Learngevity

Hi Stephanie. Thank you for a detailed venture pitch that brought a personal and clear direction about the purpose. Your main reason for the app is to address the changing need of future employees 'millennial' in favouring professional development vs financial incentives. This is a concept that is probably harder to sell investors, understanding of a different generation. Your venture may benefit from showing research or examples of how this generation is different from current or past employees. The differentiation would better justify the need for such a product. I do appreciate the analysis and comparison of current competitors. Learngevity has the main features but is continuously updating to meet the technological changes. Incorporating social media and a peer-tracking/competition incentive similar to fit bits. The product is ready to launch, but how will it evolve in the next 5-10 years. Expand beyond financial sectors? I would be interested in learning more about this ventures plans and confidently invest in its future.

Hi Stephanie! Thank you for sharing your new venture with us. I appreciated your method of communicating your pitches as it really demonstrated your passion for this venture. I really enjoyed your elevator pitch. You provided details that were relatable while also positioning yourself as an experienced professional who is ready to head this venture. This is a venture that is relatable to a wide range of markets, including education. You have identified and discussed the potential competitors while explaining the weaknesses of these ventures and how Learngevity offers specific products that pulls it ahead. After listening to your videos, it would seem as though you are ready to enter the market and launch. In order to feel fully confident in investing in this product, I would need a more detailed analysis of the state of your venture. How much longer until it is ready for market? What are your plans for after it hits markets? How are you going to market this product? Overall, this was a very compelling product and I can see great things for it in the future!

FEEDBACK: Yesterday, I was out with a friend of mine. Driving in her car, it had a whole series of 'features'. It told her when she was wandering out of her lane, when someone was in her blindspot, when she was driving a little 'fast', etc. etc. She had just purchased the car and she mentioned that it felts a little bit like the car was driving her with all the warnings rather than her driving the car. Later in the day, we were sitting on a picnic blanket in the park chatting when she looked at her apple watch and said she needed to stand up, as her watch was telling her she had been inactive for too long. She stood up and suggested we go for a short walk. I laughed and asked her if her watch was also driving her like her car was? Later in the day, I got an email from my thermostat giving me some advice on how I could lower my heating/cooling costs. What I noticed yesterday is that more and more the technology we use, computers, cars, home thermastat, etc. are 'driving' us with both positive and negative reinforcements (positive in terms of her getting a congratulations from her phone for standing up, and negative in terms of the warning chime going away when she got back into her lane when driving). Your app, seems to fall in line with this idea of 'driving' work place behaviour and training through similar types of reinforcements. The difficulty in a coroporate setting is how to get employee buy-in. With my examples, My friend and I spent quite a lot of money on the technology that is telling us what to do, yet in a corporate setting there is no buy-in for the employees. I know that insurance companies are getting around this by giving discounts to customers who accept a driving monitor into their car so that the customers have buy-in to the device that pushes them to drive in a 'safer' manner. I wonder if an employee could offer incentives or some other 'volunteer' aspect to using a product like this so that employees buy-in and are therefore more invested, but not penalized for opting-out. If the incentive is high enough, and the service is gratifying, helpful and seen as non-punitive, then others will buy-in out of peer pressure/following the early adopters example.

REVIEW Hi Stephanie, Really well-done pitches, I was drawn in engaged with both of them. I think the video format works really well for you. It highlights exactly what you say in your 'about me' section, you say it and then prove it with professional engaging videos. As a potential investor that catches my attention. I think you have a strong description of your product which seems well tough out and organized. You've covered market trends and marketability. What I would really like to know as an investor is market readiness. It's great you have the beta testing (pilot companies) set up, and I like the part about turning them into champions. However, before I invest I would need to know how much time you need to create the app, test it, and get it out to market. If I gave you the money today, would my 5 year ROI be from today? The one thing that does have me a bit concerned was the competitors, they sound quite strong. That might be the one stumbling block for investors You did well differentiating your product from them. I would really both work hard on the differentiation of your product and then really emphasize that in your pitch. What I really noticed is the great name for the product. It is catchy, memorable, and implies all the things I want in an investment - longevity, stability… Nicely done. I also think that it is a real strength that you and the team are going with what you know well first, then expanding. Let me know when you expand to post secondary institutions and faculty development. :-) As an EVA I would both invest and recommend Learngevity. Eva

This is a good idea and you got me hooked. It speaks to my personal experiences as an employee in a big organisation several years ago, where outside training was recognized but in a definitely less hip way. Your presentation (I read it, I did not watch the video, because I prefer written documents) is clear and well structured. You covered all main points and questions I might have, it is really amazing. I am hooked and I want to know more details. I would invest in this venture.

