Wonderville.org, where teachers teach and earn, while students learn.

Hi Cassy, your pain point of education being difficult to juggle schedules and timelines and willingness to share with lack of compensation- really got my attention. I like the idea of integrating STEM more into classrooms, and your venture would help make it a reality. Being an educator with 0 business experience, I really appreciated the numbers side of your venture pitch. I wish that I saw your presentation before doing the numbers side of my own venture because your numbers were pitched beautifully in a very concise and straight forward way! One thing that I would have liked to see more is the explanation of Wonderville and how exactly it would benefit teachers. What are teachers currently doing now vs. after using your product? Examples of how lessons are shared, and when they are shared, how they are used would have painted a nice picture and give a better overview of Wonderville. Overall, excellent pitch! I think that this product is something that can be beneficial to educators.

Hi Casey, I’d be doing a cartwheel after meeting Elon Musk as well! I think you have something really original here with Wonderville – something that creates those “aha” moments that really open insight and exploration for students and observers. What I think sets your platform apart from others is the ability to do STEM and do it well in a way that is engaging. What I like is something that few companies seem to be doing today – build the resources and have teachers earn from them. I have used TeacherPayTeachers in the past to submit work that I have created and feel what you offer is the next step. The difficulty with education is two things: keeping up to date while juggling schedules and timelines and willingness to share. You offer a resource that seems to offer a balance to both. One thing that I’m wondering about and that I didn’t see in your presentation is how teachers will earn back their money once the payments begin. Will there be a threshold required before payment occurs? The reasoning behind this is because transaction fees could prove to be expensive which would affect long-term profits. Overall, awesome work! Stephen

REVIEW: I wish I had watched your venture pitch before I started working on mine, Cassy. I am not a numbers person, but your numbers, facts, and research in your venture pitch were beautiful. You have clearly defined revenue goals, and the fact that those goals are diversified into three different streams makes the pitch more appealing. There are clearly established needs and description of how Wonderville meets those needs, and the market adoption strategy is specific and well-designed. Your Competitive Differentiation slide is impressive, in that it summarizes quickly and effectively a good deal of critical information on competitors. Similarly, the Competitive Advantage slide offers excellent insight on how Wonderville is above the competition. Finally the breakdown of cash flow and funding intentions is specific and reasonable. Based on this data rich venture deck, I could be convinced to invest. A wish throughout the overall presentation would be an inclusion of testimonial endorsements. Part of your pitch relies on highlighting seemingly intangible commodities like ah-ha moments, student engagement, and teaching efficiency and optimization. Some potential investors might look for more than just the numbers when considering the product. This is not to say you should flood your pitch with glowing quotable recommendations, but offering a link to those resources would help. Lastly, the elevator pitch was certainly creative, but for me it felt a little like a bait and switch. Instead of the big inspirational build-up that took half the pitch, you could have easily incorporated more data (clearly the strength to the pitches) in making your case. - Scott

Wow, this was so great! Love the numbers, the attention to detail! The elevator pitch is so great too, getting Elon excited about a-ha moments first, rather than just the investment potential, but then leading him to the investment potential before finishing. Takes him off-guard, maybe she's not pitching me, oh wait? is she? In the venture deck, I would have liked to see what I could get in return as an investor a little earlier, before getting into the detailed breakdown of expected growth. It was however very informative and really well done. I would want to know how much of that pie I can get while evaluating if I think it is an over-estimate or under-estimate. Definitely pieces from your presentation I wish I had used in mine.