Both my elevator and venture pitches can be found at the following website:
http://mijikaieigo.weebly.com
Reflection:
I think that my pitch is very strong and I am actually going to begin by building a large set of Microlessons for my third graders starting in January when I will have finished up my MET studies and actually have the time to do it properly.
Strengths:
A market base of 3.5 million students, most of whom have access to the internet and all of whom study the exactly the same curriculum and take the exactly the same examinations. There are no other applications out there which target this market, it should be rather easy to penetrate this market considering the cost of the app, free.
Ease of development – Microlessons are very easy to design and produce. I expect it to take at most two months of hard work to create a large number of Microlessons matching the units in the textbook.
Distribution – Connecting with the various ALT dispatch companies for JHS teachers, as well as the Eikaiwa should be rather easy. I also expect that word of mouth advertising from students who enjoy using the app to have a major influence.
Weaknesses:
Me… I do not have a background in business and I am not sure that my credentials exude a feeling that someone could trust me with a major investment. If I were to move out with this idea, finding a partner who was more business savvy would be a great idea.
Limited – Its design to hit the specific market of Junior High School students makes it a unique app which has no other competitors as of now, but it does mean that it has limited growth potential.
Additional Reflection: (after comments)
I was asked about my ask, and simply put. There is not one. I do not need any investment. I understand that this is a venture pitch looking for potential investors but in reality, this a project which I can take on 100% by myself with the only investment being my time as I have the necessary skills to build this myself.
To address the issue of potential bullying in the social media aspect of the app, yes middle school is a vulnerable population, but within Japanese culture there is a much greater respect given to students from each other for academic achievement, so I do not feel that bullying will be an issue as much as in a western school setting. In terms of online predators, we will definitely add a password function so that we can try to control and limit those who can access the social media aspect of the app to only middle school students. That said, of course a “report post” function will be necessary, and you have given me a little to think about, and rolling out the social media part of the app might be more complicated than I first thought, and might be better to be added later, after we have already collected a number of students using the app. Once we have enough students using the app, we can add this and use the revenue to hire a few moderators to keep these concerns in line.
In terms of false advertising, we will not be claiming that our app is 17% effective, this is referencing studies done on microlearning in general. We will be able to use our analytics to ask students to anonymously add their test scores into the app, or choose test classes and connect with teachers to see as to the actual effectiveness of the app, and then reference any benefits we learn from our own internal studies. (This could even be part of my future PhD thesis if I find an Educational Psychology program willing to accept me, lol)
