A3 Venture – PELR Practical English Language Resources (Edited)

Hi Leah, I think you have an interesting concept, but the elevator pitch left me wanting a bit more. I am not quite sure how you are going to differentiate yourself from the competition as this is an area that has many possibilities.

Hi Leah! I like the website and your business idea. You have overcome the troubles you faced during the process of creating the pitch, and the website is very professional and shows your deep knowledge and research on the ESL market. You focused on advanced secondary school students in the ESL market, which is a good area. As you pointed out, there is a niche in the age level in the ESL resource market, and I actually need your service for the returnee students who moved from English-speaking countries. I would like to know more about the sales strategy in the competitive market.

FEEDBACK: Very interesting concept Leah, I have to admit that I don't know much about ELL so this was a difficult elevator pitch for me to evaluate in that sense. It was fun to explore and learning something new. You spoke from a place of knowing and have a well defined market and solution. My only feedback to make this better is that your video was a bit too long for an elevator pitch, and I would have enjoyed just getting the quick broad strokes at first and delving in deeper later. You clearly put a lot of work into this. Great exploration!

REVIEW: Hi Leah. The ELL market is huge, and it is quickly apparent that you are both interested in and experienced in this field, so I am initially hooked. I liked the way that your venture pitch site allowed the reader to choose the information that they wanted through a series of links, and I think your model is sound: you have identified an entry market that is profitable (Ontario) and if I were an experienced Ed Tech VC, I would be interested in how I could expand that model to other markets. RECOMMENDATION: Personally, I think you're giving up too much of the equity, but that would make me more likely to invest so thumbs up!

Review: Nice work, i'm convinced that English language education is a very viable portion of the market and I can tell that you are passionate about the topic and your venture. You elevator pitch begins with a concise forecast of the market, this is an effective way to present to investors who are most often driven by revenue potential. I would suggest making a quick note about what kind of investment you are looking for while you are on the topic of money before moving on; investors can then focus on the remaining content of your pitch having had there main money question already answered. The extensive information about your business model and development plan conclude your pitches nicely and are characteristic of a very thorough and professional entrepreneur. Your pitch provides an effective explanation of competing products and how each is different than your own. This explanation of the competition mainly focuses on the functional differences which affect the user. You do a good job of arguing that your product will serve users better however I also think that this argument could be made stronger if you can convince investors that your product will also serve consumers better. As an investor I would like to know how consumers are going to hear about your product and how easy it will be from them to implement it, in addition to the size and location of the market. I realize that detailed information on marketing strategy may be beyond the scope of the current phase of your venture; discussing the people that will be involved in executing the different aspects of your plan may give investors more confidence knowing that you will have skilled team members working in these areas. Although I have made a number of suggestions, I do not think that your pitches are weak, you have simply presented a well researched venture in a lot of depth, ultimately providing the investor with solid information about a solid venture and a driven entrepreneur. Great job.

Feedback: Hi Leah, I think you have a great idea brewing here. I've taught a couple of ESL classes and as its not my field/background I also find that a lot of the resources out there cater to young children and don't actually challenge my students to further their learning/language skills. Your passion is clearly evident in your pitches. I thought it was impressive that you completed a website, video and a PDF presentation. Should you be able to get this venture off the ground I'd be interested as a consumer! My only suggestion is that your elevator pitch is quite long. I had trouble keeping mine under one minute as well, but given that its a quick intro to your product, some investors might not be interested to watch that long.

@Danielle, thanks for your feedback! Actually, yes as mentioned in my pitch and website, there are competitors out there but the materials are specifically geared towards educators changing their teaching style or offering strategies, not a lot of content or actual units with videos, resources etc. As well, competitors content is not science geared for higher grades. I've encountered this with my own students and they comment on it as well (this is mentioned in my pitch and website). Great question! Well, the websites would be run locally within Canada to start (where the management team is primarily located) and then expand globally depending on module development and investment made. Thanks Danielle!

Feedback: Hi Leah, this is a great idea, there are so many English Language Learners that need extra support, and I was surpised to hear that there are no other companies our there doing this. I was a little bit unclear about how the organization would work based on your elevator pitch because the website would ask for the monthly fee and provide resources but you had mentioned that it was not an online learning website and that there would be local franchises. I was wondering how you would get so many franchises locally, at what rate would you expand and where would you expand to? I liked that you specified how much money you needed to have invested.

@Chrward, Thanks for your feedback. The return on your investment and how you will make money is on the MARKETING tab of the squarespace website, with details on sales, financial forecast, and investor need ( which includes the Ask, Return and Exit plan) @Bruno, thank you for your feedback. Resources specifically are on the ABOUT website page, "About PELR Products"

FEEDBACK: My venture was also based on ESL learning. I enjoyed your presentation overall and your arguments are very valid. The only area of improvement I say would be to be more specific on the resources you would be selling.