Future Frontier App- Video Pitch

The pitching assignment stresses the difference between pitching to produce many possible ideas and pitching to promote one specific, developed idea. You have your idea—pushing the concept of the futurist—but you need a vehicle. So you say, what about an app or a book?

It may not seem like there is much of a difference, but most concepts reach success in one clearly defined form. It is a successful movie and then it becomes an okay game and an okay book, or vice versa. The form you choose matters. The form defines a lot about your concept.

In this practical section of the course, I emphasize drafting just as much as I do in the writing half. Instead of dreaming big, and then raising the money, think small and test your ideas.

Looking at your pitch assignments alone, your book pitch is better than your app because it is more specific. A book about one person is an easier concept to grasp and execute than a social network that brings a world community and its output together without any clear incentives.

Building a social network or app or site is not the hard part. Getting people to use yours specifically is the hard part. Why will futurists use your site? Why will the futurists with the best content provide it on your site? Because you are the first, the biggest, with the best services, free, not free?

If you say book, I understand the algorithm. You will write the book and whether its good remains to be seen. If you say app or site, I don’t know the algorithm. Facebook beat MySpace and Google trumped Yahoo because their processes were different in addition to better. I don’t know what your app will look like or how it will work before I judge it.

Your proposal and presentation combined your pitches. They are still the amorphous application or social network, but you sell them with the Cornish narrative. At a little over six minutes, your speech is a decent length, not asking too much of my time, but you don’t tell me what this is about until you get to your problem statement, which is more than halfway in.

After 3:30, I discover your app will provide: a futurist library, file sharing, a social network, live chat rooms, and event calendars and event planning. That’s a lot of infrastructure without a clear source of revenue.

Good project planning is well written. Good proposals are well written when they are clear and thought through. A good idea is tangible, no matter how imaginative. A good idea is possible, no matter how seemingly impossible.

How big is the futurist audience? How likely are they to use this resource? I like the book idea better because it would build and define your platform. How many people will buy your book? As a book author, you would need to create the content and write the accompanying blog and pull the resources together for your audience. That sounds like a lot more work for you, which sounds more realistic to me, the investor.

You have already turned Cornish’s biography into an engaging animation on your own. So you have credibility there. Your narration delivery is professional. I might suggest you make one of these videos every few weeks on another aspect of Cornish or another futurist story. That’s very tangible. That could accomplish your app goals much easier, albeit in a different form.

I hear it all the time. I will make an app and it will just be as big as Facebook. I will make an app and everyone will just use it. I will get a Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube account.

Of course, but will you have any followers?

Again, the key to writing well for the practical is drafting small.

Let’s look at this again from the perspective of the first half of the semester. Did you tweet? Yes and no. Your presentation is short enough, but there was no lede. Did you create an avatar? Not really, there was no mention of your credibility or a creative team or advisors. You should have said the project was sponsored by a futurist organization. I also don’t know about your market or competition. Your credibility was rooted in the execution of an entirely different medium.

Did you create an algorithm? I have no clear picture of how the app interface works. You need that before you can write a real budget. Did you create a wiki? There was a lot of research on Cornish, so yes and no. I would’ve liked more hard numbers on the audience and interest, if you wanted to leap as big as you did.

I would not have given you my money for The Futurist app. (You also never gave it a name.) However, give me a call if you start to produce animated shorts on YouTube.

Great work and effort Futura.

2 Replies to “Future Frontier App- Video Pitch”

Robert Kalm (@prof_kalm) says:

July 27, 2015 at 8:07 pm

The pitching assignment stresses the difference between pitching to produce many possible ideas and pitching to promote one specific, developed idea. You have your idea—pushing the concept of the futurist—but you need a vehicle. So you say, what about an app or a book?

It may not seem like there is much of a difference, but most concepts reach success in one clearly defined form. It is a successful movie and then it becomes an okay game and an okay book, or vice versa. The form you choose matters. The form defines a lot about your concept.

In this practical section of the course, I emphasize drafting just as much as I do in the writing half. Instead of dreaming big, and then raising the money, think small and test your ideas.

Looking at your pitch assignments alone, your book pitch is better than your app because it is more specific. A book about one person is an easier concept to grasp and execute than a social network that brings a world community and its output together without any clear incentives.

Building a social network or app or site is not the hard part. Getting people to use yours specifically is the hard part. Why will futurists use your site? Why will the futurists with the best content provide it on your site? Because you are the first, the biggest, with the best services, free, not free?

If you say book, I understand the algorithm. You will write the book and whether its good remains to be seen. If you say app or site, I don’t know the algorithm. Facebook beat MySpace and Google trumped Yahoo because their processes were different in addition to better. I don’t know what your app will look like or how it will work before I judge it.

Your proposal and presentation combined your pitches. They are still the amorphous application or social network, but you sell them with the Cornish narrative. At a little over six minutes, your speech is a decent length, not asking too much of my time, but you don’t tell me what this is about until you get to your problem statement, which is more than halfway in.

After 3:30, I discover your app will provide: a futurist library, file sharing, a social network, live chat rooms, and event calendars and event planning. That’s a lot of infrastructure without a clear source of revenue.

Good project planning is well written. Good proposals are well written when they are clear and thought through. A good idea is tangible, no matter how imaginative. A good idea is possible, no matter how seemingly impossible.

How big is the futurist audience? How likely are they to use this resource? I like the book idea better because it would build and define your platform. How many people will buy your book? As a book author, you would need to create the content and write the accompanying blog and pull the resources together for your audience. That sounds like a lot more work for you, which sounds more realistic to me, the investor.

You have already turned Cornish’s biography into an engaging animation on your own. So you have credibility there. Your narration delivery is professional. I might suggest you make one of these videos every few weeks on another aspect of Cornish or another futurist story. That’s very tangible. That could accomplish your app goals much easier, albeit in a different form.

I hear it all the time. I will make an app and it will just be as big as Facebook. I will make an app and everyone will just use it. I will get a Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube account.

Of course, but will you have any followers?

Again, the key to writing well for the practical is drafting small.

Let’s look at this again from the perspective of the first half of the semester. Did you tweet? Yes and no. Your presentation is short enough, but there was no lede. Did you create an avatar? Not really, there was no mention of your credibility or a creative team or advisors. You should have said the project was sponsored by a futurist organization. I also don’t know about your market or competition. Your credibility was rooted in the execution of an entirely different medium.

Did you create an algorithm? I have no clear picture of how the app interface works. You need that before you can write a real budget. Did you create a wiki? There was a lot of research on Cornish, so yes and no. I would’ve liked more hard numbers on the audience and interest, if you wanted to leap as big as you did.

I would not have given you my money for The Futurist app. (You also never gave it a name.) However, give me a call if you start to produce animated shorts on YouTube.

Great work and effort Futura.
1. Futura Bazaar says:
  
  July 27, 2015 at 11:56 pm
  
  I did give it a name. It was called the FUTURE FRONTIER APP which is also the title of the blog entry and also mentioned in the video. Also noted as FF in my video.

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