Tanya

Loved your pitch Dana. I think you have done an excellent job of identifying a pain point that many teachers are not properly trained or feel comfortable tackling this topic, which of course is exactly what your product is trying to solve. I could clearly see your passion for this venture and you have presented the venture clearly and solution very well. You show that you are a qualified person to take this on and that you have brought together a strong team. You’ve done a strong ask and show the opportunity space. I really think that this is a venture that needs to come to market. I found it great that you have identified possible revenue streams that are slightly out of scope of the original idea. Jonathan raises a good point about incorporating it into a larger training opportunity for teachers. Maybe that is something that could be developed as a second tier venture. Something to think about.

I really appreciated your use of infographics in the elevator pitch and in the website. I thought visually it was quite engaging. I agree that the Spark website has a lot of flow to it. I haven’t see a website built with that tool before and was pleasantly surprised that the experience holds up on mobile as well. I think that your venture is a good one and solves a problem that there currently is no solution for. I can absolutely see the educational efficacy of this product. Thinking as a potential investor I believe that you have strong evidence of your passion for the topic and the research that backs the idea. I think you’ve touched on all the necessary venture pitch points. You have talked about where the funding will go but having a percentage of how much goes where will help investors know their money is going to the best place. I received this feedback on my venture and thought that was extremely good advice. You have touched on many of my thoughts in your initial feedback section and I think you've done a good job of accessing the strengths and weakness of your venture there.

Great work Brian. Your enthusiasm is infectious. Your passion really comes through, which as we know is an extremely important thing for a budding venture. You speak well to the things that a venture pitch should hit on, pain point, your concept, the opportunity space and your competitive edge. Love how you are leveraging an already existing content delivery network but are using it in an exciting new way that solves a problem in the education sector. I can definitely see how this would help teachers with engagement. It may have been beneficial to give the investors a strong example of how a popular videogame could be leveraged in curriculum to engage students. Perhaps showing clips from a videogame along with an example of the curriculum information that would accompany it. An example of the package for teachers.

This was a very informative take on your topic. I found the activities where we were to read silently, ROL and RWL really opened my eyes to the differences and benefits of the different approaches. I also really enjoyed reading the books for the schools! I'm a bit of a performer so this inspired me. I accessed this resource today after going through the content earlier in the week and was pleased to see that you had implemented some changes to the technical difficulties that were pointed out earlier in the week. Great to see your OER evolving and becoming stronger.

A ‘pioneer for citizen science ventures’! What a worthy title for an innovator of this emergent technology. She had the foresight in the infancy of the internet to see the possibilities of her venture and how they support a gap in the scientific field. Over the years she has continued to grow the venture as technology emerged. She has been able to bring together a varied team to support the on-going development of the product. Also, worthy of a note is the fact that being a woman that she would have not been what was typically seen in the tech-venture landscape in the 90s and I imagine would have had to fight stereotypes. A pioneer indeed.

Bartsch is a worthy role-model for entrepreneurs. He was able to analyze the industry he was in to see a particular pain point and then deliver a unique product, BrowZine, to solve that problem. One of the fundamental principles of being an entrepreneur. The strong team and industry advisory board really speak to Bartsch’s ability to find talent and advisors with the skills to push to product to higher heights. I definitely see the value of this venture and how it was delivered to market.

There is no question that Matt Mullenweg is a highly successful entrepreneur as he helped program and release the platform on which such a high percentage of websites are based. At only 19, he worked to deliver the tech by forking b2/cafelog. His passion can be seen in this story in the early days as he developed it in his spare time, often working until 3am on the code base. Mullenweg definitely is passionate, inventive, hardworking and developed an idea that adds value to the marketplace. Because WordPress is an open-source project that organically built over time, there isn’t evidence of some of Mullenweg’s abilities as an entrepreneur as outlined in our coursework; the ability to bring the right people together, gain investments, venture pitch, to name a few. More research would be needed to see this. I was pleased to learn that he runs an angel investments firm, Audrey Capital. This firm has backed more than 30 companies. He says that he was brought up in a home where a value was placed on volunteerism and community support. I’m sure this influenced the decision to make WordPress an open-source platform and for him to give back to the entrepreneur community.

Yes, I would invest in this venture and I base this review on the The Orboot’s kickstarter page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playshifu/orboot-a-magical-augmented-reality-globe) rather than solely on the information presented here. The Orboot is an educational and augmented reality experience for kids to explore the world through the globe as never seen before. They want to build children’s sense of adventure and exploration while exposing them to the wonders of our world. This venture merges the ‘good old globe with the magic of augmented reality.’ The technology is multi-faceted with many ways to interact and learn. They have developed many activities for kids to explore involving the world’s monuments, food, animals, culture and more. The information learned through The Orboot leaves a ‘lasting impression, helps memory retention and promotes active learning’ due to the interactive and tangible interactions with the platform. The pitch page has lots of information about the educational approach to their technology thus raising confidence in its design. Vivek Goyel and Dinesh Adveni are the brains behind this venture and are tech enthusiasts and parents. They state that they have done lots of research and design to make the best user experience for children. They have an extremely clear plan for how to use funds raised and levels of investment opportunities. They address the risks and challenges for this venture and how they will proceed to make the venture a success. They don’t talk about other ventures on the market that may challenge The Orboot so more exploration would need to be done. The owners are well spoken, confident and it truly seems like they have done their homework. I believe that parents want to instill this global mindedness in their children and this venture appears to be on target to deliver on that.

Yes, I would invest in this venture. This product has a great opportunity space. Parents are looking for products that not only spark creativity and are fun but that also provides kids with opportunity to learn. In this case, learning coding and troubleshooting skills. The Mover Kit gives kids a product that encourages their creative while building the technical skills they will need in the future. It combines the digital and physical in a playful and creative way. Mover Kit may be the first wearable kids can code but there are many other coding toys for children. The edge or differentiation that this product has is that a child can code, wear and interact with it kinetically. Daniel and Bethany are founders of ‘Technology Will Save Us’. They seem capable and competent as they have experience bringing other products to market. I am not entirely sold on their enthusiasm but I believe that they are just not entirely comfortable on camera. They have a well-made video with kid’s testimonials. The kid’s testimonials were very sincere and brought a lot of confidence to the viability of this product. After watching the video, my six-year old daughter really wanted to get one and that is strong indication that it is speaking to the right audience. Their pitch does not talk about exit strategy or market readiness so that was something they would have to address in the venture pitch. I think that the Mover Kit will be a successful product as it is solving a pain point in a unique way.

I was surprised as well. Infographics help communicate topics visually to learners and make it so much easier for them to retain and understand. There are some compelling examples found here: https://www.canva.com/learn/best-infographics/ Inforgraphics are also imperative for visualizing data. I have been working with D3JS (https://d3js.org/) to create interactive data visualizations and there are some great examples up there.