The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Vancouver campus
ETEC 522 – Ventures in Learning Technologies
  • Startup
    • How to Begin?
    • Objectives
    • Course Manual
    • Outline & Schedule
    • Participation Guide
    • Assignments
    • ☛ Introduce Yourself!
    • 👥 Authors
  • W01: Emerging Markets
    • W01: Emerging Market Teams
  • W02-04: Bootcamp
    • Global Dynamics
    • Who is the Customer?
    • What is a Venture?
    • 👥 Opportunity Horizon
    • W03: Analyst Bootcamp
    • A Game with Three Pitches
    • Deconstructing a Pitch
    • 👥 Pitch Critique
    • W04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
    • Venture Genesis
    • Opportunity Activation
    • The Right Stuff
    • 👥 Founders Parade
  • W05-12: Opportunity Forecasts
    • W05: Personalized Learning
    • W06: Mobile Learning
    • W07: Game-Based Learning
    • W08: Big Data & Learning Analytics
    • W09: Immersive Experience
    • W10: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    • W11: Microlearning
    • W12: Wearables
  • W13: Launch
    • Venture Forum Resources
  • Forums
    • W01 – Emerging Markets
    • W02 – Market Projections
    • W03 – Pitch Pool
    • W04 – Founders Parade
    • W05-12 – Opportunity Forecasts (A2)
    • W13 – Venture Forum (A3)
    • Analyst Reports (A1)
  • Global Feeds
    • Announcements
    • Eva’s Café
    • Radio 522
  • LOGIN
Sort By
Show only these categories:
Show only this category:

Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

By rtelford on August 5, 2017

Hello all. I’m excited to share my A3 venture with you!

Last-Dash is a revolutionary new software that combines a robust LMS with powerful student assessment analytics, and a unique and customizable teacher app launchpad-decluttering your tabs and storing all those usernames & passwords for your favourite apps, sites, etc…

Last-Dash is the last dashboard teachers will ever need to buy.

My elevator pitch can be found here: https://youtu.be/F_Zbe3w_Fr4

The full venture pitch is found here: http://lastdash.weebly.com/

Thanks for checking it out, and providing feedback! I’ll be using your input to write my reflection towards the end of the week.

Rob

My reflection

I received a lot of great feedback on my pitch this week, and from this I offer my reflection.

Many questioned the competition in the LMS field and how my price point would differ. While I gave my venture’s price point and pricing system for individuals, and institutions I was unable to find concrete pricing on some of the major LMS players out there already. Blackboard will not publish this detail, you must contact them as an interested institution. Moodle is free but you likely have to buy or rent a server and hire IT support to run it, so they couldn’t give a fixed price point. This was a frustrating part of my research.

Another question that was raised, and that I totally agree I should have addressed, is how I will get permission to ‘plugin’ apps like kahoot, quizlet etc… I thought of it as I did my work, but never got around to investigating it. I imagine Last-Dash would pay a licensing fee and would have to arrange a contract with each of these plugins.

As for my marketing strategy, I was perhaps a little quiet here. I spoke to the 2 main customers being individual teachers, and whole schools/districts. However I didn’t develop a plan for how I would get the word out to bring in new customers.

As for my elevator pitch: I really felt like I should be front and center in this and that it should mimic me having a chat with an investor in an elevator or the hallway. As such I purposely chose not to use graphics or animations (these would be unavailable in person, in an elevator!). Some of the critiques wished I had included more visuals, while others praised my in person, simple conversational style. I found these 2 contradictory opinions interesting, and a testament to the fact that you just can’t please everybody.

In the end, I am still confident that Last-Dash could make a viable venture. If I address a few of the aforementioned details on partnerships, differentiating it from competitors, and marketing strategy, I feel like it would attract investment.

Rating
Average: 3.5/5 Stars
 
 
 
 
 
0 Thumbs Up!

Read More | No Comments

Loading...
12 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Hi Rob, A dashboard that organizes everything into an interactive LMS that goes beyond basic learning management! You sold me at your elevator pitch! Perhaps a breakdown in cost compared to the other major LMS could have been included in your Market Analysis. For example although Moodle is free it does not have features that Last-Dash has. What do you expect will be the return on investment? %? Over how long?

