Ram

FEEDBACK: Hi Scott, I really like your elevator pitch with the personal touch of you actually speaking to the audience. That works great. Your elevator pitch is successful in communicating your value proposition. Your venture pitch is good; you covered the problem or pain and how your solution is tackling the problem. You tell a compelling and credible story that every teacher can relate to. Talking about the features of the product and how it can help teachers makes your story more convincing. Your market analysis and discussion of competing products is good. What I am unsure about is your pricing structure; I believe it is a bit of guesswork you are doing at this stage. I think we would agree that there are some implementation challenges to be overcome but I believe you have a genuine original value proposition. When your venture is ready for investment, I would invest.

REVIEW: Hi Chris, your elevator pitch is absolutely fantastic! You deserve credit for the amount of work you put into this elevator pitch and the results show; it is practically perfect and works. Your pitch is convincing and I believe it would succeed in getting you what you wanted. I like the name of the venture; it works and sells your venture. The presentation of your venture pitch is polished and looks professional. You identified the problem your venture is addressing and how your service provides a solution. You have identified a real good problem and you have an original idea for a venture for generating original value. This is impressive. I think that the neat thing about your pitch is that it is an original, credible and compelling story. How feasible is it? You could tell us but we understand it is a fictitious venture at this point. If we were to follow through with developing this idea, my question is who would you have to pay? For example, would you have to pay Kahoot! or would they allow you to use their platform for free while you are making money? I am excited about the originality of the idea and the potential for a real venture. I would invest.

REVIEW: Hi Carla, your elevator pitch is excellent and convincing. I can see that you put effort into making a beautiful and well-thought out elevator pitch.The choice of name is fantastic, you also put thought into coming up with a good name that sells your idea nicely. The logo is also excellent and fits the venture perfectly. You clearly identified the problem and pain and a service that resolves the pain. You clearly differentiate yourself from any other similar venture by targeting Africa or your venture itself is differentiated as a venture unique to Africa and unique to your problem. You clearly identify the market as schools in Africa and I like that you also identify the risks inherent in the market; as an EVA that increases my confidence in your venture. I do identify one risk that I would highlight. You say that you are relying on local scientists to make the first connection with the schools. With respect to the language barrier you say that you will be relying on the local scientists to help address this problem therefore you are dependent on local scientists here again. Then again you are relying on local scientists to go out to “physical schools and hand out physical materials for marketing”. I see a problem with being so reliant on the good will of local scientists too much so as to be a burden on local scientists. I understand the venture is built around local scientists, however I feel that the people running the venture needs to be aware of this and think about this issue. For example, I would prefer the idea that the venture pays locals to do some marketing, even if this means paying the local scientists. I see the original social value of the venture and I would make a contribution. Since my individual contribution is a few dollars you would need to indeed reach out to organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. In the role of an EVA with a funding organization, I would invest in this venture.

FEEDBACK: Hi Brian, your elevator pitch is nicely done, convincing and your voice and enthusiasm came through. You clearly identified a problem in the hiring process of schools. You offer a good solution for the problem. Your description of the venture is good. The presentation of your venture pitch is good. The concern for me is differentiation of the product and your target market. As you mentioned, there are already VR solutions on the market so I am not sure what prevents those companies from simply selling to schools, your target market. Also schools have bigger problems to spend money on rather than recruitment, especially if there is low turnover. As you said in your elevator pitch, often hiring of friends happens. In a union environment as it is in Ontario at present, it may be a simple matter of filling the spot from the seniority list. I am not sure why a school would pay such a high subscription fee for a solution when the candidate is already physically present for the interview. I am not sure if your target customer is the right one; I would be interested in this venture if the target market is different. I would recommend the pricing structure be revised.

REVIEW: Hi Aziza, Your elevator pitch is good; it got my attention. You identified the gap in the market and opportunity very well. This is a worthwhile venture and a good opportunity. Congratulations! I believe this is a real opportunity and I encourage you to pursue it for real if that is what you intend to do. I am not sure what “Digital Job Method” means. A name sells so a good name is important; “Digital Job” works but I do not understand the “Method” part. I recommend that you consider looking at a catchy, easy to remember name that gets attention. As the investor here is what I worry about. There is a short window for this opportunity and it would not last for a long time. The reason is that the AI industry needs this now urgently and a lot of this. However, after a period of time the need would be satisfied in that many of the algorithms would be “fully trained” and stable and therefore need less training data. I am not saying that there would not be the need for more training data; the need for training data would continue but I believe would be less. I think only a smaller amount of data would be required since after the large demand that exists now, the demand would decrease to a flatline after that. The good news is that your venture may be the one that continues for the long term so your prospects are good in this way. However, as an investor I would be looking for an exit strategy, a point of time when I can get the return on my investment and quit your venture. I would invest in this venture.

REVIEW: Hi Amanda, you used videos in both your pitches, congratulations! The personal touch of you making the pitch in the videos is great. Your elevator pitch works; you communicated your venture proposition immediately. Your venture pitch begins with the pain point and your description that you have experienced the pain also is persuasive. You presented your solution well; it helps that as an investor I know about chatbots. You talked about the market and the customers; this is clear. I have questions about the user subscription. I assume that after a period of onboarding the employee stops using the service so I do not understand what “$49/user/year” means. You do have a credible and compelling story of a good opportunity. You said that there are already similar products in the market and in your strong pitch your product differentiation is weak. It is interesting that you did not mention large employers such as federal governments and provincial governments. As an investor I would expect that you boost your venture by explicitly considering these. Congratulations! I would invest.

FEEDBACK: Hi Carlo, Your elevator pitch video is a good one, I appreciate the effort you put into making this elevator pitch. In your elevator pitch I did not feel you making a pitch for an investment; I hear you asking for “help” with marketing. In the role of an investor, I am not sure if I would want to read through your website; your video for your elevator pitch is good so I wondered if you could have done a video instead of a website. Your analysis of the competitors and the market for AI systems to grade student papers is good. I spent a lot of time reading your website and I read it a couple of times, and I come away with an impression that it is a fairly good market analysis of AI systems to grade essays. What I struggle to find is what is the “original value” that you are pitching that qualifies this as a venture. I finally understood my struggle; I am reading an analysis not a venture pitch. I happened to notice that in the “About the Author” you used the title “Educational Venture Analyst”, are you pitching a venture as an entrepreneur or an analysis as an EVA?

Hi Vivien, well done, I appreciate your effort to make a video for your elevator pitch. I really appreciate that you made a video of yourself speaking to the audience in your elevator pitch. This is a sincere effort to make a real venture pitch and I congratulate you for doing it. I understand the problem you are addressing and I have a good guess on what your proposed solution is. You are tackling a big problem and worthwhile cause. It is a neat idea, at least what I have in mind you meant for a venture concept. I am guessing your venture concept is to offer IB programmes online. You said your venture is “an online platform I created to disseminate learning materials”; I am hoping you can understand how this causes confusion about your venture in the minds of your viewers and reviewers. I am puzzled about the name of your venture; does the name mean something? The reason is that it would help if the venture has a catchy name and I believe with some thought one could come up with a name that gets attention.

Hi Manize, LOL. Thank you for your feedback. The joke is between the two of us. Ram.

Hi Anouk, Thank you for the feedback. I used a text to speech software. I tried recording my voice but I ran into too many technical difficulties. Thank you. Ram.