KALBOARD360 Venture Pitch and Elevator Pitch

Hi everyone and thank you for the comments. This is a real product that I have been working on for the last three years. It will be released next month. If you are interested please visit our website: http://www.kalboard360.com

I like that your Elevator pitch is you live as it feels more personal and convincing. I like the short and to the point message you get across in your Elevator pitch, it was easy to watch. Your Venture pitch is equally as inciting. I enjoyed your pictures and graphics. They were colourful and also showed the message or data you were trying to relay. Like mentioned some of the slides are hard to read but the voice over helps get your ideas across. I also enjoyed the product and how you present it. I agree that there is a big market for this product. Well done!

Review: Hi Nidal, Great work! I really enjoyed both your elevator pitch and venture pitch. You were concise and outline the beginning of a fantastic idea! This LMS for tablets is relevant to current trends in education - if you haven't yet started the development process, you should! Your presentation looks great, and is very well put together. I also think it's great that you have narrowed your market to the Middle East. Do you have plans to expand into North America/Europe/Asia if this is successful? Also - what does a subscription to KALBOARD include specifically? Overall - I think this a wonderful idea! Great work and thank you for sharing :)

REVIEW: Hi Nidal, I also thought your venture pitch was impressive, but I agree with others that you don't seem quite as enthusiastic about your product in your elevator pitch (which I can understand, my venture pitch took about 200 takes before I could speak for a minute in front of the camera without messing it up). I thought your idea was interesting, and that the combination of a classroom management system within an LMS would appeal to potential school boards (especially in the markets you outlined). The one question I have is that while you outlined the investment you are looking for, what percentage of the equity will you be offering in return? Based on the amounts of funding that are going into current ed tech ventures, I don't think 1.5 million is excessive, but will I be receiving 10%, 20%, etc. of the equity? In addition, I liked the way that you differentiated your product from existing solutions and, by showing the history of the Kalboard team, I felt like I would be investing in competent people that have experience in the industry. RECOMMENDATION: If I can get a decent percentage of equity in return for 1.5 million, I would invest.

REVIEW: Hi Nidal, I was really impressed with your venture pitch for this presentation. I commend you for getting your elevator pitch under 1 minute but I think there is a difference in engagement between your two pitches. While your elevator pitch was informative, it was not as engaging as your venture pitch. This could be a problem for potential investors as they might not move on and would ultimately miss out on your compelling venture pitch. As an investor I'm very impressed that you included a live demo. The idea of BYOD and using an LMS device within a classroom is highly lucrative. I'm a bit unclear as to what the difference is between student end-user and student dealer. Would you consider having subscriptions for teachers? Or whole classrooms? Perhaps this is already what you mean, but I'm uncertain. While you offer a completing different product from other LMS systems, many of them - Edmodo, Schoology offer a free subscription. While these free subscriptions don't offer many of the paid lucrative services, how can you assure investors that your customers will leave their potential free services and continually renew their paid subscriptions? Once this is established I would be likely to invest in your product. I think you've stumbled upon a great idea here that could revolutionize learning in the classroom.

Feedback: This is a really great app. I had not thought about the use of an online management system that can be integrated with reports. It is really neat to integrate the classroom with the district and parents. I wonder if that is something that teachers would be interested in or afraid of. It sounds really neat though and I think I would invest in it. It looked very professional and was very logical. I wish I could try it out myself! I wonder if there is two way feedback between the parties involved, will it allow parents to message teachers? Great work!

Your pitches were both well done. You have a clear speaking voice and your pacing was good. I can see how your product would be very useful and I'm surprised that it hasn't been done yet. This is the right time for your product to come to market. Copyright your idea! Your pitches were both very informative, you gave a good amount of detail of where you started and where you are going. The questions in the comments are valid but I think that an investor would be interested enough in your pitch to ask you questions afterwards. Good work.

REVIEW - Hi Nidal, your elevator pitch intrigued me and I was definitely interested in learning more. The presentation of your Venture Pitch is strong and well laid out, except I would have like to see the “Required Investment” to have its own line or box for even more clarity. I definitely believe that your company has great potential for growth especially in the Middle East. The main issue I have is that I think that some of your numbers are a very optimistic (for example, a growth rate of 103% annually cannot be sustained, which your financials seem to reflect). Although I believe that this is a billion dollar industry and that you will have success, I think the initial asking price required is a little high. I also had issue with the $1.5M investor asking price to help sustain 6 months of pre-operations as high risk. Is it possible to have a more modest startup? Finally, I am curious to know what percentage of the market you predict you will get, as you will experience other competitors and not everyone will buy into your product. With a few adjustments, I believe that you can have even better success than your plan presently suggests, but I am hesitant to recommend funding, until such issues are resolved and clarified. Thank you for your presentation!

Review: Great work! I agree with KBurden's comments in the sense that you are asking for a "capital investment in order to achieve projected outcomes" and an investor will want to know how the money is to be spent. If you need money to grow even though you already have market penetration, then I would want to know more about how the business will sustain itself over time.

REVIEW: Great work! Your venture proposal looks very professional, and is clear and informative. I found that I didn’t really get what Kalboard 360 was when listening to the elevator pitch, but as soon as I looked through the slides I understood. You have clearly addressed the pain point and the solution. It’s my understanding that Kalboard 360 is software that connects students and teachers via “the cloud.” Cross-platform programs have the difficulty of keeping up with constant software updates and bug fixes. Do you have a technical support model in place as part of customer service? How does that affect your bottom line? You have identified a huge market for this service, and I like the slide entitled “Market Overview” which outlines investments in tablets for education by various countries, you have done your homework! I wonder if the cost of $15/students might be prohibitive for public education, and that might decrease the size of your expected market. From your explanation, you don’t seem to have direct competition, but will be fighting very big names for a share in the market. You have assembled a very impressive team. Given their combined credentials and experience, I have no doubt that Kalboard 360 will head in a profitable direction, and investor’s will be satisfied with the company’s championship. I like the breakdown of your “pipeline” and how it clearly outlines your marketing plan to acquire new customers. The breakdown of finances is a nice touch, and a definite requirement when seeking investors. I would suggest that you clarify your expenses in more detail, how much are you, and the developers paying yourselves…these are things an investor would like to know. Finally, I didn’t entirely understand your “ask” for 1.5 million dollars. Asking for money for “pre-operations” didn’t really mesh with your claim to have 4000 paying customers. My recommendation would be to clearly state what you will do with the investment and how it will increase the value of your company. Once you’ve corrected that, I would recommend to an investor to get on board