12 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
Janna @jannaldw

Hi Rob, A dashboard that organizes everything into an interactive LMS that goes beyond basic learning management! You sold me at your elevator pitch! Perhaps a breakdown in cost compared to the other major LMS could have been included in your Market Analysis. For example although Moodle is free it does not have features that Last-Dash has. What do you expect will be the return on investment? %? Over how long?

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
11 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

What a great pitch! you really pinned down a painful reality, not only for teachers. I loved the presentation (website) and the idea. Clear, researched and well-delivered. Can I invest now?

11 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
agnieszka weinar @aweinar

What a great pitch! you really pinned down a painful reality, not only for teachers. I loved the presentation (website) and the idea. Clear, researched and well-delivered. Can I invest now?

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
11 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Hello Rob, Great elevator, I think having the founder and the CEO presenting the product. As a teacher, I can tell you that this Venture is needed to organize all tabs and open websites, etc. However, I have some questions regarding integrating all application and websites into your Last-Dash. How would you get the consent of Kahoot, Quizlet (website based activity) into your new software, I think a permission is needed especially that most of these websites are not owned applications or digital media platforms such as Vimeo, Youtube, Khan Academy..etc. Therefore, as an investor, I would like to look into the legality of the sharing other websites and applications. In addition, investors would love to investigate the potential markets within North America and the global market as well. So, my question is who is buying this product? the Individual teachers or the school boards? How much you are charging the individual teachers and the school boards. And my last question is about the competitors. As you mentioned that your Last-Dash is between expensive software and free software which is very good. However, my advice is to get students engaged in this software like a kind of communication between them because from my experience, investor look at students as the potential buyers more than school teachers. However, Last-Dash has good potential to attract investors. Good Luck! G.

11 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
Ghassan @gassgass

Hello Rob, Great elevator, I think having the founder and the CEO presenting the product. As a teacher, I can tell you that this Venture is needed to organize all tabs and open websites, etc. However, I have some questions regarding integrating all application and websites into your Last-Dash. How would you get the consent of Kahoot, Quizlet (website based activity) into your new software, I think a permission is needed especially that most of these websites are not owned applications or digital media platforms such as Vimeo, Youtube, Khan Academy..etc. Therefore, as an investor, I would like to look into the legality of the sharing other websites and applications. In addition, investors would love to investigate the potential markets within North America and the global market as well. So, my question is who is buying this product? the Individual teachers or the school boards? How much you are charging the individual teachers and the school boards. And my last question is about the competitors. As you mentioned that your Last-Dash is between expensive software and free software which is very good. However, my advice is to get students engaged in this software like a kind of communication between them because from my experience, investor look at students as the potential buyers more than school teachers. However, Last-Dash has good potential to attract investors. Good Luck! G.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
9 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Although compelling, I found your elevator pitch dragged on a bit much, and needed a little more energy. Add to that I don't think that the keyhole video you used was the best idea, maybe turn your camera 90 degrees and get that video properly exploiting the widescreen video that is available on youtube. That said, after looking at your website, I can say that I really can go for something like this. It is exactly what educational professionals need to help them keep all their "stuff" in a scheduled and organized manner. I would like to have seen a little more about the marketing aspect, how are you going to get the word out there? How do you think you will be able to attract clients/customers? That said, after my experience with various LMSs out there, anything has to be better than what is available, and it looks like you have come up with something that makes sense. I would most likely invest in this venture, if I had some more capital!

9 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
scott meech @scottty

Although compelling, I found your elevator pitch dragged on a bit much, and needed a little more energy. Add to that I don't think that the keyhole video you used was the best idea, maybe turn your camera 90 degrees and get that video properly exploiting the widescreen video that is available on youtube. That said, after looking at your website, I can say that I really can go for something like this. It is exactly what educational professionals need to help them keep all their "stuff" in a scheduled and organized manner. I would like to have seen a little more about the marketing aspect, how are you going to get the word out there? How do you think you will be able to attract clients/customers? That said, after my experience with various LMSs out there, anything has to be better than what is available, and it looks like you have come up with something that makes sense. I would most likely invest in this venture, if I had some more capital!

