YourSchool App (Venture Pitch)

Review: Fantastic elevator pitch, Dan! It hooked me and I was compelled to explore your site deeper. I found your content to be well-organized, sensibly designed and informative. I love looking for new ways to connect with parents since I haven't found anything out there that works exactly for my needs and what you've created certainly hits those pain points. As a teacher, making sure my parents are happy is just as important as meeting my students' needs and I can see this type of app flourishing. However, I know you are up against some very stiff competition and, as an EVA, I am not fully convinced you can rise above all the others. You have identified only one competitor but there are so many more out there that I've tried (LMS's and teacher-parent communication apps offer the same features) and I wonder if focusing so tightly on beating one other app may undermine your venture's staying power. Besides that, you have done an excellent job crafting a credible venture and I would be intrigued to see how well you do after your first year before investing as an EVA.

REVIEW: Cool. I like this. I'm always a fan of streamlining communication. This is needed and would save on A LOT OF TIME. Really, it would. I think this would be amazing. I do see some issues with it though. It will be easily duplicated and improved on. It will sell for cheaper and it will spread like wildfire (which can be good). There are some security issues, there are some potential labor issues (taking work away from admin and administrative assistants, etc), though this hasn't stopped anyone from creating UBER and the likes. As a teacher. I would love it. In fact, I try my best to find ways in which makes sending and receiving ADMIN docs from parents easier. Well done.

Dan, I am happy to review your venture because your feedback has always been detailed and constructive. Unfortunately, many of the salient points have already been made by our more-than-competent classmates. I love the idea and I think it has a market that can be exploited. I am always amazed that anything gets back to school at all. “This is an important form that needs to be returned by Friday,” I plead with them as they crumple and stuff the thoughtfully colored paper into their already disastrous backpacks. And there is always that one sheet you find under the desks after they have all left. A more exacting way to get forms filled out is just what I need. And this app could decrease my stress by streamlining that hectic morning moment where change for this and that are filling up ziploc bags in my desk. So my only question and concern is, when will you get it rolled out in Newfoundland?

Feedback When I went through this Venture Pitch I thought to myself, this is a big undertaking. I wondered, based on all the different districts in different provinces, is this a one size fits all app or would there need to be a lot of customization to accommodate the specific needs that one district would/could have over another? Would this easily translate to an American market? To be honest I see this more as a web portal than a mobile app. In your pitch, you stated that forms could be downloadable and I wondered how this could be achieved on a mobile app. I also wonder how schools load all student data. Does each student need to sign up? Can a school districts provide a database of students and is that process seamless. I know in our system we use a student management product for parent contact resource, grade management portal as well as other features, but it is a chore to manage the student lists as they are created and maintained from a separate product. As an EVA I would be interested in investing in this endeavor but I would feel more confident if I knew that any functionality was consistent across multiple jurisdictions.

Hi Dan Great elevator pitch; concise and to the point. This seems like a great idea, although I don't have children myself, it seems like an application that parents would certainly embrace. The features you describe are great and I think you've really covered both sides of usage in that both parents and teachers would find value here. Additionally, you've found a system that will actually result in less administrative work for teachers while likely providing more accuracy and accessibility for parents - really a great job. As an IT Consultant I appreciate your detail regarding security also; it's refreshing to see someone think about the backend of things and address the requirement of protecting data and keeping it in the country of origin. Many people throw around the idea of using the "cloud" without really thinking about how it works. In terms of competition, and back to the feature of a digital signature; do you anticipate this being reliant on certain software (or an app) on the smartphone itself? I'm wondering if parents would have to have a PDF writer (instead of just a reader) in order to do this. This is really great work Dan, I found your venture pitch to be very well thought out and covered anything I could think of really. As a peer, I am thoroughly impressed. As a potential investor, you'd certainly have my buy-in here. Great work!

Hi Dan,

As a #badmom, I love it. I love it. I love it. I have a child in elementary school, and I honestly could not keep up with the pizza lunches, trips, student council, etc. everything came back on different coloured paper and if I didn't look after it immediately then it got lost under a magnet on the fridge. I can't even imagine how elementary teachers stay on top of it! I was in senior years and never had this amount of admin, lol. I think this app has great possibilities. Helps teachers with the pain for administrative work and also connects parents with the school.

I am wondering for high school students your app could be less push notification and more student completed. I would love for your app to adapt as students moved up to allow them to start to develop self-regulation skills when it comes to organizing their time for revision.

I am trying to find something to constructively input on, but your concept is well laid out. I suppose, because this is an already established organization, I would want to have more financial data and penetration into the BC market. Since you are concentrating your ask to grow a sales team, I think having an understanding of your successes & failures for sales would be beneficial - who is buying, how you are generating your sales leads, and the time from introduction of product to purchase, would provide an investor with a sense of why you are concentrating on sales. Also $100,000 is not much, so I am assuming sales is primarily commission based, maybe a small draw at the beginning? Is the $100,000 for recruitment and training.

Oh I did find I had to search a bit for the pricing, you could separate this out into a nice visual like your comparison competitor chart.

I know Chris has mentioned security and privacy issues. I think you were thoughtful on your approach for this, and considered some of the big issues - where data is located, how information is shared and having bank level encryption. think diligence in maintaining your security, encryption, regular updates and maintenance. You could also house your data in servers and the buildings that they live in match a certain level of security criteria. Or you could limit the data that is collected. You could also use nicknames or random numeric identifiers. Just ideas if you were pursuing this the venture.

Well done Dan!

Sincerely,

Briar

FEEDBACK: While I think anything that cuts down on paper transactions between schools and parents is a good thing, I am concerned about possible privacy infractions that may be associated with such a system. What is to prevent unauthorized access to student grades, or health issues? You mention a parent ‘sign-in’ but many students at our school are currently able to access parent accounts (parents give their children passwords. Yes, you read that right). At my school, we are often faced with parents who ‘helicopter’ and micro-manage their children. An app like this would give them access to information that may be better kept between teachers and students (like homework), or between student services/counselling, and students (mental health, family abuse, etc). Opening lines of communication to parents is great, but sometimes there needs to be firm boundaries as far as information flow.

Hi Dan, the elevator pitch and venture pitch are both excellent. I am sure parents, educators, administrators and students will all benefit from a paperless, mobile friendly system with crucial product features for their school activity management. I wonder if it will be easier for an existing LMS system to develop this app. or should this be a venture starting from scratch? I assume schools will pay for such App. but it will be good to see an explicit articulation of business model. Overall, excellent work!

Hello Dan, I found your presentation and Pitch to be very interesting and I found myself nodding my head a lot as I read your weekly page. There is a real Pain Point potential for your venture as not many schools have their own app. The commitment from a teacher, or the school tech facilitator, is usually prohibitive due to time restraints in the busy school schedule. As EVA I think this could save the school a vast amount of money because the photocopying budget is a budget that commonly gets obliterated throughout the course of the school year. This could see a savings of thousands of dollars for the school and that money could be better spent supporting your initiative or needs in the school.

Hello Dan, A very informative website. As an investor, the use of text affords a sense of confidence, professionalism, and attention to detail. I do think I would have liked to have seen/heard more from you directly after your elevator pitch though. Your investor will be relying on your data/knowledge/skills but will be partnering with you as a person and I'm not quite sure I know enough about you yet. There is another major competitor in the space that got big publicity through the TV show Dragon's Den a little while ago (http://mybrightwheel.com/).