The Learning Box – A venture pitch

Hi Ryan! Thank you for sharing your unique venture with us! I appreciated the unique format that you used for your venture pitch. Your elevator pitch was detailed and had me wanting to learn more. One of my suggestions would be to continue the voiceover throughout the entire pitch. By hearing your voice we are able to hear the passion you have for your product and focus on the information as opposed to trying to keep up with reading the screen. Is the picture in your elevator pitch the exact learning box that will arrive monthly? You stated that consumers would receive one once a month. What changes month to month? Are the consumers individual house holds, classrooms or schools? I would need some more details before I was able to invest.

FEEDBACK – Ryan, your pitch is quite detailed, and your presentation is visually appealing. You identify the pain point, and you state how your product would address the problem. Your pitch would benefit from increased detail about the subscription (what it offers, how much it costs, etc.) if the ongoing support is what separates The Learning Box from the rest of the competition.

The concept is easy to understand seems interesting and I can see the value for the end users however it's difficult to understand what is in this for an investor (VC). I don't love the format as it seems a little busy and more customer focussed. What prevents me from buying the materials off the shelf? Is the consulting and ongoing support the differentiator and if so what does that entail? Is there a cap to the number of hours of support? If it costs you $200 to procure the materials and are selling it for $399 then the $200 of extra value should be explained more. Why is the growth of the subscription boxes like a hockey stick? What explains that? A valuable initiative but need more business input before considering an investment,

REVIEW Hi Ryan, I know it's been said before, but that was an awesome elevator pitch. I think you really worked hard to streamlined your message to increase the impact. Also how you focussed on teachers in describing the problem -growing up in a non-maker era, not having the skills, and not having the time. I also really appreciated your choices with the background music; not just that it was energetic and happy, but by having the problem stated without the 'mood' music and then having the music start when the solution was presented. It was really effective in setting the mood and making me want to know more. Plus your tone and voice really set a good tone also. The Piktochart was also a great choice for your presentation. It presents as quick, to the point, with all the information I would want as an EVA. Your pain point and solution are really clear and well presented, I clearly understood what the product was. As an EVA what I would have liked to know more about the market share/size and trends are in relation to your venture. I know from the OER how great the market is but your EVAs may not. The other question I had as an EVA was what my return on my investment would be. You've done a good job in differentiating yourself from other maker kit ventures on the market; in fact, I would really stress the training, professional development, and support as it relates back to your pain point so well. Linking The Learning Box to passion projects about global issues and then creating a community with a yearly issue challenge is also such a great way to differentiate yourself in the market. So I would really stress that point about your venture. I think that's your hook. I thought your about me section was fun and so in tune with the rest of your presentation especially the part about taking apart your parent's toaster. A great sense of humour always works well in presentations. An EVA may want to know more about your credentials; your so accomplished with those degrees that a few lines with each may add to your presentation. Plus I want to hear about the 30 robots you've built, now that's a qualification :-) Overall great elevator pitch and venture pitch, as an EVA I would definitely invest in your venture. Eva

The elevator pitch was great, you hooked me with your enthusiastic voice/approach, and I "got" the idea right away. Your venture pitch was well polished and on point, and the graphic design made me feel the happy, playful vibe of your venture.. I also liked the yearly challenge you're aiming to hold, and I think this will help to foment ongoing interest in the venture from subscribed teachers. Are schools the ones that will be paying for the subscriptions to the box? In light of our austerity-driven era, I'd like to know more about how you'll pitch the idea to this client base (if they are the client base), and perhaps how we could approach parents as a driving force in regards to getting schools on board.

Ryan, I wanted to start by saying that I really like all the clever little taglines you've come up with to market you're product, such as "Making Spaces That Build Passion" and "Build, Share, Learn". It shows that you've really thought through how to best present your product. I think providing support to teachers and creating an online community space to post projects makes your box stand-out. However, in your elevator pitch, you state that the Learning Box will arrive monthly. In your venture pitch, there is no mention of this monthly subscription idea, so I'm a bit confused by the discrepancy. The start-up box seems great (although the number of some of the items might need adjusting), but what are in the follow-up boxes? Replacements for previous components or entirely new ones? You've provided a price for the start-up box, but not the monthly ones. As an investor, I would need clarification for this discrepancy before committing to The Learning Box.

