Victoria

Feedback: Dan, your product has potential in its application to personalized learning and assessment for teachers. Wearables are an interesting market, as it seems that more people are willing (today, at least) to adopt something that they wear on their wrist (FitBit, Apple Watch) over something that they need to wear on their face (Google Glass, or other AR wearables). I realize that you indicate this in your reflection, but I think that the privacy and security issues are some real issues that you should have tackled directly within your venture pitch. Districts in both Canada and the US struggle constantly with privacy laws when adopting technologies into schools. The location of cloud-based storage or databases is a sensitive issue, as well as what types of data are being put into them and by whom. I liked your idea of a retinal scanner built into the device for the wearer, but again, that could have been a part of the pitch, undoubtedly strengthening its value. Lastly, there was no inclusion of a strategy or generally outlined plan. How much money might you need to get this off the ground? What is the timeline for the develop the product? Who are you targeting in your marketing campaign to pick this venture up? While many of our colleagues’ ventures are imaginary in nature and might seem “outlandishly expensive” (good word choice, by the way!), these inclusions are pertinent for the investor to actually bite. Your product has real potential, especially if the teacher has autonomous control over the visible data that might inform instruction and pedagogical approaches. Thanks for sharing!

Troy, it is very clear that your past experiences and venture involvement will ultimately complement your work in this upcoming venture! Your analysis of your own venture, including product features, pain points, solutions, and competition, is very thorough. I checked out some of the larger competition that you indicated, such as Wearable Intelligence, and it seems like a viable model that hasn't seemed to infiltrate Canadian industries in the same way. Companies are currently turning toward solutions that aren't oriented specifically to their domain of work (like LMS or CMS solutions as you suggest), and require extensive employee knowledge and training in order to utilize. This is an area where your venture could shine, taking away the need for costs and investment in this knowledge development, and bring it directly to the task itself, while providing customization directly to the work sector. I was also impressed with your development of phases for business growth, including budget and team considerations. Well done!

REVIEW: Great work, Chris! Your elevator pitch is well-paced and concise, calling for more pedagogically sound lesson development, and filling that need with your product. I would have liked to see a little bit more about product features in this space, however, to draw in the investor on why your product stands out more than others already in the market. For example, pieces of your “Product & Pricing” should be included in your elevator pitch. Your venture pitch is a very well-designed website that lends ease of navigation to the prospective investor - very well done. I like the idea of a fully functional web-app with limited features in mobile applications and I wonder if Expressions might adapt to the needs of the teacher as they continue to use the product. I would personally be frustrated if I had to fill out a questionnaire every single time I wanted to create a new lesson plan. However, I love the curated and searchable content idea; this is sort of like Yelp for lesson planning. My only concern with your venture lies in the competition component. I think you missed a viable and existing community that already does some of this work: Teachers Pay Teachers. Even if I fundamentally disagree with the concept behind the TPT itself, it is also in your market niche, and may actually be one of your biggest competitors in terms of the searching and sharing aspect of your venture. Overall, excellent job and I would definitely use your app myself.

Feedback: Hi Susan, before I even watched your pitch, I had concerns about the acronym: CPR. CPR is not only a worldwide-recognized acronym already (in the First Aid context), but is also a nation-wide company as well (Canadian Pacific Railroad) [which upon posting, I see Roma has already pointed out as well]. For this reason alone, I would consider playing with the naming conventions in order to strike forward with your own “brand”, as it were. I would have appreciated your own voice in the pitch, bringing that personal touch to the venture as well, including what you and your team can offer. The concept itself sounds good - I wish I wasn’t surprised to hear that nurses are continually relying on paperwork for their daily rounds, tasks, and professional learning. Your venture pitch also had some formatting issues in Powerpoint upon my download [and again, it appears to be the case for Roma, too], so it might be prudent to ensure that the document is properly formatted and downloaded as a .pdf file to ensure it looks polished for final review. I enjoyed your inclusion of competition comparison charts and how your product would compete in that market, including subscription costs, though I was curious as to whether that was your primary source of revenue for the company (one can also achieve this through ads, etc.).

