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FEEDBACK: Thanks for your pitch, Greg! It was very detailed and its comprehensiveness suggests your investment in the idea. Based on the pitch, I wasn't entirely convinced that the program would engage students, which is interesting given that it is based on taking students through a sales event. However, as the exercise is designed for EVAs and not customers, this may not be relevant. This particular EVA struggles with Prezi presentations. For those of us who don't use them all of the time, Prezis become a source of frustration as progress requires clicking and the navigationally challenged can end up zooming in on content we are trying to close. In my experience, they also seem to take longer to load than YouTube videos, which is somewhat surprising. Presentation style aside, I am glad that you are giving your students the opportunity to engage in such valuable experiential learning!

Thanks for sharing, Robert. Good recovery on the technical issues - they happen when they are most disruptive! There are a couple of typos in your presentation (e.g, "suffering" "scalable") this did not interfere with its capacity to outline HealthPlus' benefits in terms of addressing the problem. While the problem was clearly described, I wasn't sure of what HealthPlus really was, in and of itself. It's an important need and I'm glad that minds like yours are contemplating potential solutions. With a few more details regarding the business opportunity, you'd be off to a great start!

FEEDBACK: Thanks, Ram! I appreciated the exciting and bold prediction your shared: "I predict that our solution will sweep the world faster than Montessori, overtake Kumon overnight and change the face of education this century." Given this prediction, I wanted to understand much more about what your solution actually was and how it would do that. I liked seeing the timeline of the rollout and rationale, as well as the clarity of the ask. I would have liked to have a different voice for narration; a robotic voice seemed a little flat given the topic of 21st century education. I found the data slide to be both impressive (the fact that the data was there) and overwhelming (the fact that I couldn't really interpret the reference points). Given the challenges you cited in putting this pitch together, you did a good job.

FEEDBACK: Wonderful pitch, James! Your illustrations of the problem at hand are effective. I really liked how you brought the app to life through your pitch and positioned yourself well as an expert and CEO. I especially enjoyed the play on words during the call to action, inviting viewers to join the "add"venture. :). If math had been offered to me with such ease and simplicity, it would have been a fundamentally different experience! Thanks for a job well done.

FEEDBACK: Thank you for your Foodiki pitch, Emily. As you used good imagery and problem articulation to speak about a concern that resonates with many, I imagine there could be market interest in the product. However, if Foodiki is to function as a tracking app (I wasn't entirely sure of what it the Foodiki solution was exactly), it could be lost in a sea of similar products. Please be careful to not dilute the power of your messaging in your pitch efforts when talking about the problem you plan to solve. When you wrote that the problem is "...one that is commonly overlooked in my opinion," the "in my opinion" comment minimizes your stance. If you can truly own your opinion, others will be more likely to do so! Thanks again for sharing Foodiki with us.

FEEDBACK: Thank you for creating Kiota, Carla. I appreciate the thought that went into the name and its congruency with the organization's admirable mission. Your elevator pitch video used effective imagery - especially the imagery of an expanding network - and I found the music to be anticipatory yet subtle. You positioned Kiota as a unique solution to an important issue and I can imagine investors seriously considering lending their support to the cause! I think the only component that wasn't clear for me was the "how" behind connecting the students with the scientists, But with additional technical details on this piece, I could certainly support Kiota! Great work.

FEEDBACK: Christopher, it is a pleasure to see your instructional video skills in action. I particularly liked the video montage at beginning. It actually felt like I was watching a TV news item! At times, I thought the music might have distracted from the message and the text was difficult to read against the backdrop. If it would be possible to have a side panel of text on white background that you could point to, that might be more effective. The concept of Zaffold is an excellent and exciting one. I do wonder how it would work and who you would like to attract as investors. With a little more clarity and your outstanding production/communication skills, I'm sure you could sell it! Well done.

