IncentivED

No i would not invest in this business. The service or product is well thought through although I am not fully sure I understand what "is the real deal" . Pain Point: I do not understand what the real issue is or why this problem needs to be drastically solved. The issue could be better explained and deserved more attention. Solution: The solution is clear but I do not understand the "supporting model" and where the money is made. Why would some one pay for this? What does it save the teacher / who is funding etc. Differentiation: It might be a very original ideas. However it is not within my reach / knowledge to judge it. I think a "trivago" for school trips would be much better. Marketing: No idea, Could not understand this -apart from that the number of faculty is mentioned. How many school trips are organized on an annual basis? How much money is spend on these trips? Who is funding these trips? Championship: the entrepreneurs sounds credible and understands probably the problem better then me but I am not sure he has the right solution for the problem Competition: Was not mentioned. The Ask: how much money, etc, is required to take the next step; I think this is not clear at all. Only how much it costs from y user point of view. The Return: how much and how soon will an investor be recompensed. What is an investor supposed to do? What do you need in order to lift this to the next level?

No, I would not invest in this venture. While field trips an important part of education, they simply do not account for enough transactional time (and, therefore, market access) to warrant my investment. Secondly, I feel the Solution presented here does not adequately address the Pain Point that the CEO has described. While the increasing cost of running cultural centres does require attention for the respective stakeholders, I do not see how IncentivED could bring sustained benefit. Even if a group crowdsourced an experience, it does not encourage the participants to become sustaining contributors. The CEO has credibility as an educator, but I would be leery of investing in any project without a strong technology pathway laid out. I would also be concerned about the marketing challenges facing this project - even with full access to every teacher, the number of field trips taken in a given school year is too limited.

Despite the venture pitch being well delivered and thorough, I would not invest in incentivED. For me the failing of this pitch is in proof of concept. I am not clear on what the market really is for this venture or how I as an investor would make a ROI. The CEO did a good job at explaining the inspiration for the venture and the competitors (or lack of in this case). He also did a good job explaining what made his venture different than what else is out there. I also found the CEO to be credible and sincere in his pitch. However, I didn’t think he was that passionate about incentivED – had he talked about how it would change his teaching experience (presumably for the better) I may have felt his passion. I will give points for originality and coming up with a unique idea, ultimately I just don’t think there is much of a market for it right now.

As an Educational Venture Analyst, I would not invest in IncentivED. A valid pain point has been identified as planning engaging field trips that align to learning outcomes and core competencies is time consuming and difficult for teachers to pull off. However, I question how many educators would be motivated to create resources for the “challenges” posted on the website. Unless a teacher has already created materials for their own students that simply could be uploaded, I find it hard to imagine teachers creating content specifically for IncentivED. The closest competitor, Teachers Pay Teachers enables teachers to earn a few extra dollars on content they have already created, but I find it more difficult to imagine teachers would create content for the sole purpose of selling it on the site. Furthermore, the other competition that exists - and is not mentioned in the pitches - are the museum workers themselves. Many field trip destinations have a person on staff who can assist with coordinating and facilitating learning for students. Also, the content created by teachers would likely be specific to a grade or content area and may not apply to many other teachers. While the venture’s leader does appear to be a passionate and competent classroom teacher, he himself admits he has no business or programming experience that would be needed to get this business started. I also see a flaw in the revenue stream in the paid app that does not seem necessary for teachers to interact with the platform. As an EVA, I feel I would not get back my investment in a timely matter.

The venture pitch presentation was very well delivered. The credentials of the pitch added credibility to the pitch. I found the explanation of how a project comes to being funded useful to understand the business model; however, I would not invest in this venture. I wonder if teachers could strive to create a feedback system whereby each class that goes on a particular field trip shares their experience on an online platform hosted by that particular venue. I envision it to be like "TripAdvisor", educational field trip division. This sort of feedback can also assist the host venue to make improvements to their own visitor experience. The compensation model does not particular provide much incentive for teachers to want to initiate a project as Chris Helsby eluded to already in his post.

As an EVA, I would not invest in this venture due mainly to how specific it is on two fronts: the goals or objective of each lesson or resource is specific to the needs of the teacher planning the trip and also the resource is attached to another very specific location (field trip destination). The presenter has a very valid point that field trips are indeed labour intensive as well as expensive with little reward sometimes. His goal is to add more value to the effort which is admirable. Yet if I was a director of a museum, how do I realize any return on my contribution to a project? The increase in attendance due to a resource would be minute and likely impossible to measure. TeacherPayTeachers is a very general platform used to sell ALL types of classroom materials from behavioral management resources all the way to unit plans for Grade 5 science. Compared to IncentivEd which is very narrow in its scope as well as resources being linked to a specific geographical area. This means that the resources generated can only realistically be used by those in that area and not the thousands of teachers in BC or the millions of teachers in the states. I question the scalability of this venture.

