A3 Venture Pitch- The TalkBoard

I really like the idea you have presented here. The elevator pitch was good but there might have been a bit too much text there. Either that, or I am just a slow reader. This may be true because I also liked your use of diagrams in your venture pitch.You mention in your reflection that your idea comes from your own personal experience. I feel that these are the best ideas because you have a personal perspective of both the problem and the solution. I think your ask was reasonable given the fact that there will likely be a lot of bugs that need to be ironed out by a support team. Overall, this was an interesting and well done venture pitch.

Interesting concept idea! I think this market can still use more competition to help benefit all consumers in the area of educational presentation tools. Competition that will drive innovation in features, and in price. This is the best way to take on your competition is if you can not only match/beat their price, but deliver similar/competitive tools. This not only makes it compelling to buy your product but will drive yours to be the industry leader. Looking at the ideas behind your product you've already come up with some pretty neat features that already put your product above the leading competition. Now the biggest challenge will be delivering to customers, and having a sustainable business that can expand to many other sectors.

Review: Your video really caught my attention and got me thinking and envisioning your product. It was well done. Your elevated pitch could have been more strengthened by explaining how and why your product would be competitive in the market. Your ideas came through very clearly. This is a very ambitious venture you have produced. I like your venture pitch more than the elevated pitch because it was well organized, well categorized and had more detailed information. This is a hot technology and I am definitely recommending in investing.

As a middle school teacher, I can see the usefulness of the Talkboard+. I thought that your elevator pitch was very informative. It clearly laid out the pain point, your solution, the competition, and your market. One thing that might have helped drive home your message was connecting it to a face (or voice). I thought your venture pitch was comprehensive, and talked to the majority of the points listed in our EVA checklist. I particularly liked you diagrams that showed the details of how it would work, and the hardware requirements one would need to use it in a class or boardroom environment. As an investor, I think the $500 000 ask would scare me away. Although it is probably reasonable for a project of this size, the project is still in its infancy, and your competition include some pretty big players, which I think could pose some problems. Overall, I think it was a strong pitch. All the ingredients were there, and you highlighted your product in a way that showed its potential worth.

Rupi, I’m in! Your pitch was compelling, especially considering the limited presentation capabilities available. (Not to mention the limitations of the student/free software that most of us are trying to employ for the purpose of this project.) I'm inclined to think that a condensed version of the pitch would have a wider appeal though. Think appetizer ;) Anyway, if TalkBoard isn’t a real venture, perhaps it should be. This concept is highly relevant to education technology and appears to be disruptive with respect to current tech devices and market competition. Overall, your presentation was fluid and easy to follow. I particularly enjoyed the graphics you designed to demonstrate the dynamics of TalkBoard. The visuals stayed with me. You addressed key elements of a venture pitch: problem, solution, market, competition, proposal but I didn’t see the person, or team behind the venture to help bolster its credibility. Other than that TalkBoard looks like a good prospect.

