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.