Akwire: A Revolutionary Way to Learn Languages

FEEDBACK: Hi Rodney, what an excellent pitch idea! This was the most professional and well executed elevator pitch I have seen. As someone who has difficulty learning new languages, this is definitely a product I would be interested in as a customer. The need you are filling is very clear, and while the solution is complex the problem is simple. Great job!

REVIEW: Rodney, as a language teacher with a linguistics and second language teaching background, this was a very exciting venture. Your elevator pitch was extremely professional and engaging. By the end, I was compelled to read the longer venture pitch. The idea is futuristic and merges 3 huge emerging markets, which is very ambitious. As an EVA with a language background, however, one area that I'm concerned about is that you don't address different ages of learners. There are important disparities between how adults, young children, children over 8, adolescents, etc. learn language. While I agree that one's native language is "absorbed" (as the brain makes sense of language rules and codes these, creating a base for other languages to be acquired), and immersion is a critical feature of learning, the virtual reality environment removes elements of "risk" which is certainly an obstacle for older language learners something younger children who learn languages with ease really don't contend with. That being said, this wouldn't necessarily stop me from investing, but I would want to see some discussion of the pedagogical benefits re: different aged learners. I was really impressed by the thoroughness of your venture pitch. I think your timeline is helpful but the growth from 500 to half a million users isn't really explained. That's a huge growth so I would be keen to know more about specifically how you plan to achieve that growth. (I can infer based on your team, etc. but I'd want to be "convinced"). Great work!

Review: Hello rstpierre. I thoroughly enjoyed your elevator pitch and it encouraged me to go further and learn more about Akwire in your venture pitch. I thought your voice was great, and the animation you used supported your venture well. I also thought the storyboard behind the elevator pitch was well executed. My only complaint is that in the graphic you showed for learning Japanese, the writing on most of billboards was actually Chinese. I liked the organization of your venture pitch and I thought that it did a good job in discussing the pain points, what your application is, and some of the lacking features of your competitors. I believe you have a sound plan in place for the future of Akwire. As an EVA, I find it difficult at the current time to place an investment in Akwire solely because there is no evidence that AR, VR, and adaptive learning is mature enough to make Akwire come to life the way you have envisioned it. Akwire reminds me of the Holodeck experience from Star Trek, and I think we are currently many years away from making something that resembles that type of technology. The concept is sound however, and in the future once there is a clear evidence that the available technology could make Akwire a possibility, I would not hesitate to invest.

Rodney, it seems like everyone is saying the same thing, but that elevator pitch was the best I've seen so far - I thought I was watching an actual commercial it was that professional! Also as a language teacher by trade for over the past decade in Japan alone, I think its an interesting concept, but I'm not so sure I would invest (from the perspective of my current location and teaching environment). VR is not picking up whatsoever here, and although you do compare your competition with the services you provide, I feel that your time line is a little generous and that it will take much more work to get Akwire up and running. My biggest concern is what other things might come up (newer technologies, other rivals) in the R&D time that might have a one-up on Akwire as well. But personally speaking, I would love to try this with my students here in Japan someday if it ever becomes a reality (both as a venture and as a concept that my college would allow)! Very professional and amazing work!

Rodney I agree with claychri that you have the perfect voice for narration and you have done a fantastic job of narrating this elevator pitch. I am clear on your idea and very interested in reading the venture pitch by the end of the 1 minute overview. The venture pitch document is easy to read and well supported with graphics and tables and references. I have a few comments and questions for you on the product. The first is around your target market. You list youth and adults as the main target but I think seniors would also be a great group to work with as research shows that learning a language can mitigate, delay and even prevent the onset of dementia and alzheimers disease ( http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/06June/Pages/Learning-second-language-slows-brain-ageing.aspx). Your application would make language learning accessible, fun and without worry of travel or embarassment for learners who may be hard of hearing or need some assistance or repetition of words and phrases to practice their language skills. The second comment is around the focus on visual and verbal or audio learning. For other types of learners (myself included here) a textual reinforcement or self assessment quiz and perhaps even a comprehension test would really be helpful to ensure the concepts and phrases are understood. Also, when I learned to speak spanish, I found the understanding and review of grammar and verbs to be essential to my ability to adapt and respond my conversation to tense, situation and context of my interactions with others. I don't think this would be hard to add and the addition of this element leads to my next comment on your product versus something like Second Life. I could go into Second Life and do much of what you are offering for free and travel around to different cities conversing with people who speak the language and who may be able to adapt and assist me as a person rather than as an algorithm making misunderstandings and conversations easier because they can be worked out by two people or a group of people rather than a computer which may and still does have limited ability to respond. The difference would be the option to reinforce my learning with ESL training on language structure, verb usage and textual training materials. Here is where I think what you offer is much stronger than the other competitors....you can build in the training and use all the ESL tools that exist with a VR environment creating the best of two worlds. Overall, this was a great presentation and a very good idea.