Talkboard Feedback - I'm sorry to say that I really struggled to get through your elevator pitch. I don't think that a text medium (granted animated on slides) was the right way to sell a product that is advocating for the use of multi-sensory education and business especially with such an emphasis on voice and relationships. I think you could have chosen a better medium using at least voiceover but potentially using an actual live video that would show in the real world the pain point you're talking about with a person speaking from the front of the room. On average you had 18 words per slide (21 if you drop the first and last title slides) with one slide over 50 words. It was too much for me. I thought the arguments were clear and thought through, however, and that the graphic to represent the talkboard was clear and I liked your tagline. I also thought you did a good job of communicating what your goals were for the project and the use of the word envision in particular was inspiriting. I have to say that while the differentiation is clear, I'm not sure it's enough to be viable. You mentioned that other types of boards connect you to the front of the room and don't allow you to move around which is of course not the case with Bluetooth enabled or wireless devices (clickers or wireless mouses for example or tablets that allow you to use the interactivity from a distance). You mention these peripherals later on in your venture pitch saying that with talkboard you won't have to carry around these devices but your diagram clearly includes the need for a microphone that while not carried would have to be worn by the presenter and presumably has a wireless receiver that can be lost easily in a classroom setting unless you are working with an all-in-one device which will price it out of most educational markets without substantial subsidy. Also, if the mic is worn by the presenter rather than carried, it makes it impossible for students to drive the voice interaction without the presenter removing the mic each time. It also doesn't acknowledge one of the joys of SMARTboards which is that they allow students to come to the front rather than moving the teacher to the back. It allows students to be hands on with the device and empowers them to move forward. It also doesn't acknowledge a key competitor in the market to the SMARTboard in general and to this device specifically which is the increased use of tablets and mobile devices in classrooms which gets rid of the "front of the class" paradigm all together. How will talkboard compete with this technology? I wonder about the logistics of the device. For example, if it requires voice recognition training to operate, what happens when you have a substitute teacher or another presenter? What happens if you want one of your students to give a presentation at the front? The voice commands were also one of the most disliked features of both Bluetooth and GoogleGlass when they first came out. People felt very silly having to talk to their device out loud and other options are being added to them so that they can omit the command "OK Glass" for example. The added distraction of the voice commands in a busy classroom may also be difficult compared with the unobtrusive push of a mouse button. My children often have fun messing with the Bluetooth voice recognition in our car that constantly screws up the names of musicians and bands which is often a problem with auto-readers. How will the device distinguish between the voice of the teacher and those of students near by? As an investor, I am also concerned by the finances in this venture pitch. I don't know how much you are asking from me as an investor and what I can expect to get out of it. You mention $500 000 to employ 6 people which seems a bit steep for contract work depending on where you are doing your development. None of these people are project managers to oversee the big picture and this cost does not include a prototype or any overhead or marketing that your sales people would need to be effective. You will clearly need substantially more capital beyond the first phase so I know I am not going to see a return on investment for quite some time. This is a high risk venture in a market that I already see as saturated. I'm not convinced you will be able to convince schools or boards who have just committed huge amounts of money to install SMARTboards to change over so quickly for one added feature that I'm sure SMARTboard can add quickly as a peripheral to compete once it comes to market. I applaud you for mentioning this challenge in your venture pitch up front, but I'm afraid you have not convinced me it is surmountable. Maybe I'm just a stingy investor, but I am not sure I would see good profitability on my money based on what I have to go on here. Josh Ballem brings up some interesting alternatives that might be worth considering.

REVIEW: Great work Rupi!! Your elevator pitch quickly identified the pain point and got to your solution. I bought in right away to your idea and was picturing myself presenting with this product, however that was as a customer. I think you could add some market or potential revenue figures at the end of the elevator pitch to keep the investor in mind. When looking at your venture pitch, you did a great job outlining the problem, your solution in great detail, the market, and the competition. As a few others have outlined, tackling SMART boards could be a challenge as they are already entrenched in the market. I have a few suggestions for this. First off, I would do some research into the lifespan of the SMART boards to give you an idea of how many will need to be replaced on an on-going basis. This would be your opportunity to jump in. As mchristian suggested, you could look at building a software add-on to the SMART board or why do you need a “board” at all? The whole reason for the SMART board is that it is a touch screen, but your product does not need to touch anything, so why have a board. You could focus on a product or software that could run on any projector. This would provide a huge portability advantage over the SMART boards, especially in the business market, where most presentations take place outside of the company offices. Sorry, if I got off track in my investor review, but I think you have the beginnings of a great idea with many different options to choose.

Your idea and pitch does an excellent job of building on the existing presentation hardware (SMARTboard) and you do an excellent job of outlining how TALKboard will differentiate itself from the existing tools. Your venture analysis was detailed and laid out how your venture would benefit investors. I have to echo some of the others here and say I am a bit concerned about how as 'second to market' you will be able to move existing SMARTboard customers into TALKboard customers. Your diagram was helpful in visualizing how you are different, but I might add a short video/animation demonstrating the tool so that investors can see exactly what you are talking about and will help people get excited about the concept.

REVIEW: I am very interested in investing in your venture. Your venture appears to be reflecting what is needed in education and business. I am investing in your venture because you product is not only marketable in education, but we can make a profit in businesses as well. However, I would suggest that we develop an “add on” for companies and classrooms that already have projectors and Smartboards. This way there is no limit to our market. If you are interested in this expansion- I am your investor!

Hi Rupi, I loved the music and repetition of "envision" throughout your Elevator Pitch and, at the end of the pitch, I was very interested in learning more about TalkBoard. Similar to what Mark has noted, I found that the first few slides were a bit text-heavy, however. As that might turn some potential investors off, it might be wise to move to narration, or concise, bulleted text points. I thought your Venture Pitch was detailed and it is clear that you put a lot of thought and work into the design of TalkBoard - well done! Similar to mchristian, I immediately started wondering if there might be an opportunity to market TeamBoard as an "add-on" to a SmartBoard. With so many schools already invested in their Smartboards, this might be something worth considering. As a potential investor, I also would have liked to see a bit more detail in the "Global Target" section - perhaps a specific number of schools to be targeted? Finally, I wanted to learn a bit more about you/the team and your collective capabilities and experience.