Redwood – ERP and LMS for Forest Schools

Review: I found the use of live footage in your elevator trip gives your audience a good idea of what outdoor education is. Like some of the other replies below, many people were unaware of such programs and the use of the videos makes your pitch more accessible to the audience. One of my suggestions for your elevator pitch would be to make a stronger emphasis on the pain points that you mentioned: administrative tasks or other activities that detract teachers from planning lessons. How do teachers carry out their administrative tasks before using Redwood? How exactly will your application help them? As for your product and the venture pitch, I commend you for your research into outdoor education and it is clear that your product is aimed to address difficulties. None of the features seem excessive. Some of the features in your product would also help teachers in regular classrooms as well. One point that I have to make about your app as a startup is that it is very difficult to develop, and maintain that many features initially, it may be a good idea to limit the functionalities you have in the beginning, and aim to develop more of them as you receive more investments. As an EVA with stakes in outdoor education, I would invest in Redwood Technologies.

Baljeet, to be honest I have never heard of forest schools or its movement until reading about your venture. Upon further investigation, I am worried about the actual need to incorporate technology in outdoor learning (it still seems contradicting to me, despite the video you posted on the site). However, you do make a solid point with your data in the market page of your beautiful website about how niche the market is and how you can easily take control of it with your endeavour. I would not be convinced on investing though, if I were to play the venture analyst. I need more information and convincing on whole forest schooling and the need/desire to invest into it.

Baljeet, Congratulations on a compelling and well thought out venture. I was really grabbed by your elevator pitch, particularly the fact that it was shot on location. As an educator in the public school system and someone who has worked in an outdoor environment with groups of children, I can see the potential of this venture. Indeed, Invoicing, reporting, and checking in and out have been sources of frequent frustration for me. So your venture promises to alleviate a pain point I understand well. Furthermore, I think you have described the features of your LMS with sufficient clarity. I like the detail you have put into the marketing section and in my unprofessional opinion, your estimates are reasonable. You have increased my investing confidence by having Wild Wonder Forest School as a testing group for your product. I have used Project Noah briefly. It is an interesting tool and represents a ‘threat’ to your venture. Perhaps you could have talked about how your venture is differentiated from these threats because in your evaluation you only mention the benefits of your competitors. In the end, I would invest. Your product seems to serve a very specific purpose in a niche market. I agree with the others who have posted that this product could probably segue into other markets, but if you choose to concentrate in the market of your expertise perhaps you have a better chance of success. Lastly, I would feel reassured if you gave me some credentials about yourself and the other people that would be helping to see this venture through. Your elevator pitch introduced me to you on a personal level, but as an investor, why should I believe that you are qualified to run this type of venture?

Baljeet, this is a beautifully laid out and designed presentation and I think you do an excellent job in describing your idea, the context in which it could be marketed, the functions it would provide and the value that it offers. I work at BCIT and we use D2L to manage our students who are mainly working in the forest environment and require many of the tools you propose here. D2L provides us with all the tools and options you suggest and it is an existing LMS that is well established and offers versatile packages and options for students. Google also offers a full range of tools and options that would support these schools and for free or for a nominal fee. We have an excellent forest school in Maple Ridge and while they have many resources at their disposal and support from parents and the community, I think they may hesitate to embrace a niche market LMS or pay for tools they could get for free allowing them to provide more hands on, in the field experiences. I do think that the package of what to include in an LMS may be a great product and one that could be woven into many different LMS. While I would not invest in this product, I would be interested in investing in a firm that provided consultation and design for an LMS for outdoor schools as this is a unique and important niche in the education field.

This is a well laid out idea Baljeet, and one which I could see a reason to invest. The nice thing about such a platform is that you could really employ the cloud to work on distributed systems, such as these microschools. I work at a school with the environment as a focus, and there is certainly a strong desire for such a platform. However, I would consider some other reporting tools like Freshgrade to be direct competition for some of your functionality. Likewise, I am unsure how you would compete with the DIY videos that are distributed throughout the web for diversity. If you could leverage these, that would be an ideal plan. Consider me somebody who would invest if I had some cashola on hand!

This is a very interesting idea. I did not even realize that forest schools existed. I would love to be able to teach my K-12 students in this manner. It is sad that students cannot name many species of plants in the communities in which they live. This type or program would bring students back to nature. I love it! Based on the data you provide, if people invest in your LMS, you could have a very profitable product indeed. I agree with Michael that Brightwheels and Seesaw are similar and could be your competitors, but I like the way this is branded towards your particular learning environment. It seems to have a really clear and simple method for attendance, documenting evidence, and reporting.

This is an excellent idea. I think the specific market would make this a very viable venture. Your presentation is very well laid out. You seem to have taken all aspects of the operation in to account. In this type of environment, where students and parents are most likely very passionate and interested in nature, I think that the nature database could grow and become a great information source. If you could prove that the adaptation of Redwood LMS is much better suited to forest schools than all the competitors in the market then you could have a very profitable niche. The marketing campaign would need to be excellent, similar to that of Ten Tree or another innovative product that has abundant competition but finds a way to put itself in to a different category. I think your revenue projection is very reasonable. Great job!

Hi Baljeet. This is a very interesting concept and until this point, I had not heard about forest schools prior to this. I feel that you are marketing Redwood as a companion product to forest schools which is a very niche market. I do understand that you are strategically trying to capture first mover advantage within this area but I wonder what is unique about this product that it has to be utilized only for forest schools. My concern here is that there is a greater potential for the market by opening it to all preschools and daycares as a LMS product. It seems that your product streamlines attendance, provides feedback and communication with parents and takes care of administrative tasks which are great, but these are the same tasks that an in-door daycare would still have to do. So why not offer this product to this market as well? The outdoor presence might be a reason why this works particularly well with forest schools but should it be limited to that market only? There are several other LMS products that come to mind that provide some similar functions which include Brightwheels and Seesaw but those have not positioned themselves to be specific to forest schools. I think you have done well in branding the product and molding the correct image and representation for the market you are trying to enter. The website is clear, succinct and to the point. I would have liked a little more information as to why the target was forest schools and a little more about the pricing model. There was a revenue table provided but I was a little unclear if schools purchase this product as a one-time purchase and monthly subscription or is it simply monthly subscription. Overall, I enjoyed learning about this product and forest schools.