The E-Bit. Ed-Tech Redefined.

Hi Stephen, I like the concept behind E-Bit and was impressed by how professional and comprehensive your pitch and your site were. I see a lot of potential for wearables in schools, but like other reviewers, things like price per student, privacy, and your market projections all went up a little red flags for me, but since I have no business background, I have to couch my thoughts on whether the pricing or projections are appropriate. Sure, privacy is an issue -- but this issue exists for all wearables and all student-carried devices, so it's not a major deterrent in my mind. My biggest concern for E-Bit's success is generating the "buy in" for students and teachers. The E-Bit's competition may not have all the same features or capabilities, but when I think about my sassy, too-cool-for-school Grade 6 students, I just CANNOT imagine any student (or teacher for that matter) that is going to get excited about wearing a device that is purely school-related. The "cool factor" simply isn't there. One thought would be to consider transforming the concept behind E-Bit into an app that can be loaded onto other, more desirable, wearables, but in its current model, I personally wouldn't be interested in investing. i

Hi Stephen, Very interesting idea that you presented. I like how you constructed your elevator pitch as well as venture pitch, as both of them show your professionalism and your deep thoughts on the topic. However, while I read through your project, I do feel that as an EVA I can not believe that a new product can generate at lease $22 million revenue. The numbers just don't seem right to me. You have to give a very good explanation on how do you plan to achieve 1% adoption rate. Every idea can be a million dollar idea, but a million dollar idea has to have a decent plan that helps it achieve the revenue target.

Interesting product! Very Orwellian... I'm glad I was not the only one thinking of Big Brother! Fears aside that kids could be tracked 24/7 or that they could swap the device and attend class on behalf of another student (as stated in the venture pitch, students don't need to be in class to respond), I think it could be useful in certain controlled scenarios, like field trips, although except for the gps (or not even!), many of the other features can be performed by a smartphone (camera, microphone, audio, bluetooth, etc). Maybe if the devices are used for special occasions only and are formatted at the end of the day (at the school) people would be more willing to try it? The elevator pitch was clear and well done and the venture pitch was well organized. Good job!

Thank you all for your input. Let me address a few items you have mentioned.

First, many are concerned about the invasive nature of a student basically wearing a tracking device. I knew this myself as I wrote it in. I had conceived the idea of a smartwatch for school and this was a feature I knew it could solve rather easily. If anyone has ever gotten a call from the office looking for a child who was there, but you hadn't put them in the system because they slipped in after you submitted attendance, knows what I am getting at here. Perhaps we could market it as a safety feature. I am sure parents would like to know where their students are throughout the day. Believe me, I share the concerns about privacy and such. Perhaps it can be as simple as turning off location services or just leave the E-Bit in their locker when they leave school, you know, to charge up.

Rodney (rstpierre) makes a good point that pitching hardware is quantitatively different than an app or service. As I read other pitches I was struck by how easily they could be implemented compared to the idea I conceived, one that would be competing with the likes of Apple and Samsung. I am really out of my element here. I chose $150 dollars because it seems reasonable. But the device, as others have mentioned, is perhaps not even technologically feasible at this time and its competitors are selling in the $600 range. Perhaps a lower price point can be achieved by convincing departments of education to subsidize the product, but that is a whole other can of worms.

In the end, Noan hit on the real benefit of my idea. I wanted to think of a way that we could change schools from a class-based environment to a learning community where students roam at their own pace and attend learning experiences at their lesiure. Can a device like the E-Bit initiate a change like that or will it need to begin systemically?

Thanks for all your input and for the great examples you have all set with your own pitches.

