rtelford

Tracey, as an educator I am well aware of the imbalance of genders in the STEM fields. This isn’t clearly communicated in your pitch. As others have said it was quite difficult to hear during the elevator pitch. In the venture pitch I feel like I was left with too many questions about important details like how your product would be different from what’s out there, what’s out there, marketing, and more. Without more information on these things I would be reluctant to invest.

Shayla, great pitches. Well laid out and engaging styles were used and that helped draw me in. This is an interesting product you’re offering, one that addresses a major pain point for teachers. I wonder how it differs from other products out there that do some of the same things. This is a market that has several major players that would be in competition with you. These are well established competitors too. More information and strategy on this aspect was needed for me to be confident in investing in this venture.

Mackenzie, great pitches, you’ve identified a clear problem and have come up with a workable solution. I liked the personal touch of the headshot elevator pitch, it is nice to get to ‘know’ the CEO at this stage. I felt confident reading through your 4 step plan, though I was curious about hard timelines here? Your market research was thorough and also made me more confident as an investor. My main questions would be around how you will be pricing and marketing this to your customers. If I had more information on this I could feel good about investing.

Agnieszka, your elevator pitch is in an interesting format. I found it a bit dull having to do so much reading though. An elevator pitch (in my understanding) should have more presence from the venture leader themselves, as this is part of the pitch...you! I’d like to have heard or seen you in this intro. As for your venture pitch, I was impressed with the depth of stats you produced in establishing the need or pain point...clearly you’ve done your research. I wonder if the price point is a little too high? Or perhaps the business model could focus more on integrating these things into cars themselves (at the factory, or at/by the rental company) a consumer may find the price is too high, and this worries me as an investor.

Charmalee, what I love and thought stood out most with your pitch is just how much passion and belief you have for what this venture can be and do. This is infectious and hooked me in right away. It is a very worthy endeavour and one that I think is very much needed. You’ve found a vacuum of need and have developed a solution to fill it. I would love to invest in this venture. What I would need to know is more details on how this will be marketed, how the finances will be distributed and more about the growth plan beyond the first few years.

Erin, your elevator pitch is well made and engaging. That said, it is long and could be more effective if it were focused more on just the pain point and solution. A minute isn’t much time (and I went over too! So easier said than done…). Your venture site is very well designed and quite appealing. I love the idea, and have myself always benefitted from doing pro d and other collaboration with colleagues from other subject areas. This is key as we move our students more into the 21st century skills...particularly the focus on multidisciplinary inquiry and collaboration. Your site answered a lot of the questions that I would have as a potential investor, except how and how much money I will be making! This would have me hesitate to invest in what is otherwise a fantastic idea.

Amanda, fantastic elevator pitch. It has a very professional look and the mix of graphics and speech synergized nicely to get your message across clearly. The same production quality was evident in your venture pitch, well done. You’ve convinced me that this fills a need, and you go on to talk about how the improvements you’ll make to prodigy will help it rise above the competition...but what competition? While I love the idea in principle, and I think it would fly, I’m concerned as a potential investor about the financial side of things. There are a lot of free users, and you intend to keep at least certain aspects of the program free, so how do you plan to convert some of your free users into paying customers? With a few of these questions answered I would feel more confident in investing in this venture.

Jeff, your elevator pitch was engaging and got me on board pretty quickly. As a teacher I am excited about the promise of VR in learning and, as you’ve identified as a pain point, my school like most schools can’t afford the hardware. When I got to your venture pitch, I found it less engaging, and without a lot of answers that an investor would have. I get that it is a rental business model, but your numbers seem on the low side! A big truck for $5k is a screaming deal. But adding it all up, like Justin did, you’d have to charge a lot to break even in that short period of time. I think the lacking money/numbers details left me feeling like there’s more work to be done on this pitch. I would want a lot more questions answered before investing in this idea. But I do think the idea in principal is a sound one.

Eva, your elevator pitch is very well made and gets your main points across quickly and effectively. Your venture website is well built, nicely laid out and easy to follow as it tells its story. Your market trends and focus paint a clear picture for where and how myclinical can fit in. It truly is incredible that no competition exists! I found myself wanting more information about certain aspects, like when you say: “Through rich MIS integration MyClinical understands the relationships between teachers students and preceptors” this strikes me as some pretty phenomenal AI that can ‘understand’ human relationships! I think this deserves a more detailed explanation. Lastly, I appreciated the detailed financial breakdown of the investment opportunity, but while highly detailed about some things it leaves me wondering where 80% of the investment will be spent? Overall, this is a tightly packaged venture pitch which I would invest in if I had a few of my questions answered.

Madeleine, your elevator pitch is well made and visually appealing. 2 bits of feedback about it though are that it jumps fairly quickly through a lot of text and I found it too quick to absorb the info. The 2nd suggestion is that I would like to hear your voice in this part of the pitch as it is an important first point of contact with your venture, I feel like we should ‘hear’ from you. Your venture pitch website is nicely designed, I did find it strange how I had to click a couple of times to go from the reading picture to the write up on this skill. There were also some dead links (get in touch) that took me nowhere. As for the idea itself, I think you have a great venture idea that will fill a much needed gap in training, and I appreciate the detail with which you laid out the essential skills. But I’m left with a lot of questions...how is this training delivered? In person, in a classroom, at home? More importantly I want to know more about your business strategy, who is the competition? How will this be marketed? What are you asking of investors? Until these questions are answered I couldn’t invest in what is otherwise a great idea.