Soaring Compass Points

Hi Cole, not being a teacher, I am not familiar with the curriculum in BC (or anywhere in Canada!), but the fact that is a publishing company sounds interesting. You being the primary author for the K-12 spectrum sounds like a lot of work, though! Also, the possible conflict of interest you mention with the Teachers Federation is not to be taken lightly. Those are things that could make an investor think twice about going ahead with this venture. Having said that, if you manage to go beyond that point, it may be fine.

Hi Cole, Soaring Compass Points presents a very interesting proposition. I do have some concerns after watching your pitches and reading through your content as to why this gap exists in the first place -- is it a matter of it not being a lucrative enough endeavour for other publishing companies? This would be something I'd be curious to know more about before investing. As a teacher in Ontario, I know that we really struggle to find textbooks to meet our needs -- both for Ontario Social Studies and Ontario Science curriculum so I think there is certainly a market here that SCP could expand into, as well. With that in mind, I agree with the others that your ask - $10K - seems very, very low for a venture of this scale. Even if that is enough, as an investor, I'd want to know more about how those funds will be used to get SCP going. Thanks for sharing!

Feedback - from the outset I was skeptical of the idea of a small publishing company that is primarily print based given that large publishers are desperately trying to transition to digital, however, I think you have a identified a niche market where print can still survive provided that you product is pitched at the right price point. I have a publisher friend who used to be the President of Oxford Press Canada – he left and started his own boutique publisher with texts geared towards upper level courses that are fairly well priced. Also, Taylor & Francis publish over 6800 books a year with a very small digital footprint. SoaringCompass seems to be along these same lines and also has a significant digital footprint. Interesting note about workbooks – Pearson may now be interested in workbooks – the workbook style format is catching on in the Ontario community colleges…Good job!

Hi Cole! Thank you for sharing your real-life venture pitch with us! Like the others have commented, your passion on this venture is readily apparent. I appreciate that your ideas do not focus solely on textbooks and incorporate other methods and modes of learning. Textbooks are gradually disappearing from our schools as technology, inquiry, problem, and project-based learning become more popular. In terms of your target market, certainly Canada has a population of over 36.2 million, but your actual market would be Canadian K-12 schools which would be substantially smaller. As well, I'm not an expert EVA, but I don't think a $10,000 investment would be enough to start a small publishing company. Anyhow, thanks again for your pitch!

Hi Cole, You are full of passion in presenting your venture! It is always great to start a business that you you know you are gonna love it! I like how you combine e-text book concept with social studies curriculum, which must be very appealing to an EVA. However, I do have problem in justifying your target market. As you have mentioned, there is no official textbook for social studies, and I would like to know why exactly, from an EVA perspective. You might need to justify a bit more why would district schools may want to buy social studies books from SCP now. By doing so, you can help an EVA to understand why digital social study textbook is a promising market in BC.

Hi Cole, Your enthusiasm for your venture certainly shines through in your pitches. I know very little about the BC curriculum, but am very interest in digital publishing as an industry of opportunity. It is great that you got the opportunity to work on a project with the Pearson gang, although I keen to understand how a statement about there being “no market in workbooks” from a Pearson rep. resulted in you seeing an opportunity. I’m sure there’s a good story in there. There are a few areas that left me with some questions, if I may. > I am keen to understand your marketing and distribution strategy. How would you get your content to the students? > You mention publishing through iTunesU, offering ppt.’s on your site, but you also touch on apps. Having been a producer on a number of app development, I think your $10K ask is a bit low. The expertise to develop apps is much more specialized that web publications and you will need more money to create and maintain a custom application. > In terms of content creation, are you the only author? Will there be artists or photographers employed also? Will you hire a publication layout artist? As an investor, I would be looking carefully at the quality of the publications, so hiring experts is often advisable. Thanks for sharing your venture idea. I look forward to seeing where you take it. Regards, Esther

Hi Cole, Thank you so much for sharing this venture! This one was particularly interesting for me as I am working with our BEd program to find resources to support the new social studies curriculum in BC (both primary and secondary) and this year has been a real challenge. I agree with you that so many teachers will feel a need for Canadian-made content on this topic, particularly newer and less experienced teachers. You have done a good job addressing an identified need, and differentiating yourself from the (non-existing!) market. I agree with others who have indicated you might have a conflict of interest with the board and your interest in being the primary developer of the content, and I believe this may be the major weakness of your pitch - having one person writing and presenting content is problematic, and likely to present a limited scope, no matter how careful one is to address breadth. All this being said, I'm not sure this is strictly an educational venture or an opportunity to contract privately with the province or a particular school division. Many instructors will be happy with their existing resources (from earlier curricula) and other schools will not have the funding to purchase such a package.

FEEDBACK (thanks to Dan for pointing out the actual instructions, yours is the first reference I have seen to them and judging by the earlier posts on the places I have reviewed already--five--many others have missed them too..): Cole, Teachers who are not excited by the freedom from textbooks that the new BC curriculum allows will be attracted to your product but I believe that they are a shrinking market. Perhaps offering units both ways, a) as a complete resource for the whole year AND b) as "a-la-carte" sections for individual download will allow you to get both the traditional textbook teachers who need a resource for the new curriculum as well as the new-school teachers who need a quick section or two to supplement the resources they have built up on their own. When it comes to conflicts of interest your roles with the school board, the union and with the other commercial concern you represent might come into conflict if they have not already so you might have to step away from one or more as SCP approaches profitability.

REVIEW: (Reposted to meet week 13 guidelines...need to read instructions)Hi Cole, I was unaware that BC did not have a social studies resource. Going through school in Alberta there was always a textbook for each subject. As a non-social studies teacher, your product is appealing to me. I would love to have a full program ready to go if I found myself in this subject. As an investor, the printing industry scares me. Print resources have thin margins and return would likely be small for me. I think that you might have more success looking aiming for a provincial contract to produce your resources rather than a venture investment. Being the standard resource will give you the wide distribution you will need to cash in and will give you the credibility you would need to expand to other provinces. I do wonder about the intellectual property rights as I'm assuming these were developed while you were employed by your school board. They might have a case for claiming this as their work product as you developed it for them while on contract. This would definitely need to be run past a very good intellectual property lawyer to prevent issues. Bottom Line: As a Ministry of Ed buyer, I would want to see some more samples of your work. Your foot is in the door, provided intellectual property issues are cleared up, and I would move forward to the business plan stage.

Hi Cole, I was unaware that BC did not have a social studies resource. Going through school in Alberta there was always a textbook for each subject. As a non-social studies teacher, your product is appealing to me. I would love to have a full program ready to go if I found myself in this subject. As an investor, the printing industry scares me. Print resources have thin margins and return would likely be small for me. I think that you might have more success looking aiming for a provincial contract to produce your resources rather than a venture investment. Being the standard resource will give you the wide distribution you will need to cash in and will give you the credibility you would need to expand to other provinces. I do wonder about the intellectual property rights as I'm assuming these were developed while you were employed by your school board. They might have a case for claiming this as their work product as you developed it for them while on contract. This would definitely need to be run past a very good intellectual property lawyer to prevent issues.