2. Company Purpose
Support teachers and improve the education of students
through the efficient capture and distribution of information
between teachers.
3. Core Problem
K-12 teachers do not have enough time in the day to find and
develop contextually relevant teaching tactics. In fact, K-12
teachers cite the lack of planning time as one of their top 5
reasons for leaving teaching.
4. Sub-Problems
• Is a teaching idea worth sharing?
• Accessing the long tail of teaching experience requires
that we overcome this question/discomfort
• What information is valuable to me?
• An abundance of teaching information forces teachers to
make judgments as to its relevance, in the process losing
much of their planning time.
5. Status Quo
• Create your own
• Online lesson plan repositories
1. Use search to find a lesson plan database
2. Sort plans, identify what works
3. Download and edit the plan
• School provided lesson plans
• Do whatever the lesson says
• Peer teachers
• Meet after school, during overlapping periods or over lunch
6. Solution
It must be simple
• Start with small contributions of content
• Connect the work of teachers to their personal and usage
profiles
• Connect those profiles through a social network
• Directly edit all plans and teaching ideas at PlansForUs
• Push relevant content to teachers via email or RSS
• Write anywhere, publish to PlansForUs
7. Why Now?
My wife asked me to help with a problem
and...
• ~2.3 million new teachers needed in the US by 2012 (NCES)
• Record enrollment in K-12 schools through 2015 (NCES)
• 50% of teachers leave after 5 years
• A $3.8 billion problem (NEA)
• 97% of classrooms are connected to the Internet (NCES)
• Effects of NCLB continue to ripple through education
• Innovative teacher-centric social entrepreneurship focused on
K-12 education (DonorsChoose, KIPP, Teach for America)
8. K-12 Schools vs
Southwest Airlines
• •
Southwest Airlines K-12 Education
Corporate Hierarchy Hierarchy-Current
Employees Government/
Shareholders
Students/
Customers
Customers
Shareholders Teachers/Employees
How do you satisfy shareholders first?
9. K-12 Hierarchy-
Southwest Style
• •
Great teaching is great K-12 Education-Evolution
customer service
• Replacing employees is
expensive Teachers
• Shareholders care about
Students
results
Government
• Note: Shareholders could also include
parents, administrators or even employers
10. Market Opportunities
• Advertising
• More than 60% of teachers surveyed* spent over 5 hours/week lesson
planning
• Professional Development (PD)
• PlansForUs is a channel for PD providers to cost-effectively reach
teachers
• Educational Software
• Sell open, customizable and integrated web applications at standardized
prices
• Generate value through exchange and analysis of participant data across
organizations
• Software Distribution Platform
• An open platform where educational software providers find users
*-PlansForUs Survey, November 2006
11. Size of Markets
We are either Direct Competitors or Channels in
these markets
• Advertising
• 4 million K-12 teachers in US
• 65 million K-12 teachers worldwide
• 60% of teachers spend over 5 hours lesson planning a week
• K-12 Professional Development
• $1,300/teacher spent on PD annually as of 2005 (Simba Information)
• Educational Software
• K-12 Learning Management Systems
• $140 million market-9% market penetration (EduVentures)
• K-12 Instructional Software-Classroom based
• $1.1 billion as of 2006 (QED)
• K-12 Administrative Software
• ~$1 billion as of 2006 (QED)
12. Competition
• Direct Competitors in Lesson Planning
Company Strength Weakness
Great Brand, Big Dev
Yahoo Teachers Not launched
Team, Infrastructure
Non-profit credibility, K12 and Higher Ed focus,
Curriki Integrated editing, Teaching Large learning units,
Content base Contextual relevance
Large lesson plan User interface, Contextual
HotChalk database, Classroom relevance, No integrated
integration editing
• Other Competitors would include: TheApple.com, TeachAde,
TutorOm
13. Product Timeline
• Launch Beta-Start Learning
• July 2007
• Micro-contribution tool-We’re learning
• January 2008
• Enhanced Social Networking-Improving
• February 2008
• Move out of Beta-Still learning
• April 2008
14. Product Focus
• Inspired by Google and Twitter, we focus on the simplest
possible experience that will add value to the individual and
when aggregated, to the collective
• Support simplified information sharing to access long tail
• Focus on efficient discovery of contextual teaching ideas
17. Business Model
Find the Wedge Point and Expand
Subscription
Progression of Business Expansion
Educational Educational Software
Sales Channel
Web Apps Distribution
Revenue Source
Advertising
Professional Development
Distribution
Lesson Planning
Network
Networked
Q&A
Save Teacher’s Time
18. Founders
Steve Yeung-Founder and Head of Technology
•MaxMD-Project Manager and Software Engineer-Constructed
real time domain name registration system
•Tamale Software-Software Engineer-Design solutions for
improving workflows at hedge fund clients.
•Carnegie Mellon 2004-MS in Electronic Commerce,
Concentration in Production Management
•NYU 2003-BS in Computer Science with Honors, Minor in
Psychology
•Moved to NYC from Hong Kong at age 8
19. Founders
Tyler Fonda-Founder and CEO
•Married to an amazing 1st grade teacher teaching in New York
City’s Public School system
•MaxMD-Developed and implemented new business strategy
•DiMassimoGoldstein-Brand Strategist and Account Manager-
Focused on implementation of new media in brand strategy
•Colgate University, 2001-BA in Political Science
•Founded the Fiver Young Professionals Advisory Committee
•Finished Paris and NYC Marathons-Best time 3hr23min
20. Financials
If you’ve gotten this far and are considering an investment in
PlansForUs then we’ll send them to you because....
• We are seeking seed stage investors to help us build a great
business
• Email Tyler: tfonda at plansforus dot com
If you have feedback on our assumptions, strategy or any other
thought please send us an email.