REVIEW: Great pitch, Brian! As a long-time career coach with a bit of experience in using VR to prep interviewees, I was very interested in the InnerVisions VR solution. I also have lots of anecdotal experience that supports your pain point regarding the ineffectiveness of the traditional job interview process. This personal interest might have led me to have a positive bias toward your elevator pitch but I do think it did a good job of articulating the issue and the solution. I also think that it marketed you well as a CEO with 15 years of relevant industry experience and a warm, professional image on the closing slide. In terms of the venture pitch, I appreciated your thorough and concise analysis using the Cube Framework. It effectively addresses many of the questions that are posed by EVAs. I agree with the other comments that have already been mentioned in terms of broadening the market beyond education, and identifying more about the technical expertise that will drive its success. I also wonder about strategies to make InnerVisions VR even more of a time-saving solution for the recruitment process. Could future phases of the business include the provision of a selection of simulations from which buyers could choose, rather than having to engage in a consultancy phase? I imagine that you could do this after developing simulations within a cross-section of industries, and perhaps you could start with education. I also wonder if there could be some way for InnerVisions VR to be marketed as a pre-screening interview tool; something that would help organizations to better utilize the resources involved in the in-person interview process by only interviewing those who have been determined to be appropriate according to their performance in the simulation. Also, given that "fit" is often the piece that is difficult to assess until the new hire is actually on the job, it could also be valuable to include some element of this in this simulation development process. Simulation characters that represent personality types could be a way to address this, although I admit that this would certainly be a complex feature. You can see that you've sparked my thinking, though! If you could open the concept up to markets beyond education, I would consider investing!

REVIEW: Thanks for your pitch, Jessica! Your very effective Powtoon succinctly outlined a timely challenge and a clear and compelling solution; I particularly appreciated how G-Interact was "made real" in your pitch by including the icon image within the G-Suite. The bio helped to tell the story of the thoughtful "why" behind the business. From an arm-chair marketing perspective (and one that is mired in gender stereotypes), the logo colour choice connotes a femininity that isn’t necessarily congruent with the product. Also, when humans are the beneficiaries of the product/service, I think it would enhance your pitch to include imagery that supports that. In terms of the G-Interact solution, I'm not certain that its screen sharing feature differs significantly from that of existing screen sharing services. The pitch notes that "students can also use the digital whiteboard simultaneously with teachers in real time. This feature, specifically, will change the way online learning works!" I like the boldness of this declaration but as an investor I'm not clear on how this will change the way that online learning works. I appreciated the examples provided in the pitch (read alouds, quadratic formula) but they didn't resonate with my understanding of the adult learner, which is included in your Buyer market. For these reasons, I wouldn't choose to invest at the present time, but I appreciated the effort invested in your pitch.

REVIEW: Carlo, I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing your pitch. I am impressed by the way that you overcame the challenges of self-isolation to still deliver a compelling elevator pitch presentation. I appreciated your choice to include the elevator pitch script in addition to the video as it was useful to reference later on. As a CEO, you clearly have the ability to communicate your ideas and can back them up with your 6 years of experience, data to effectively convey a pain point (17 hours of lost time!) and an attractive solution (99% accuracy!). I found the closing of your pitch to be particularly strong: "Make an investment in us, in education and in the future." The irony is that it is I fear that Gradenetix (or any AI solution) cannot replicate this same calibre of communication in the feedback it may generate. How could AI really deliver personalized feedback that models that level of written ability? It doesn't appear that the strongest competition, Progressay, can come close to that, and I don't have information from your pitch about how Gradenetix would be able to achieve its claims. I also wasn't clear about the subjects and grade levels that Gradenetix was purporting to assess, and I wasn't convinced that a database of academic papers could address the breadth and depth required to meet the claims made by Gradenetix. For example, one of the papers I have to mark in my higher-education job are resumes and cover letters. A solution that has been bandied about for years is https://www.vmock.com/higher-education. It’s apparently a great tool, but my college is hesitant to make the significant investment that I’m told is around $30,000 per year. Given the individualized nature of resumes, I really wonder how AI (Gradenetix or otherwise) could provide accurate feedback. As an investor, I'd like to understand more about the content and the integrity of the tool in order to trust its capabilities. Specifically, how would the academic papers be selected for inclusion in the database, and how would students’ confidentiality be protected upon submission for grading? Privacy concerns could interfere with adoption with public boards; independent schools may have more flexibility and could be a logical place to start, especially given your background. I know that professors at my college can’t accept help from other college staff for marking as it violates integrity standards. I appreciated the honesty of your reflection and recognition of weaknesses. Your utilization of the Cube Framework is especially appropriate given the business of Gradenetix - submissions that directly respond to curriculum are certainly ideal! Based on the information of the current pitch, I would not be in a position to invest, but I thank you for the opportunity!