Review - Nice venture pitch and elevator pitch focused on a growing market for a cutting edge technology. While I do like it, my first thoughts were ankle bracelet and institutionalization, but the video, audio mapping location tasks make it so much more than that. It seems to offer all of the benefits of classroom polling system, but provided in a wearable format with functionality outside the classroom all with added security to protect student data. It offers students and teachers the convenience of the apple watch. The venture pitch was well structured and thought out. When I first saw the price point I was a skeptical at $150, thinking in a slow growth paradigm where budgets are tight it is difficult to see where a school board will come up with the money, but the forecast is modest at 1% and achievable with a compelling projected profit margin of 35%. The market strategy seems comprehensive – the only piece I would add would be pilot strategy and the development of a user community/faculty advocates that would be willing to speak about your product to other potential users and at conferences. The team outlined seem to have the capability to execute based on their past experience, although they could use a sales component and some project management expertise. While the ask is steep, the 50% return on investment is a good one and as an EVA I would be willing to invest. Great job!

There are some really solid ideas in here. I had a similar idea when I was starting to think about my venture pitch, and was happy I did not pursue it (mine was a lot less sophisticated). I love the application of this in moving away from schools that are based on timeliness and set schedules. With a wearable like this, you could really allow kids to roam and define how they spend their day much more, since things like attendance and tracking what students are up to are automated. My concerns with the venture seemed to be highlighted in other comments... the steep price per student, competition with current guys, and issues with the optics of privacy. I don't doubt that we will see elements of this venture show up in schools in the coming decade though, so good forecasting!

Hello Stephen, I really like the concept of your venture and found both of your pitches well constructed and informative. I will have to agree with the comments below that the privacy issue is a major deterrent for me as an EVA. I have concerns about what companies could do with the data that is collected from a device like this - it is too easy to use this kind of information for commercial purposes. I do feel that the idea is very interesting and could have huge impacts on education and school structure. However the market for wearables is huge and you would be hard-pressed to out-develop giants like Apple and Google.

Hi Stephen, I really enjoyed your pitch and felt the areas you covered on the website were very well researched. The credibility of your pitch was certainly enhanced by your team. A very impressive bunch indeed. There were two concerns that popped out for me as I absorbed your idea. The main concern for me was the permission issue. I see it has been mentioned in the other comments a few times already. As a parent, I would have a large concern about a school making my children wear a device that can track them. I would suspect that lawyers would have something to say about this too. Secondly, the feature-rich device didn't jive with the price you were estimating. While a $150 price point would mostly certainly positively position this product within a competitive market and likely cause some disruption, I am doubtful about the profit margin you'd actually make - if any. In light of that, I would not invest but I did very much enjoy your concept and am left feeling that the kernel of the idea is quite strong. Regards, Esther

Hi Stephen, I like your idea of a wearable technology in the classroom. You do a great job of laying out the benefits of your product and showing how it is differentiated from the competition. I did have some reservations though and much of them had to do with the quantity of features you are planning for the product. You mentioned that you could make calls, have three cameras, a built in microphone, a heart-rate monitor etc - many of these feature are available in the Apple Watch (or other watches of the sort) and so it seems like as this tech becomes more affordable, an app developer might be able to offer your company's features through this platform. I absolutely believe you are on to something but because of the risk involved am hesitant to invest in a company that wants to manufacture hardware.

Hi Stephen, I absolutely think this is an untapped market opportunity! What a cool product. I do think that the cost per item (as highlighted by @rstpierre below), particularly due to the hardware manufacturing cost, is the major barrier to your idea at this time. As an EVA, I think this product has enormous potential: it streamlines teacher's days by sharing administrative information with students (e.g. assignment due dates), attendance etc, it streamlines students experience by saving them time in tracking information directly themselves, and it allows for cool projects like geocaching. Unfortunately in spite of all these benefits I don't think I'd invest because the hardware cost to get this item into schools simply seems like an insurmountable barrier in the current funding climate. If we can barely get texts into schools, I think there is a real barrier for each student in a class to be outfitted with a $600 wearable (this appears to have most of the functions of an Apple Watch, which is where I've pulled that number from), and as such I'm not sure it's scaleable.