have the tme, or knowledge, to do anything better than make up numbers. But for the sake of making this more of a real simulation, I can see how even pretend numbers would have been a good addition. Thanks for the suggestion!
adi 12:34 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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.
I think the problem your venture solves gets a bit lost. It’s a valid and real problem, which if emphasized, I’m sure would capture investors attention.
2. Solution: the new product or service that resolves the pain. Excellent and well presented
3. Differentiation: the reason someone will buy or use this new product or service, versus the alternatives.
It is very clear why people would buy it, but not so much how it is different from what is out there; probably because there isn’t anything else out there like this, but then this is worth mentioning.
4. Marketing: where and how buyers/users will be reached.
This is not as clear. An important thing to keep in mind here is that the person who perhaps needs this product the most and will be the end user, the teacher, won’t be the buyer; the buyers are the school boards and its they who have to be convinced that there’s a need for this product.
5. Championship: the competency of the venture’s leaders and advisors.
Excellent
6. Competition: an overview of competitors and partners;
Not mentioned
7. The Ask: how much money, etc, is required to take the next step
Not asked
8. The Return: how much and how soon will an investor be recompensed.
Not mentioned
9. The Message – clear and to the point
Overall a very well presented venture and one I feel could interest investors. Excellent work. Well done Peggy.
Peggy Lawson 10:09 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the feedback adelpaso. You’re right about the missing points. Some of these I touched on in my reflections of strengths and weaknesses, found by following the link to the subpage found at the bottom of the website home page. I think the absense of marketing is a real weakness here. I had some marketing plans in my head, but didn’t get them down into the plan.
I appreciate the time you took to go through the venture. I found it a tough project – a way of thinking quite different from what I’m used to!
tomwhyte1 2:23 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
CEO & Team:
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.
After viewing the Elevator Pitch, and reading through the venture pitch for EL Portfolios, it is clear that the CEO is not only confident in their product, understands the market and the role this product will play within it, but appears to be high capable and passionate to take this project from start-up to essential classroom resource. As a potential investor, I would want more information focussing on the overall team, to ensure my money was going to be properly used. Regardless of this slight concern, I believe this CEO would only surround themselves with the best.
Venture Concept:
Even though the idea of portfolios, and even electronic portfolios is not a new idea, that is beyond the point, as EL Portfolio’s has not only taken an existing idea and made it feasible for today’s classrooms and technology, but has made an easy to use assessment tool, that enhances learning for students, teachers and even parents. This venture is further strengthened by the solid research that has been completed to not only understand the market, but capitalize on the areas of weakness currently recognized within the educational system. Overall, this venture pitch not only does a good job of telling a story, but does a great job of wanting this product to exist… now!
Marketability:
The actual marketability of this venture was not provided at this time, leaving potential investors wondering about this ventures true market size, potential share, and overall need within the current educational system, making this venture a more than moderate risk. As for innovative advantages, EL Portfolio’s does a great job of maximizing the current capabilities of technology to provide video/picture/audio artifacts for a students assessment, which is combined with rubrics to utilize and potentially linked to specific learner outcomes. While no information is provided about intellectual property rights or copyrights, this would need to explored to ensure that market share this company gathers would not be eroded by copycat competitors.
Venture Plan:
At this time, no specific information has been provided about potential timelines, or product readiness, information that is essential to ensure that this market can be capitalized on quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, EL Portfolios, have done a more than professional job at examining and understanding the potential legal issues with this approach, and have created solutions for each, a situation that allows investors to focus on the product, not the potential lawsuits.
Peggy Lawson 10:18 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the thorough analysis Tom. You’re right about those missing pieces. Were I to move forward, those would definitely have to get put into place. As a new experience – preparing pitches – there really is a learning curve. Even when you know in advance what all should be present, it seemed all to easy for me to miss assembling everything together. I appreciate your well-written analysis and suggestions.
teacherben 9:31 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think your idea is absolutely sound. There are a lot of similar products out there for purely social media purposes but I haven’t seen anything quite like this. As someone who is pretty familiar with the technologies involved, I can easily imagine how it would work and what would be required to get it off the ground. I’m afraid though that I may be filling in a lot of the blanks on my own. The way that I am imagining it is something like a Facebook or Instagram or even Delicious app. You take a picture or record a bit of video or audio, then as you tag it, it gets added to that student’s blog automatically. Allowing us to see what the portfolio (probably like a timeline) would look like would have been a powerful addition.
But as an early childhood educator, I would want to know more about this product and if what I am picturing in my head is right, I would be very likely buy into it if the price was right.
teacherben 9:34 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I want to add that doing this as a website was a good match for the product. For every potential buyer or investor, there may be just as many different reasons to be attracted to the product or the company. It’s good that we can come back to it and work through the material as we like.
visramn 12:34 pm on November 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
I think you did a great job on both your pitch an analysis. I found it a little hard to hear what your were saying in the pitch because the music was slightly distracting. I would suggest reducing the volume of the music slightly. I found that your enthusiasm, knowledge about the product and belief in the product was an asset to your project. I was drawn in just by watching the pitch and was interest in going on to read more about it. I think you could have addressed the market a little bit more but other than that this is a very sound venture.
