Steam Education: Video Games and a Sharing Economy

Hi Brian. From a girl who is NOT a video game player, I was thoroughly impressed with your elevator and venture pitch. Your passion for your product is infectious and you addressed important points- pain point, solution, differentiation, marketing, championship, competition, the ask and the return. I was impressed that you were able to fit so much information in your 1 minute elevator pitch, and 8 minute venture pitch, but sometimes I found it difficult to follow along and had to pause and re-watch. In my other course, ETEC 510, we are currently on a module that discusses video games and learning. Something that has been brought up numerous times is your paint point. The inability of educational games to “hook” students like commercial games do. I actually shared the link to your venture pitch, because I think your product hits the nail on the head for this pain point. That being said, while I believe you have a fantastic product, I would not invest in Steam Education because I personally believe it touches on a growing concern in our culture. Not only videogame addiction, but the number of hours youth already spend on technology screen time. Excellent job with both your elevator pitch and venture pitch. I was thoroughly engaged through the whole presentation, but for personal reasons would not invest in your venture.

Terrific! I loved the fast pace of your elevator pitch – got me interested immediately. Of course, it’s so true about educational game play-ability totally missing the boat. I think you really have something here in providing free educational resources alongside quality off the shelf games, plus the points system for buying them through reviews. This is clearly the right point in time to get into this market. Good job getting your partners investors on board already. I also always love to hear about businesses run in an alternative way such as this kind of sharing economy. It’s probably because I am not in k-12 education, but I haven’t seen what it looks like when games and education are synced successfully in the way you describe so might be good to see an example of a successful integration. Great job Brian – so innovative!

Great work Brian. Your enthusiasm is infectious. Your passion really comes through, which as we know is an extremely important thing for a budding venture. You speak well to the things that a venture pitch should hit on, pain point, your concept, the opportunity space and your competitive edge. Love how you are leveraging an already existing content delivery network but are using it in an exciting new way that solves a problem in the education sector. I can definitely see how this would help teachers with engagement. It may have been beneficial to give the investors a strong example of how a popular videogame could be leveraged in curriculum to engage students. Perhaps showing clips from a videogame along with an example of the curriculum information that would accompany it. An example of the package for teachers.

Hi Brian Great venture pitch. You addressed all the important points: pain point, solution, differentiation, marketing, championship, competition, the ask and the return yet still “telling a well-told story” (which is really the whole point of the pitch). I like the way you identified the pain point AND solution early on so that I could have these visions in my head as your presentation continued. It was continually reinforced as I watched your video. My only question is the “results” for the teachers. Time is a very valuable asset for teachers. I’m not a steam user so don’t understand what steam points are – is this a big enough incentive for teachers to contribute their time? I definitely see a value in this as the current educational games on the market are well below the quality of the gaming industry AND if a connection can be made for educational value in playing these games (something SOOOO many students are doing already) I think could go a long way especially for computational thinking skills – a very new and highly sought after skill. ~Shan

Brian, from your T-shirt to your amazing energy, both your Elevator and Venture Pitch have created great excitement and hooked people from the start! I think your pain point is well thought and the solution you are proposing can make people say "Why I haven't thought about it first?" You have a rock solid product in terms of the sources you have. Steam is one of the leaders of the industry and already been reaching out to millions of people, and as SteamEdu you have created this new product that is very well produced. However, as Cassy pointed out, I also waited for an ask for capital. You have an Ask, that's for sure, but it gave the overall impression of a marketing presentation and not a pitch. If I was a venture capitalist watching this video, I would be confused, as you have already doing what you've asking from me. I liked your presentation, it is very well structured, I can make a small suggestion though, I think YouTube allows captions at specific time frames, so for instance when you show the Valve Team you can put a link or info bar on the top of the screen linking us to the site. I applaud your energy, and wish you well on your venture.