FEEDBACK: Great pitch, Ryan! I’m excited to see you took the emerging Maker movement and angled your pitch to help satisfy growing demand in the market. One of my strongest convictions in my teaching philosophy is the importance and power of learning from mistakes, and I think you identified one of the key educational benefits of a maker centered venture. Justin made some excellent comments regarding marketing and social media that I agree with; taking advantage of the movement’s social nature via online communities is a surefire way for free marketing success! I think the small-scale ‘start-up’ box is a good way to get your foot in the door into schools interested in starting maker movements; to pique investor interest even further, consider adding some more ‘box’ kits that will follow your initial cedar-box. As a teacher, I am interested in the kit you are offering, however as an investor, I’d be curious as to what kits will follow, and your strategy in keeping the business sustainable once you’ve shipped your initial targets on the ‘start-up boxes’. I love the ‘mobile gurus’ idea – as your venture scales with more and more subscriptions, consider a plan for the logistics of shipping / transporting new kits to your subscriber-base or an alternative to shipping (especially heavy wood boxes): my suggestion is to create a ‘home-base’ makerspace where your customers can pick-up their monthly kits while getting support and workshops, saving you on the costs and logistics of shipping while providing a place to attract ‘drop-in’ customers who may not be ready to commit to your product without testing and tinkering first. Great work, Ryan!

Ryan– I find the “do it for me” era is passed down from teachers to a certain extent. Think about how many times a teacher may go online to find a tool rather than just making it themselves (and even when making it themselves is probably faster!) The Learning Box takes away the pain point of how do you start your makerspace. By removing this first (and important) obstacle, the space can then begin to grow. It is also important that you include the larger global issue tie in for international mindedness within the classroom. Also, your marketing of having box gurus and LB bloggers promote the product is very similar to what sports companies are doing with Instagram members to support their brands, and it works really well. I also find that you have isolated yourself from the competition, and that you will have online community supports to help those implementing maker spaces. As in investor, I would be curious to know how much these initial boxes would sell for, and how you would upsell and add on to customers as they begin to expand their makerspaces? Would you have a further marketplace to retain your customers so that they would continue to buy products through you? Great pitch, and with the answers to the previous questions, I would definitely invest in your venture.

Hi Ryan, I enjoyed your pitch very much. The visuals were great and it wasn't too text heavy. I have some notes on your venture though, that I hope can help if you are taking it to the next level. First, I think you have differentiated your product quite well. I particularly appreciate the emphasis on design thinking and the annual challenge and blog. Those are great features. For the design thinking though, you mention that students could use the kit to to design a solution to a problem related to water. It would be helpful if you included an example of what that might look like. Having little experience with the products in the kit, I am struggling to imagine it. Also, it would be nice to see examples of how this could look across different grades. The functionality of the challenges could be a big selling point to teachers that lack experience with teaching design thinking in the makerspace so I think it's worth elaborating on. RE the kit itself, I right away wondered why the cedar box was important. Your kit is not related to woodworking in any way, and the handcrafted box seems like it necessarily adds cost to what is probably already a costly investment for schools. Also, consider dropping the whiteboards. Virtually every classroom already has multiple whiteboards. This is another item adding unnecessary costs. Where you might consider beefing up the kit is in the number of each item. If the kit is to be used by a class, will two of some items be enough? Will six (solar car, terrarium) sets be enough? For a class of 28, that's almost five students in a group. Is that optimal? My experience with kits like this is that schools (not individual teachers) tend to purchase them and then teachers take turns using them. The kit itself has to be substantial enough that teachers don’t have management issues around giant teams and too little equipment. Also, could you offer regular things in subscription format to supplement the initial box (ongoing projects, new components, etc.)? You use the word subscription in your pitch, but I don't see what that looks like. RE professional development etc: it would be nice to know more about this piece. Does it come at an additional cost? How much pro-d and class support comes with the kit? RE, your team: the information on you is helpful, but it would be good to know more about your team. Finally, RE cost and ask: there wasn't specific info related to dollar costs of the item or the investment ask, so I can't speak to it. Thanks for sharing your venture idea, Ryan. I believe it has a lot of potential. The differentiation you offer adds great value to the makerspace kit ideas already out there, and I hope that you plan to move this idea forward.

Ryan - thanks so much for this very informative elevator and venture pitch. Your enthusiasm is evident in both. This seems like a no-brainer to me. If a teacher was setting up a Makerspace, why wouldn’t they want to subscribe to a service such as yours? I think the biggest sell is the ongoing support that you would provide! What media platform would you be thinking of using? The visual layout of your presentation is appealing and the little extra graphics are quite effective. The page with your personal information was really helpful for me - it’s always nice to know that you’re investing with a real person and not just a numbered company! You’ve definitely nailed the concept and the marketability, the only thing I think investors would want to see would be a personal pitch where they could get a stronger sense of your characteristics in order to help them decide in favour of this venture. Very exciting though...I think you've got a great idea.