Thanks for all your hard work and work sharing you idea. There is definitely a need for this is the in market.
Nureen
Doug Connery 8:12 pm on November 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy:
I loved your elevator pitch with your enthusiasm, facts and background music. This got me excited and interested in the product as a buyer, however maybe not so interested as an investor…. But it did catch my interest to look further.
The venture pitch concept is brilliant; structured like an e-portfolio, the product of interest. I like the tabs set up relating to the product and investment. I wonder with this structure if it could be reorganized by the four areas that EVA’s care about: CEO and Team, Venture Concept, Marketability and venture plan.
As you mentioned the $ side is hard to create without a background in this area. If you had created some numbers and used them without meaning then this might generate questions that you really could not answer.
As an investor, I am interested as e-portfolios are an interest of mine and I see great potential here. So if we were going to take this further then I would say – lets talk!
Doug.
jameschen 11:29 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy,
Your elevator pitch has a good hook.
Here is my analysis on your venture pitch using the guidelines found in section 2.7 of our course blog – Deconstructing a pitch:
Early Learning Portfolios: The Content
Pain Point:
Good research information here. I would suggest including Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory in this section to explain why the “early” aspect of your product is important, and use this information to differentiate your product from its competitors.
Solution:
Questions: What would the implementation of the product look like? What is the role of the teacher? Would the teacher be spending most of her time documenting student progress with a mobile device while students do their work as opposed to providing support to help students overcome their challenges? Can the product allow students to document their own progress using their own devices as opposed to the teacher being the one doing the documentation? Where would the documented information be stored? How would student privacy be addressed? How will you be partnering with NAEYC to provide you with the rubric for your product?
The addition of learning analytics technology such as Knewton’s Adaptive Learning Platform would enhance your product’s applicability in education.
Differentiation: I was unable to locate information on your website about how your product differs from its competitors such as WordPress, Moodle, etc.
Marketing: I was unable to find the information which identifies the target market. Will your customers be the teachers or school districts? What will you do so that your product reaches the customers? The inclusion of these information would redirect your pitch to the investors as opposed to the customers.
Championship: The “About us” page is well-written. The provision of positions that need to be filled to satisfactorily put your product on the market would enhance the viability of your pitch.
Competition: I was unable to locate information about the competition and the necessary partners (other than NAEYC) on your website.
The Ask & Return: These are not identified in the pitch.
Thanks for a well-presented pitch!
James
cunnian 12:04 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy,
Well done on both the elevator and venture pitch. Funny that we both were thinking portfolios for this assignment! Your pitch was engaging and I could envision how I would use your product in the classroom, which as a potential investor I feel is important. You did well to speak to the need of having a system which is easy for teachers to use and portfolios can be fairly burdensome. Content tagging and automatic cataloging are great features to build in! You also did a good job of explaining your background and credibility.
As others have mentioned, you have not fully addressed who your market is (neither did I ;)), which investors would want to know about. Aside from this, it appears to me to be a very solid venture and I would be interested in investing.
melissaayers 4:20 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy,
I love you elevator pitch! It is great, totally engaging and identifies a pain point and solution and made me curious to go learn some more about your venture via the venture pitch. In fact to be honest I think I was even sold on the product without having to go to the second pitch (website).
I think I too (like Ben mentions above) understand a bit how this could be created and have skipped ahead and filled in some of the missing gaps other have already pointed out you have for marketing and investments etc.
You are a credible, knowledgeable and passionate founder and president who seems to have a great grasp of the product you want to create and have done the research to back it up. I believe you present a very marketable product (especially going by class feedback on the idea of ePortfolios in general over the course of ETEC522). As an EVA investor I would want to do some basic market research and competitor analysis before making an investment decision. However, I am sure this is on the right track and that this venture would be a great potential investment opportunity.
Thanks
Melissa
Pat A Son 3:59 am on December 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy,
You have a great elevator pitch and a professional looking website. Some more information on the marketing would have made this complete.
Cheers
Patason
sophiabb 7:27 pm on December 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Peggy,
Great elevator pitch. Your presentation came across as professional and you came across as a passionate champion that identified your product, problem and solution. Your website was very clean. I found that it appealed to me more as a user – teacher – than as an investor. I found that:
Pain Point and Solution: These was real, clearly stated and one with which many educators relate.
Differentiation/Competition: The venture proposition was weakened by a lack of information on the market in terms of competition, positioning, barriers/ease of entry.
Market/marketing: The target was clearly identified but there was an absence of a marketing plan/strategies.
Ask and Return: These were not clearly stated.
The Team: Investors are interested in the skill set and abilities of the CEO and team to drive a start-up business to success. The information on the CEO revealed a very qualified visionary and champion. I would have loved to see information on other members of the team.
Overall a good presentation.
Sophia
Peggy Lawson 8:53 am on December 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you all for your excellent suggestions. I’ve gone back to drawing board and made some changes to the venture pitch, based on your suggestions, most importantly adding information on my marketing strategy and a smaller section on “The Ask” (on the “Why Invest” page). I believe I did read in some course instructions somewhere that we were encouraged to take your suggestions into consideration for our final version?