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
9 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Rob, your venture puts a new spin on the purpose of LMS, which tend to be student-centred. I would agree with Ryan S. in that it would have been better to see a comparison between Last Dash and newer LMS, which is more widely used now a days. I also am a bit curious about the return of investment. How many users are you anticipating within the 18 months? is that sufficient time? Your venture pitch easy to understand. A sample visual of how the LMS would like would've help in understanding its application. Also, if the LMS is focused on combining information for teachers, how would the LMS support a student's learning experience? Is there a need for that as well. As an EVA, organization of educators apps/systems would help the educators, but my focus is in enhancing the student's learning experience in a cost-effective way. I don't think I would be able to do so, at this point. Further refinement of the LMS would be required. P.S. thank you for the nicely laid out website and in-person elevator pitch. It was well done.

9 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
madeleine lee @madlee

Rob, your venture puts a new spin on the purpose of LMS, which tend to be student-centred. I would agree with Ryan S. in that it would have been better to see a comparison between Last Dash and newer LMS, which is more widely used now a days. I also am a bit curious about the return of investment. How many users are you anticipating within the 18 months? is that sufficient time? Your venture pitch easy to understand. A sample visual of how the LMS would like would've help in understanding its application. Also, if the LMS is focused on combining information for teachers, how would the LMS support a student's learning experience? Is there a need for that as well. As an EVA, organization of educators apps/systems would help the educators, but my focus is in enhancing the student's learning experience in a cost-effective way. I don't think I would be able to do so, at this point. Further refinement of the LMS would be required. P.S. thank you for the nicely laid out website and in-person elevator pitch. It was well done.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
9 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Hi Rob, Great idea for a venture! I'm not a teacher but even in corporate training I can see how this would be useful as I use many different applications and websites each day for training as well as for the development of resources and a dashboard sounds so much cooler than just my favourite tabs. I have some feedback that I think would help improve your pitch. First, it would be great if you could make the elevator pitch more engaging. Maybe go back and forth between you talking and showing screenshots or mockups of what the site would look like - or even just having logos fly in when you talk about the competitors. Just something more to keep your listeners' attention, as it was a little long. I also think you need to focus a bit more in the pitch on appealing to an investor as opposed to selling your product to a teacher. Your website was great. It was very well laid-out. I loved how you included a table that compared Last Dash's features with those of competitors. As an investor though, I feel like I didn't get enough information about how you would be profitable and return my investment. You mentioned but didn't show how they would impact the bottom line. You also promised my investment back within 18 months, which is unusually fast so I just felt like you needed a bit more supporting information. Overall though, awesome job! I really enjoyed learning about your idea.

9 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
stephanie mcginnis @smcginni

Hi Rob, Great idea for a venture! I'm not a teacher but even in corporate training I can see how this would be useful as I use many different applications and websites each day for training as well as for the development of resources and a dashboard sounds so much cooler than just my favourite tabs. I have some feedback that I think would help improve your pitch. First, it would be great if you could make the elevator pitch more engaging. Maybe go back and forth between you talking and showing screenshots or mockups of what the site would look like - or even just having logos fly in when you talk about the competitors. Just something more to keep your listeners' attention, as it was a little long. I also think you need to focus a bit more in the pitch on appealing to an investor as opposed to selling your product to a teacher. Your website was great. It was very well laid-out. I loved how you included a table that compared Last Dash's features with those of competitors. As an investor though, I feel like I didn't get enough information about how you would be profitable and return my investment. You mentioned but didn't show how they would impact the bottom line. You also promised my investment back within 18 months, which is unusually fast so I just felt like you needed a bit more supporting information. Overall though, awesome job! I really enjoyed learning about your idea.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
9 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Wonderful work Rob. I always love coming to a pitch and then finding out: oh, I have this problem, wonderful now theres a solution for it. LIke you mention on your website, there are some similar compeititors out there, but I think you did a wonderful job explaining exactly how you guys differ. I do feel that this is a major issue for us teachers: there is simply too many tabs open on our computers hosting different issues. So I love the solution to this. Your site was easy to navigate and had all the material I would want. It also included answers to all of my questions. My biggest concern as an investor would be the rollout. 18 months seems like a long time to see a return, and the rollout itself takes quite a bit of time to actually begin (beta testing etc). I wonder if the product would work if there was already something more tangible for an investor to see. Other than that, wonderful stuff Rob! Thank you for your idea.

