MaxPower

Feedback, Hi Chad, I loved you elevator pitch. You were very professional and well spoken. You definitely have experience in the field and your venture pitch was very detailed. You were so well spoken in your elevator pitch that I felt like I wanted to hear/see you tell me more in your venture pitch, rather than read it. I wonder if you could imbed some more videos into your venture pitch. James.

Feedback Hi Aaron, I really liked how you set up your elevator pitch. You looked professional and spoke clearly and confidently. My first concern is that it will be difficult to monitor student interactions. As an educator I am uncomfortable with students using communication technology that I don't have total control over. If anything goes wrong, the parents will be looking to me for answers, so before I invest, I would like to know how you plan to monitor interactions on line. Jame.

Feedback Hi Monique, I enjoyed your pitches and I love your idea. I think the strength of your product is that it is collaborative. There are already many ways for students to experience texts on line, but collaboration is difficult. I spoke to a teacher in Northern BC who was doing a similar project that had students use technology to read with students in remote locations. The benefit of this program was that it was real time and the students were actively engaged. I think your product has similar potential. James.

Feedback Hi Ashley, I liked you elevator pitch. I thought that you spoke clearly, intelligently and with passion. This is an interesting venture, especially when I saw your graphic about all of the foreign language speakers in Canada. I wonder why you are avoiding the larger coffee chains. A large chain might be a valuable partner in a venture like this. James.

Review Hi Anne, I understand what you are saying about this being a difficult transition for a classroom teacher. I have struggled through this course as well. I think your venture has some real potential. You could extend this to augmented reality. Some schools are already doing this but I don't know of a webservice that allows sharing. I think that your experience as an educator gives you clear insight into teaching and motivating students. My suggestion is that you introduce yourself in a video. Your investors will want to know who they are working with. You mentioned that you wanted this to be open source but did not know how investors would get a return on their investment. There are ways that open source can generate revenue. Jaron Lanier has some interesting ideas in his book Who Owns the Future. The website Instructables is a service that offers subscribers the opportunity to share open source resources. Very interesting idea Anne. I would like to know more about the action research project that you mentioned. James.

Feedback I loved your elevator pitch. I was interested right away because you looked professional and you had experience in the field. Your team is also experienced and professional. I thought that your quick overview of your competitors' strengths and weaknesses was very helpful: it gave me the background as to why your venture was needed. In your venture pitch, you mentioned that in house solutions don't work. I would like to know why/ Will universities still need in house solutions if they use your service? James.

Review Hi Yuki, I loved the way that you started your elevator pitch. A short narrative can really grab the audience's attention. I felt emotionally invested and connected by the end of your elevator pitch. I liked how you broke down the stages of development/involvement. The beginning stage was free which I liked because most people will look for that type of information on free services anyway. I use youtube to learn how to do all sorts of things from taking screen shots on my android device to rebuilding a carburetor on my motorcycle. I think your plan to have the more elaborate services be subscription based. For example paid users can be part of a collaborative community. What I am worried about is that your venture will not be much different from the competitors that you discussed. For your next iteration I would elaborate on how your service will be better than the competition. As an educator and possible user of this service, I would request that the analytic be removed or changed. I don't like the idea of my institution or supervisor evaluating me based on my proficiency with your service. The analytic could be helpful, but it will be met with resistance, especially in Canada where most educators belong to unions and contract language that prevent this type of evaluation. I would be interested in investing in something like this if these few issues were worked out. Especially, as you pointed out in your venture pitch, there is a growing need for IT training in schools and universities. James.

Review. I loved you elevator pitch. It was visually striking and you spoke clearly and articulately. Your elevator pitch clearly explained your proposed new direction for Trello. I think that you were on to something when you chose to work with an already successful company. I think you are right when you say it will be easier to get VC funding when you are working with experienced and successful people. I loved your elevator pitch so much that I would have like to see your venture pitch with some audio and slide shows. You are a great public speaker: calm, clear, concise and well informed. You can capitalize on that in your venture pitch. When I try to put myself in the shoes of an investor, I am concerned that this is a lot of money for something that people can already get for little or no cost. I would spend a little more time giving some specific examples or details about how people get frustrated by spending too much time learning how to use the tools that are supposed to make life easier. I love stories and I would be captivated by a one minute narrative at the beginning of your venture pitch about how the current situation is not working. Great work, James.

I was really impressed with your elevator pitch. I liked the tone and it was well organized. Your presence in the video shows confidence and passion for your product. It made me think that you would be a valuable person to get involved with in a business venture. James.

I am also interested in number 6. It is difficult to integrate code into the curriculum right now, because most educators do not have an understanding of how to code. Coding needs to be part of teacher training. When I think of my teacher education, the technology portion of it was basically using overhead projectors and evaluating websites. An interesting way to teach coding is through Arduino. Here is a link to a quick description https://www.ted.com/talks/massimo_banzi_how_arduino_is_open_sourcing_imagination James.