Link to Venture Pitch Website: https://schoolink.josephvillella.com/
Reflection
I enjoyed the challenge of this assignment as I have always been interested in entrepreneurship. I had great difficulty coming up with an original idea, and I did so by first thinking of a problem that needed to be solved. Myself and my students often get a bit annoyed by constant public address system announcements throughout the day that can sometimes be unnecessary. An example of this could be the shift of recess being inside due to rain. The solution that I came up with was a silent announcement system, which was inspired by the notification my Amazon Echo gives when an Amazon package arrives. This is how I came up with the idea to merge the public address system with a digital assistant. At this point, another problem I had thought of was how my school has a staggered dismissal time due to safety concerns relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, the school bell only rings at 2:55pm even though half of the classes leave at 2:50pm. By having a digital assistant in each classroom, bell schedules could be individualized to the class without disturbing the rest of the school. I do feel passionate about my idea and think it would have the ability to make a positive impact in the education industry.
Strengths
I think the strength of my pitch is my explanation and reasoning for the need for Schoolink. I believe I did a good job explaining why it is the next evolution of public address systems in schools and how it could persuade decision makers to pick it over traditional public address systems. I also think my market analysis is well done as it captures the two industries which impact Schoolink the most – the educational technology industry and the digital assistant industry.
Weaknesses
I think there are a few weaknesses in my business model, specifically relating to the investor request and pricing. I tried to come up with reasoning for my requested funding and a pricing model that would make sense, but I do think I could have missed some considerations that would impact this section. I also think that there is a weakness in my overall idea, as if the main competitors implement functionalities that matter to educators, they would then have a large competitive advantage over Schoolink.
