Craig

FEEDBACK

An interesting presentation. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

It seems like your venture is already on its way to being successful. Expanding into new markets, like English and science is smart. Leverage the success you have had with your math offering and you should find a ready market. That BCLN already offers your product seems like a benefit, even though you list them as a competitor. Perhaps there is a greater opportunity for synergy with them in the future. Good luck!

FEEDBACK

An interesting presentation. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

As many of the EVAs mentioned, your venture pitch was beautifully constructed. I too like the interactive nature of a flipping book, and I find it easy to navigate around in the document to find the elements that I want to examine again or in greater detail. I think this was a good choice for presentation platform.

I do feel that you left some of the necessary details out of your pitch, and that would be necessary to move any investor. Considering the number of well established competitors, you would need to point out in greater detail the differentiation of your product from those that already enjoy strong support from the community of educators you want to attract.

REVIEW

I would not invest in the product at this time, however I do think your product has a lot of merit and is something that could have a significant impact on families, and maybe even the nation. The recent passing of legendary Canadian singer Leonard Cohen from a fall in his home highlights how serious this problem really is. I have a few suggestions, and they mirror many of the comments made here by the other EVAs.

First, I don’t think you ever gave us a specific “Ask.” I was unsure how much financing you were looking for, or how exactly it might be spent. Some numbers here would be good. Even a rough overview of what you think might be needed would help to give investors an idea of your break-even point and how you might get there. It also gives us an idea of the size of the market, and how portable it might be to other markets (other countries = additional revenue).

This brings us to the revenue stream. Your freemium model includes a 72-hour written feedback assessment. This is great if you want your product to affect as many people as possible, but it really might make a profit stream difficult to achieve. I am unsure how much time would be required for each written assessment, but it might overwhelm your ability to provide feedback and assessments for your paid customers if you have many 72-hour deadlines for your unpaid customers. I also wonder, as the other EVAs did, at how you might achieve profitability with such a low fee for your service.

How much work is involved in a written assessment? That is something that would be critical for any investor to understand. Consultation can have hidden time-traps that suck up a non-renewable commodity (your time) and get in the way of achieving your other goals. Do you have plans to hire other consultants? You might want to map out your new hires to line up with your expected workload, which will follow your growth.

Finally, how do you plan to retain customers? With such a low service fee, you will need to retain customers to be able to build up your monthly revenues. However, I am unclear how they will need your service once they have taken your advice and made the changes you recommend to them in their homes.

I do want to tell you that your venture is very compelling, and I hope that you find the investment you need to make it happen. I believe there is a real need for your service, and you seem to have the vision and experience to make a difference for a lot of people. I wish you the best in the future!

FEEDBACK

An interesting presentation. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

I applaud your efforts to bring the spirit of entrepreneurialism to students. I think the entrepreneurial drive is a critical component in growth in our society, not only economically, but socially as well. I think you presented this clearly in your elevator pitch. I do think, however, that your choice of a text-only format for your venture pitch might not hold the interest of investors long enough to motivate them to buy into your venture. I read through it all, and it was well presented, but it really would have benefitted from something more visually appealing. I wish you the best in the future of your venture!

FEEDBACK

An interesting presentation. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

I must admit that I am a bit skittish of this product (Spotify). There have been several high-profile defections from the product of late (such as Taylor Swift), and I wonder at the ability of the company to outmaneuver Apple. Going toe-to-toe with a giant like Apple, especially when they have clearly stated their desire to “own the market,” makes me nervous. But it does seem like a good startup and it has been wildly successful so far. The idea of diversifying the product into different markets is a great idea.

I am not quite sure if the existing product clearly translates into the venture you are proposing, however. I would like to see more about how companies can create playlists, and how these playlists will be distributed and used in Spotify. Good presentation, though! Thanks!

REVIEW

I would not invest in the product at this time, however I do find the idea intriguing. The idea of a peer-driven, collaborative discussion tool for encouraging academic reading in higher education is fantastic. Allowing professors to highlight specific sections and embed questions, comments or discussion parameters within the text is also a great idea. Suggestion: you might also allow professors to embed video or audio to turn that article into a blended delivery lesson, using shorter video clips to address specific sections within a larger article.

There are a few specific concerns and questions that I have for the product at this time, and I don’t feel you have answered those issues enough for me to invest at this time.

First of all, I would like more explanation on how the analytics work. How will this be collected, what kind of information, and how can it be used to target learning objectives?

Secondly, I do not think your ask of $500,000 is enough to carry your business through to profitability. You have a large staff (it appears to be about 20) and you will need to float the business for 18-24 months. I am not sure that you will have the legs to get there on a $500, 000 investment.

Next, I am quite concerned that you have not clearly addressed the issue of getting access rights to the journal articles. There are many platforms that deliver/manage/control and profit from the control of information from academic journals. How will you fit content from vendor-curators like Wiley Online Library and JSTOR, for example, into your platform? Won’t your customers (schools and professors) have to pay an additional content license to use these materials in your product? There may be restrictions in use from these vendors, as you are essentially republishing (or presenting) their content in a for-profit 3rd party application. Many of these vendors make it difficult to students download or use their PDFs, even for institutions that have licenses with them to do so. I suspect that this will be a substantial hurdle to overcome. In addition, it seems as if there is little coordination between content curators at this time (there seems to be no standardization of presentation, delivery, or even archival and searching) and this might mean negotiations will need to be conducted with each vendor of content.

