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 also attached my Assignment #3 reflection.
LNevoral – Assignment #3 – Wizard Portfolio Reflection
Elevator Pitch
Wizard Portfolio Elevator Pitch
Venture Pitch
Wizard Portfolio Venture Pitch
Posted in: Venture Forum
Kent Jamieson 1:29 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
Lisa Nevoral 12:37 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
Doug Connery 9:05 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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.
Lisa Nevoral 12:37 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
Colin 9:47 pm on November 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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.
Lisa Nevoral 12:38 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
teacherben 7:52 pm on November 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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.
Lisa Nevoral 12:38 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
rebeccaharrison 9:31 am on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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.
Lisa Nevoral 12:39 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
jameschen 4:24 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
Lisa Nevoral 12:40 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
jameschen 2:53 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi LIsa,
Maybe I missed it, but I am referring to the information about the Championship of your company.
James
Lisa Nevoral 5:07 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
pcollins 10:45 pm on November 29, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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 12:41 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
cunnian 12:09 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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!
Lisa Nevoral 12:42 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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
adi 11:16 pm on November 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
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