Rodney, you have the perfect voice for narration. Your elevator pitch is interesting. I like the high contrast and simplicity. It is very effective. Your idea is excellent. The best way to learn languages is to be immersed in the culture, speaking to locals. However, mistakes can be embarrassing and travel is not always possible. This product is an excellent way to gain practice. It is very forward thinking to merge gamification with alternative reality and language acquisition. Your venture pitch is very well done. I appreciate how you have shown your competitors and market plan. I particularly liked the table that you used to compare your competitors. Well done!

I thought this was a very interesting venture. Excellent elevator pitch and product description. The work you did reviewing competition made it very easy to see the viability in this idea and helps potential investors understand the market with ease. The gamification and real world elements used in this idea make it one that I can see great value in. Who wouldn't want to practice their French by ordering coffee in a shop in Paris? This product would help language learners get over their nerves and apprehension towards trying out their newly formed skills in the real world. I think your business growth projections are a little unrealistic, but that being said, if this venture did take off those numbers could come to fruition. Great job!

You have a wonderful narrating voice in the elevator pitch. It captures my attention. The payment plan distribution is a great concept. I believe offering free services to try out the service is a great way to bring in clientele. This is a great idea combining virtual reality with oral based speech recognition and I can see the potential in using this in an educational classroom or as an individual user. I do wonder, the interaction is based with simply the in-game characters. Could there be some possibility of having users interact with other users within the same world? I think that interaction and collaboration in some manner are important pieces when creating a virtual world environment for learning. In addition to just the game proving them with a score or technical reason as to why they have not answered properly, people can assist one another and point out observations. The idea itself, is very clear and well laid out. I particularly like the way the chart has gone through to evaluate different virtual language learning environments. Great job.

Hi Rodney, first off... you have the exact voice needed to make these types of videos. I am impressed! Great graphic design skills as well... the look was very professional. 

As a venture, I really like that you have combined many of the emerging concepts that are coming to market these days. The use of VR and deep learning seems like something that will no doubt come around, and when it does there will be a short leap into creating something in the education market. The pitch you created showed a lot of potential, and made me want to read deeper into the venture pitch. 

Now, a couple thoughts came to mind as I read through your pitch. First off, this venture seemed like it was entering an area where competition was already fairly stiff. The established ones certainly did not have all the great features that Akwire would have, but from an investor standpoint I would be wary of going with a new venture in this field rather than a modification of one of the existing ventures. I would propose that for Akwire to fly, you could leverage a platform like Second Life (after all, one of their lead developers is on your team) and modify it to come to market faster. Many examples of GBL have done so, such as Minecraft EDU, Simcity EDU, and Kerbal Space Program EDU. I would suggest going on this route. 

Another thought was that perhaps a system like Busuu.com where you leverage language learners first language could help in creating a more authentic experience. Maybe part of Akwire would be to role play in the game, while another aspect is playing out the game? 

For these reasons, I would hesitate to invest in Akwire. That said, the presentation was top notch!

Hi Rodney,

As a language teacher your venture caught my interest, clever company name too! However, my interest was held because you made a compelling case for your venture.

I thought your video pitch was excellent, great tone, professional. It was very sales and marketing oriented, which got me hooked. I wonder though if for a venture pitch you should sell who 'you' are. An investor might want to get to know you, and trust your expertise that this venture will thrive.

Great introduction to the problem of F2F traditional classrooms not being natural language environments. I think your solution is really forward thinking and brings together tools that I also believe we will be seeing commercialized for language learning - VR, AI, speech recognition.

I must admit as a language instructor, I am becoming more and more cautious about behind the scenes 'algorithms', especially for learning. However, I think you provided an explanation for how adaptive scenarios will be created on data input. Going forward for institutional subscriptions it might be good to market how these behind the scenes decisions support spiralling language in different contexts.

Really liked how you set up the Investment and ROI section with projected forecasts of users. I don't think you are far off either with your aggressive projections of subscriptions. I remember Live Mocha when it first started, they had incredible increases in membership, I believe the same for Duolingo and Buusu. If your product is liked, it will be liked in a big way amongst language learners. I did want to see in your comparison chart of your competitors, where Akwire fit in that chart, comparatively.

Great work Rodney!

Sincerely,

Briar