As venture capitalist I would not invest in IncentivEd. IncentiveEd’s goal is to address two pain points a) the funding gap between the cost of running cultural attractions and stimulate admissions and b) the lack of alignment between curriculum and I what assume are the learning activities set-up by the cultural institution thereby improving the value proposition for teachers and students. The pain point and value proposition are only arrived at after a significantly amount of superficial, unfocused material that seemed to over emphasize how much work field trips are for teachers without going into more detail on the misaligned curriculum. As best as I can make out the solution suggested by IncentiveEd is twofold: 1) a crowdsourced projects page where a project is proposed and people can contribute to the project. If the project does not achieve the target funding amount within the allotted time frame, no money is pledged. While the idea is a nice one, it seems to overestimate the altruistic nature of the population. Who is actually going to fund this? As Craig suggested, attendance to these attractions is waning, so why would people who are not attending suddenly be interested in crowdfunding specific projects? The second aspect and perhaps where the true value lies is the curated finished projects that teachers can access online and also the associated app. The idea here is a good one in the sense that there does seem to be a need for alignment of curriculum (in those cases where the teacher is not creating the activity prior to the field trip) to the activities provide by a cultural attraction, but it is somewhat limited scope and difficult to conceive of how to monotize it. Another major issue with this pitch is revenue model. The two projects examples shown were $105 and $2000 (give or take). From crowdsourced funding, IncentiveEd will take a 5% cut. So, for these two projects they are looking at $105.25, not very much at all. The pitch failed to fill in the gaps in terms of average project amount or a goal of how many projects they would like fund in say a year so it is difficult to project revenue, but giving Craig the benefit of the doubt and they averaged $1000 per project and were able to pull in 100 projects in a fiscal year they are still only looking at $10,000 in revenue. The second revenue stream is derived from selling the app for $1.99. First, there does not seem to be any incentive to buy the app apart from convenience, Craig indicates the finished curated projects are open access online. Second – even if he were to capture 20% of the 3.65 million teaches in North America that still only generates $730,000 in revenue. While certainly a lot of money, how much of this would be profit? What sort of return on investment would I be getting for the $120,000 he is asking for to ‘get the project off the ground’. Craig himself is somewhat engaging, certainly a skilled teacher and interesting person, but as he himself admits, he lacks business expertise and makes no mention apart from a reference to gifted educators as to championship. On a positive note, the competitive analysis was comprehensive outlining a lack of competitors and drawing a comparison with Teachers for Teachers, but differentiating incentiveEd based on curation, crowdsourcing and other elements.

I would not invest in this venture. I absolutely agree that field trips have a lot of opportunity and a system like what is being described could be beneficial, I think that certain aspects of the challenge function as well as the pricing model are not inspiring me to jump in. Taking 5% seems like a large amount, especially for bigger trips that may include travel. Adding a cost to download the app is another major barrier for users, especially if students will need to download it for fundraising purposes. The presentation is very subdued and monotone, and does not present the excitement that I would expect a service promoting field trips to exude. The interviews with the teachers in the venture pitch adds weight to the argument for the necessity of a service like this. I think it would have been a much stronger pitch if there was more of an emphasis on how this service can improve field trips as an overall experience, for teachers, students, parents and administrators. Adding in a functionality to allow a class to post images and videos about their reasons for wanting to go on the field trip, and testimonials after the trip is over would make this a much more marketable venture. They mention their likeness to kickstarter, but it doesn’t seem like the IncentivEd program really adds that much to such platforms. They emphasize their differences from Teachers Pay Teachers, but that seems like a completely different model altogether. The CEO of this venture will definitely need to be more specific about the returns on investments for his backers, and what the team he is pulling together will do in the first 6 months. I think that this venture has definitely identified an area of education that needs improving, but will need to differentiate themselves from existing platforms and provide value to all stake holders in the field of education and not just teachers.

I would not invest in incentiveEd. While I agree that teachers mediating the alignment of museum collections and exhibits with curricular objectives adds value for the museum and for people funding and/or using the proposed products, I don't think 5% profits per project is enough to keep the venture afloat and provide return on my investment. It feels more like a donation to a worthwhile cause except that as a for-profit venture I would not be getting a tax deduction. Other concerns I noted (but don't have the background to assess) are the payouts associated with proposed projects, the qualifications of the champion to get the venture, "...off the ground" and what he will do with the $121,000. Will full-time teachers will be willing to put together materials for field trips as side projects for 95% of the displayed amounts? There are a lot of museums with valuable content in Canadian and American cities but are there enough teachers willing to take on taking on side projects for 95% of $300-$1000? The teacher pitching this project may have won teaching awards but if he has no business experience, can he make this happen? I hope it works out for him as the project seems interesting but since he is not telling me what he will do with the $121K and what is in it for me other than propping up public education and institutions, I can't see myself backing the venture at this point.

I would invest in IncetivED as a venture capital analyst, with a caveat. I would invest in IncentivED because from all the pitches available in the forum, I feel this pitch is dealing with the most popular pain point. If there is one area that I have heard teachers talking about needing improvement it is the arena of field trips. IncetivED’s ideas around crowdsourcing/funding fieldtrip projects and materials is a unique and potentially profitable venture. The caveat I would add before I fund this project would be to ask the founder of IncetivED to rethink their funding structure. In the pitch video it is mentioned that IncentivED receives 5% of the total funds raised for a project. It is not mentioned if the person creating the project receives money as well. The venture that was used as a comparison is Teachers pay Teachers, a crowdsourcing framework for classroom materials. I would think the success of Teachers pay Teachers likely is helped by the fact that users and contributors are making money. I was unclear as to what would motivate a teacher to propose a project to IncetivED, if they are receiving nothing in return. I recognize that the pain point of fieldtrips would incentivize some to create their own ideas however I feel the funding structure needs to be nuanced. In summary I would invest in this venture due to its attempt to provide a solution to a common problem in education. I would however request that the founders look at the funding model to ensure that there are incentives for those teachers wishing to contribute content.