Hi Stephanie, great elevator pitch, you definitely hooked me with it, and it succinctly explained the app. Your venture pitch continued strong, and hit all the bases. To be honest, you did a better job explaining your app than I did my own venture, which was quite similar. I'm taking notes for my reflection, haha. It was nice to hear your voice and see your skills at work with your GoAnimate videos as well. The ask seems reasonable due to your prospective clients and partners. From the technical angle, I'm wondering at your xAPI approach, because incorporating disparate sources of learning feedback will be a major undertaking, and one the xAPI/TinCan API community is currently still grappling with. I think your $50,000/year pricetag may be able to meet this challenge, which will see your programmers hard at work to ensure users' experiences are captured. Will you focus on specific websites/apps to start (e.g., YouTube)? Other than that, I'm on board. Good venture pitch!

Hello Stephanie, Very interesting presentation. I was well engaged with both your clips the elevator and the venture too. I loved the way that you presented, organized and structured the information of your product. It was clear that you have a very solid product and a confident team behind this idea.I also, have to high light your educational skills that you have mentioned in your presentation even though you have made it clear that you are targeting the financial sector. As a teacher, we go through many PD days a year. Some of the courses that we take are not what we need as an individual teacher, so we have no say in what we want to be trained in. This is my selling point to this venture. Your Venture hight light the individual need of each employee, to keep track of each course, and create a healthy competition between colleagues for the benefit of the company. So, the concern is how provide you with all of these courses or simply, who is designing your courses?Who deliver these courses? Are you connected with a third party or you and your team do all the work? I am asking because you mentioned that you can join two competitors to your app. So, are you buying their contents or partnering with them. However, great idea and I would be happy to invest in this idea. Great Work. Good Luck. G.

The elevator pitch was a great video, but I really wanted to learn a little more about what the app does to suck me in a little bit more, not too many details but I need a short summary at least. After watching the full venture pitch, I am not 100% sure it is too different from Ed App, that I introduced us to in our OER, and your pricing seems rather similar, (https://www.edapp.com/pricing/). I am also not 100% sure about what the service will be, how will lessons be provided? Who will design the curriculum? Wonderful videos, but I am still not convinced that this is a good venture to invest in, I just need more information.

Hi Stephanie, This was a very easy pitch to take in. I really loved the way you set things up structurally, and the software you used to create this animation. (what is the software called by the way?). I think you are right to target millennial desire to stay ahead of the curve through continually updating their skill set. Learngevity’s biggest asset in my mind is its ability to track all types of learning from Linked-In discussion to a Code Academy course on Javascript. By allowing employers the chance to reward employees for this type of learning, you have created an environment that makes learning much more palatable. Add the fact that learning is less structured and this will increase the passion an employee has for learning a new skill. Soft-skills have also become a big priority for large corporations and I think this is a great combination for micro-learning in your app. I would let Coursera and Lynda tackle the heavier coursework and keep the learning you are offering to something lighter. Great look at the current competition and observation that so many companies need to rebuild their learning structure in the new economy. Excellent list of TEAM players in the finance industry. You have created a well organized pitch with a visual nature that helps investors feel confident in your ability to keep customers hooked on learning using Learngevity.

FEEDBACK Great pitch, Stephanie. I love how you have incorporated several emerging technologies such as personalized learning, gamification, and microlearning as a great way to engage your clients, and as a sure-fire way to increase retention rates and satisfaction with the platform. I think you need to clearly identify exactly what Learngevity is offering / what it does: Is it a tracking system to show what students have learned? Is it an LMS that provides content? Is it a MOOC alternative? A corporate training program? When do the students use it-every day, during professional development, during induction training – further is this to be done at work or at home? You have stiff competition, and each of the 3 competitors you identified all have similar systems of microlearning, gamification/badges, and a myriad of established content and modules. I am a bit skeptical that your competition would agree to using their courses/platform to support recognition of the ‘points’ on your platform; these 3 companies already have ‘digital badge’ systems that encourage their corporate clients to use to share and recognize employee growth, and keeping clients inside the ‘ecosystem’ of their own platforms is in the vested interest of each of these companies.