Practice pitches. Second round (I)

Last Monday, we had another opportunity to show our project to the rest of the class and practice the final presentation, which will be held in just a couple of weeks. However, on this post, I would like to focus on the other two teams, leaving our own pitch comments to my next entry (maybe next Friday or Saturday).

So, these are my reactions and comments to second round of practice pitches (MechanApp and Powderade):

- MECHANAPP

• Again, a clear, clean and solid presentation. No major mistakes in general. I think they did the best pitch so far.
• They cut the number of speakers to 2 (there were 3 last time)
• The handout was pretty similar to the one of the first practice pitch (but it is good!)
• They started the pitch introducing themselves, and then, they went through a brief introduction, main goals of the app, and a justification (Why MechanApp? -> Basically do it yourself, saving money and improving your auto mechanical skills).
• Business model -> revenue: targeted advertising 
• The demo was again very good, perfect execution, slightly better than the first pitch. They chose a specific car, model, and year in order to give an example. The app guides you through different possible workarounds. This system reminded me to the Troubleshooting problems system of Windows.
• Awesome design. I believe it is actually the strongest point of this project.
• They also explained how the Greedy algorithm worked by showing a tree structure and using other real example at the same time. Key-point of the app: It statistically learns from previous problems, and intelligently selects most likely causes for the selected vehicle first to investigate.

- POWDERADE

• Major changes in the way they organized the pitch.
• This time, they only used the video to show the demo (much better!)
• The handout was not bad, but I believe that they can easily improve it (they should reduce the amount of text).
• They started comparing Powderade with other existing skiing and snowboarding apps such as Snocru (Goldilocks method).
• They talked about the different achievements (speed, GPS stuff, distance, etc.).
• They also mentioned a Facebook sharing feature, which will be available coming soon. In my opinion, they should not have said nothing about it...
• They made an important mistake when tried to play the demo video using Youtube (the movie did not load). Fortunately, they finally managed to play it, but it would be interesting to play a local copy of the video instead. Anyway, the video was focused only on the demo itself. It was OK, but I believe that they included images recorded with an on-board camera along too much time. In my opinion, these kind of images distracts the audience's attention, and besides, they do not match with the information they display in the demo.
• Technology choice justification was OK in general. However, Ackley suggested moving all the Technology choice stuff before playing the video (demo). I agree.
• The application will be available on Google Play for the next winter season.
• A classmate suggested (again) that the name of the app is quite similar to "Powerade" (the sports drink). It could be overlooked by the team, but in terms of marketing may be a trouble to promote the product, especially in online search engines. Anyway, I think it is too late to change the app's name...