REVIEW: A great elevator and venture pitch, Brian. Engaging and informative, and your revisioning of the ask and was an interesting twist. Your rationale and structure for enticing users to adopt the platform is solid and specific, and in linking your venture to Steam, you are able to provide ample credible support to your cause. Some specific cited research into video games in education might have been useful, as would any kind of research that looked at the phenomenon you presented: why educational games flounder while non-educational games don't. As an investor, I would be interested in a couple of things: what are these agreements with the developers? If the success of your company is dependent on your partnerships with other companies, I would like to know a little bit more about them. As well, if the success of your company is dependant on the perceived value of the content generated by users, what sort of strategies would you use to ensure that the content is good? My final question would be that of hardware. In order for gameified learning to thrive in classrooms, that technology needs to be ubiquitous and accessible to every student. Would Steam EDU take steps to ensure that happens? You could restructure your product and pricing, and pitch to school districts to offer memberships to the site that would include a class set of computers? That way the seed has been planted for whatever type of growth you envision down the road. Could something like this be incorporated into your marketing plan? All in all, I really enjoyed the venture and elevator pitch, Brian. You have convinced me to invest in your venture, and to treat myself to a PS4 (with Subnautica) once I am finished with my MET. - Scott

Hi Brian, you should create a venture pitch on how to 'bottle and sell' your energy! I really enjoyed the elevator pitch and venture picture in terms of use of media and combing real time camera with narrated images. I think the format is very creative. The positives include your succinct assessment of how to evolve an existing market segment, by leverage a massive and existing user base. You address the problem very clearly (education + games (but games that kids actually like)) and present a compelling statement of 'what should be done' to incentivize sharing. You also generate a new system of rewards -- STEAM points for sharing. This is great. But, here's the but .... I was excitedly anticipated an ask for investment $$ to spin off a joint venture or mega industry alliance, strategic partnership etc, and then... no ask for capital, but rather sharing the story, which falls more into the camp of a marketing plan. I think if you rethought the ending, i.e. the ask, then you'd hit a home-run. With thanks.

Hi Brian, I love how engaging you have made your presentation. Your video editing skills are quite impressive and I enjoyed your enthusiastic narration within videos. I would suggest slowing down when talking so users, such as myself, are able to follow more easily and have to rewind the video less often. This is a great idea and one I would personally be interested in investing in. STEAM is one of the largest libraries of video games for the PC platform and the educational potential you have outlined exciting. I have tried to used game based learning in the classroom and have had some minor successes. A game such as Civilization 5 would be great to modify and develop for educational purposes and I can see a real potential for many others. I do like the aspect of creators being rated to ensure quality and encourage production of content. I believe this is a great way for STEAM/Valve to grow or for a company to take advantage of these more engaging and affordable games. Great presentation overall and thank you for your contribution. Marshall

Hi Brian, I love the direction you took this A3 - Venture Pitch. I've been an avid gamer since I was a kid, and have had my own STEAM account since I was about 10. It is inspirational to see a venture that modifies an existing product into an educational tool. As a K-12 teacher, I have found that games could be an easy way to create relationships and make meaningful connections with students. Therefore, I am fully in support of your venture in STEAM Education. Your video was clearly scripted, well thought out for investors and creatively put together. If I had to offer up a piece of advise for improvement, I'd suggest breaking down your content into simpler terms so you have the time to speak slower, but still provide the same point across or add visuals to support the commentary. As someone who is familiar with STEAM, games, educational resources as a K-12 teacher, I still had to re-watch parts of your video to fully understand the "selling features" you were portraying. For example, from 2:45 - 4:15 you have an image of a computer screen that has 2-3 words appear every 30-40 seconds while you are speaking fairly fast. I would have benefited more from additional visuals to connect the sale to the content. Otherwise, I really appreciated your elevator and venture pitch. Great idea with a realistic potential in the applicable world. Good detail with logistics when presenting your selling points and easy format for the general audience. As an "investor," my favourite part of your video was the Competition section. The dollar value in conjunction with the lack of existing competition sold your product. Thank you for your work, Derek