Finally, the big weakness: your revenue model. I have many issues with the idea of a new classroom tool that forces students to bear the cost of implementation. It might be the quickest way to reach a large market, but it means that students will be forced to buy a product that also requires a computer and Internet access. I know that most students these days do own connected devices, but I am not sure that it can be made a mandatory part of education (but then, it is a long time since I have been a student at a Canadian university). I suspect that there will be resistance from students. In addition, I suspect that you will meet with resistance from administrators or even faculty at the idea of making this a mandatory purchase for students.

If it isn’t mandatory, then I wonder at the longevity of the product. If students do not NEED it, then many will not BUY it. If this trend continues, how long will it be used by professors? Students often take the path of least resistance, and not buying a tool that makes them do more work seems like a “path of least resistance” to me.

It might be better to examine a revenue model where this is integrated into the suite of products used by a school for their students. You might do better to target professors or institutions to implement your product. Institutions of higher education have budgets available for products such as this. It takes longer for you to expand into your market, but it seems like a more reliable revenue model in the end.

Finally, there is a legal consideration. As soon as your product starts hosting comments by students, you have to deal with security of their identities. This is why I wonder if this might not be better to develop this as a plugin for some of the more popular LMS products on the market. Access to your plugin would sit behind the universities login and would shield you from some of the legal issues that might make this problematic for larger scale deployment. I do not have experience in 3rd party for-profit plugins, however, but I suggest that it might be worth considering.

FEEDBACK

An interesting presentation. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

I agree with the other reviewers, you have an amazing story and it comes through in your presentation. I was not completely clear on how the product would be marketed / distributed to the schools. I would also like to see your plans for scaling this venture beyond the two markets you mentioned in detail in your presentation. Thanks!

FEEDBACK

An interesting concept. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

I would not have thought of using a venture pitch to make a video for staff training purposes. I wonder, however, if this project might not be able t be expanded to become a marketable product with a wider audience. If you took your original idea and expanded it to include training for students, then it might be something that could be sold to schools that are dealing with difficulties in student use (and mis-use) of social media. A product like this could include dramatized events of cyber-bullying, identifying online threats, and general best-practices for students in the online realm. Different videos could be produced for different purposes, including age range, content, and even if this is intended as a comprehensive one-time presentation, or something that students have to take yearly to refresh their training in social media use.

REVIEW

I would invest in this venture. You had an excellent assessment of the market: very focused, very good potential. The private, bilingual school and private tutor/cram school market in Asia is enormous.

One of the best things about your presentation is that you identify the cultural concerns of “digital colonization” by Western products in China. This is a very real concern, and your suggestion to use existing Chinese content is brilliant. I think it is an excellent way to get government officials (who will need to be persuaded to allow your product on the market) and educators in general on your side.

I would have liked a bit more data on the numbers, even a rough estimate showing expenses and expected revenue and growth. It seems as if a market penetration of 30% of private schools and 5% of public schools (there are a lot of them in China) seems a bit steep, but with your request for a $2 million investment in a product that only needs a Chinese adaptation to it should leave a sizeable amount for marketing.

I believe that you demonstrated the usefulness of the product and the potential market seems wide open for your venture. Your very impressive Analyst Report (which was next on the Youtube playlist) provided excellent additional material that assisted my analysis.

Finally, I would invest in YOU. You have a very impressive resume and have demonstrated the kind of leading edge attitude that would make a good entrepreneur. Your work on your blog, and even hosting a conference on gamification as a presenter is exactly the kind of evidence of highly motivated leadership that is needed for a successful venture.

If I may, there is one area of feedback that I would like to offer. The biggest weakness of this product is not actually a failing of the product (because it does what it was intended to do), and it might not actually impede its sales. It is the idea that this kind of grammar practice can produce significant gains in fluency of second language students. I understand how this has worked to elevate the grammar skills of native language speakers in America, but I wish it would do more to address the different needs of second language speakers.

I know from your resume that you have experience in this field as well, but as an English language instructor in the Asian market for more than a decade, I can tell you that a focus on grammar in Japan has failed to produce fluent communicators. The curriculum in Japan is heavily invested in the kind of grammar activities that No Red Ink seems to provide, and it has yet to prove successful at developing fluency in either writing or speaking in large numbers.

What this kind of curriculum has produced are students who are capable of manipulating the grammar of sentences that have been provided to them… however, they have very low ability in general, to actually PRODUCE language. There is a huge difference between grammar knowledge using text that has been provided, and the ability to spontaneously and fluently generate their own sentences using this grammar. This product does not bridge this gap, but then, it was not designed to do that.

Having said that, I can see how students would benefit from the use of this tool as they are learning to use the grammar. I only wish there was a more comprehensive approach to this kind of software that would be able to not only utilize personalized lessons, but personalized CONTENT… taken from the student’s own writing and then adapted into grammar lessons. This is something that is beyond the scope of this product.

FEEDBACK

An interesting concept. I am not looking to invest in this kind of venture at this time, however, so I will only offer some feedback on your presentation.

I like the fact that you are using your experience with a proven product to make the kinds of changes that teachers need. That is a great idea. Often, products are developed for the business market and they are then adopted for use in education, but they do not quite meet the needs of educators. It sounds like you are attempting to fill this void.

I have a few questions about your product. Are you able to connect to more than one screen at a time? Can you see the entire class on a single monitor at a time? I am thinking about the remote classroom software, like NETOP (http://www.netop.com). It lets you see the whole class at once and even take over control of the student’s device if needed (for whatever reason). This kind of functionality might be really useful for your product.

Anyways, thank you for a great presentation. Good luck with your venture!