Hey Ali,
I truly enjoyed learning about your venture. I think you have a great idea here in taking something that has been so successful and expanding its market reach with a new program. As it is an expansion of an existing product it was initially tricky to identify the ‘pain point’ and solution. Here is what I got Babel is a successful personal language learning app but it has its limits and for the next step you want to bring this success into the classroom. I really like your line of ‘team that started with a simple mission: to help spread the love of learning languages globally. Babbel 2.0 is an extension of this mission’. As an investor, it works really well as a hook for me because what I hear is ‘we are going to extend our success’. I might have even put that in the elevator pitch. I did enjoy your unique approach to the elevator pitch, it was like an announcement and invitation, it was high energy with the music and generated enough excitement for me to look at the website.
I think what would really add to your venture pitch would be to really work to emphasize and boldly state the pain point and solution, really focus on we have had incredible success with Babbel in the personal learning market….but it doesn’t work for teachers and schools, we want to change that, and bring our success into the schools.
I really commend you on taking on a venture that adapts and improves an existing success. It gives an extra twist into thinking through the market, business plan, and investment. I checked out your links to Babbel and one thing I noted that might help is that Babbel’s last round of funding (33 million) was way back in 2009. So it would seem reasonable for your pitch to say….now we need new funding, X amount, for our growth and expansion. What do you think? The other thing I was looking for is what the pricing plan would be, and what my return on my investment would be. As an investor, these details would be crucial for me to have before I made any decisions.
What I hope you don’t lose is your way of writing and engaging the reader. Contrary to others I like the language that you used in describing the teaching theory. I think it makes it more accessible to the investor. As educators we love the theory and research and all the details and jargon, however, think investors just want proof of how effective the learning method is and that it is the future trend for education. For my venture, I really had to work to take as much of the nursing jargon and detail out. The other part of your writing I like is that it was very personable and inviting, for example, the About Us section and the first couple of lines are engaging in a social way. I liked your description of yourself, but feel you may be selling yourself short, list your degrees (including the impending MET) and your accomplishments, and as people have said a photo also helps connect with the investor.
I think you have a really good idea here, and a great new market for Babbel. As an EVA with a little more information, I would invest and recommend your venture. Eva