FEEDBACK: Laura, the connectivity of K-12 French Immersion schools through Allons-y for collaborative purposes is a great idea. The target market may be a niche in the Canadian education world, but could expand as non-French immersion programs that still teach French courses, can be included in the mix. Not to mention that schools are allocated funds (at least in my district!) for French-specific resources each year. Your elevator pitch provided a positive overview of the application, but would have been great if supplemented by visuals such as app mock-ups or affordances of your French LMS. From my limited knowledge of French-Canadian resources, I would say there isn’t necessarily a “stand-out” resource out there; instead the work is left to teachers to translate, rework, and repurpose materials constantly. Instead, why wouldn’t they have Allons-y! make the road easier? Well done!

FEEDBACK: This is an intriguing concept, as it is taking the traditional protocol of hiring and flipping training regimes on their heads. You identify the frustrations of companies continually investing thousands of dollars on employee training, and their consequent struggle to sustain these employees following that. A venture like Blue seems very disruptive in its very nature; it would change the very way that employees are selected, interviewed, and trained - in fact, that order would be reversed completely from what we know today! This could also provide more investment in work from the prospective employees. People who are using jobs as stepping stones are less likely to persevere through the protocols you’re outline. Additionally, it helps to select top candidates based on work ability, not merely the merits on their resume, which don’t always translate to work ethic on their own.

FEEDBACK: Hi jormiston, thanks for your pitches on VRICS. The obvious pain points that the new curriculum in BC presents will undoubtedly become widespread as curricula across the nation begins to shift. After watching your elevator pitch twice, I understood what your company would like to offer (VR across educational settings), but couldn’t grasp exactly what it was that you were targeting regarding subject area or curricular content. Who are the end users of your product? What features will make it competitive in the edtech market and will distinguish it from competitors? Why would someone invest if they didn’t know about the strong links to the curriculum and how it would impact the work of school districts? This could have been achieved using less text on the PowToon slides (which, at times, I couldn’t even finish reading before it moved), providing more visuals, even if they were rough mock-ups, and establishing your own entrepreneurial presence in the video rather than relying on text alone. Additionally, your narration probably would have helped to keep it under the 1 minute limit, too. After watching your venture pitch, I could see what you were trying to achieve, but more details need to be present in your elevator pitch for prospective investors, who won’t necessarily spend the time it takes to watch a full venture pitch.

REVIEW: Emily, this is a great application that brings with it awareness to nutritional needs for families living in poverty. I very much appreciate your framing of the problem through your venture pitch; those values were astounding! While I understand your framing that targets your own community, this application could impact impoverished families across Canada, and has a potential to grow far beyond that. “Applying Nutritional Value” per dollar is a great slogan that has the potential to reach consumers. I loved the personal touch of your on-camera video, showing your caring motivation behind this product. Your inclusion of quantitative values was impressive, including the consideration of government subsidization. I wonder if the price of the app should be free, as I would guess that families who are impoverished are less likely to spend money on an app, and that revenue should be generated from ads or upgraded features. All in all, great work!

FEEDBACK: Hi Rebecca! Thanks for your product overview - I’m sorry to hear about your voice. This could be a useful product in elementary settings especially, as students begin learning about time management skills. It could also potentially be applied to several other markets that prize productivity. The challenge that an app like Time Flow would face would be to integrate the desired goals of the user over multiple applications that they may be using. Another challenge lies in the fact that this app is restricted to iPad devices; I don’t see why it couldn’t also be utilized as a web app (in the form of a Chrome extension or App, or a Mac App, for example) or an Android or Windows app as well. Overall, I liked the idea of this application and was glad that you included investment and development strategies within your venture pitch as well as the inclusion visuals for what the app can provide to users. Great work!

REVIEW: Kim - first of all, I love this idea for young learners and English-language learners! This could be a great support for early word recognition, vocabulary acquisition, and even as a writing aid in educational and family settings. It is also an excellent idea to include descriptors for the item being viewed in order to ensure that the viewfinder has correctly identified the target image or images. What’s better is that the notion doesn’t have to be restricted to an English-speaking population; this could be expanded to a far larger global market across multiple languages. While I think the programming itself would be absolutely mind-boggling (think of a basic object like a television, and how many different images would need to trigger that word & its descriptors… then multiply that by all of the objects in a room), this could provide a basis for other AR apps that have been imagineered, but are not yet recognized in public use. Your work is clearly based upon applicable learning theories and draws upon the mobile app market and augmented reality. As much as I love the idea for the product, at this time, I would not invest. I would love to see more information - including quantitative figures - regarding proposed venture income, models and flexible strategies for product marketing, and identified methods of garnering consumer feedback; these would likely inform how the product would shift and change as it is being developed. Well done!