9 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
ali hodroje @ahodaire

Wonderful work Rob. I always love coming to a pitch and then finding out: oh, I have this problem, wonderful now theres a solution for it. LIke you mention on your website, there are some similar compeititors out there, but I think you did a wonderful job explaining exactly how you guys differ. I do feel that this is a major issue for us teachers: there is simply too many tabs open on our computers hosting different issues. So I love the solution to this. Your site was easy to navigate and had all the material I would want. It also included answers to all of my questions. My biggest concern as an investor would be the rollout. 18 months seems like a long time to see a return, and the rollout itself takes quite a bit of time to actually begin (beta testing etc). I wonder if the product would work if there was already something more tangible for an investor to see. Other than that, wonderful stuff Rob! Thank you for your idea.

  • Expand
  • 1 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
9 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

Hi Rob, Your website was easy to navigate from start to finish in a very timely manner. It also offers potential investors a good view of one of teachers biggest pain points: the overload of possible solutions we are being offered on a daily basis. I think your plan to build an LMS that gives teachers the creative control to manage the apps they use is brilliant. I use Edsby as our school LMS, but it sits in the background for most of the day as I shift from learning app to storage app to email throughout the day. Although the LMS market is filled with well established companies, I think a smaller company in the start-up phase can be nimble and move quickly in new directions as it finds its niche. Dashboard sounds like the type of LMS that can adapt to the ever changing list of apps we want without trying to be the best email software or micro-learning site. I think your data management pain point was clearly set out at the start, but I din’t see a lot of solution to this problem in the Dashboard LMS outline. I think Dashboard should stick to the framework and allow the rest of the community to design and build the things that make your platform such a customizable LMS. As an EVA, I would recommend this investment.

9 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
Ryan Dorey @rdorey

Hi Rob, Your website was easy to navigate from start to finish in a very timely manner. It also offers potential investors a good view of one of teachers biggest pain points: the overload of possible solutions we are being offered on a daily basis. I think your plan to build an LMS that gives teachers the creative control to manage the apps they use is brilliant. I use Edsby as our school LMS, but it sits in the background for most of the day as I shift from learning app to storage app to email throughout the day. Although the LMS market is filled with well established companies, I think a smaller company in the start-up phase can be nimble and move quickly in new directions as it finds its niche. Dashboard sounds like the type of LMS that can adapt to the ever changing list of apps we want without trying to be the best email software or micro-learning site. I think your data management pain point was clearly set out at the start, but I din’t see a lot of solution to this problem in the Dashboard LMS outline. I think Dashboard should stick to the framework and allow the rest of the community to design and build the things that make your platform such a customizable LMS. As an EVA, I would recommend this investment.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
  • venture pitch review
7 Aug Posted on Last-Dash teacher Dashboard

FEEDBACK: This is a great pitch, and presents a compelling solution to many pain-points of LMS software. I love the Mr. Robot references in your venture’s team; with the skills of your ‘white-hat’ (love it) engineer, I think you definitely would have an edge on your competition. I think to improve it further, you need to examine newer LMS competition such as Canvas, Desire2Learn, and EdX that are starting to challenge Blackboard and Moodle for market share. These new platforms have nearly all of the same features you are promising for LastDash, and have a strong and established presence in the market. Canvas in particular is built using the “Ruby on Rails” programming language, enabling seamless app and plug-in integration for numerous features and external products, including assessment analytics and automated (AI) tasks (https://www.canvaslms.com/higher-education/features).

7 Aug
0 Thumbs Up!
Ryan Stotesbury @stotes

FEEDBACK: This is a great pitch, and presents a compelling solution to many pain-points of LMS software. I love the Mr. Robot references in your venture’s team; with the skills of your ‘white-hat’ (love it) engineer, I think you definitely would have an edge on your competition. I think to improve it further, you need to examine newer LMS competition such as Canvas, Desire2Learn, and EdX that are starting to challenge Blackboard and Moodle for market share. These new platforms have nearly all of the same features you are promising for LastDash, and have a strong and established presence in the market. Canvas in particular is built using the “Ruby on Rails” programming language, enabling seamless app and plug-in integration for numerous features and external products, including assessment analytics and automated (AI) tasks (https://www.canvaslms.com/higher-education/features).

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Last-Dash teacher Dashboard
  • Loading...
  • Previous
  • Next
Show only this category:
How to Begin

Custom Search

Tags

2014 2015 2016

Faculty of Education
Vancouver Campus
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4
Website pdce.educ.ubc.ca/
Email pdce.educ@ubc.ca
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility