About

Join us every 2nd Tuesday of the month for our online "Practice Pitch" bringing together our community of kingdom-minded entrepreneurs, investors, and support services. This event offers start-up companies seeking investment the opportunity to practice their pitch and receive valuable investor feedback. We include guest speakers each month bringing you relevant industry insights. Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, or want to learn and connect with faith-aligned businesses, we invite you to join us online, learn, build meaningful relationships, and collaborate together. RSVP for our next event and view our library of video resources.

Practice Pitch Companies

Avinu Media is a joint venture of Christ Vue and Compedia. 
Christ Vue is Crossflix’s parent company. Through Christ Vue, our intention is to further develop Christian film and television production and distribution. We empower Christian filmmakers, Christian artists, Christian scholars, Christian production companies, film and tv distributors to continue making faith-based programming.
Compedia is a leading worldwide developer of educational platforms and products, focusing on Biblical learning.

Baby Barista is on a mission to make infant formula simple. The Baby Barista ecosystem combines a  patented “Nespresso-like” countertop appliance, premium organic formula in sterile packaging delivered right to your door, and a dedicated mobile app that allows remote formula preparation, feeding tracking, and formula supply management.  With the press of a single button, parents can prepare the perfect bottle in under 30 seconds - exact concentration, ideal temperature, no bubbles (even from bed at 3 am). 

Investor Pitch Feedback

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Avinu Media

1. I really liked what you did covering all of the key components in a venture capital pitch, like your differentiation, use of funds, competition. This is really important.
2. I like that you said content needs to be created more - aspirational.
3. I don’t know if RightNow Media is your key competitor – but it is somewhat of a different model.
4. I would like to see more of how you grow, specifically more on the sales model.
5. The other challenge I think you will have is the valuation, it is pretty high.
6. I need to see a path to profitability, of growth to scale and how I am going to make a return on investment.
7. I like how you had all the boxes checked of what a venture capitalist would want to see.
8. Maybe there is an angle with RightNow Media – they are historically open to having other ideas come in. 
9.  I like your concept a lot.
10. There are actually a lot of competitors out there. We had a company called Communitas a couple years ago that presented and they have a platform that was interactive.
11. I like the fact that you have movies.
12. One of the things that is interesting is all the live media and the interactive (live webcasting, live virtual class, customization) – these are things that are unique to you.
13. How hard is it to teach someone to use this stuff in a church?
14. Other question – churches are hard to penetrate, they have big wall up – so if you have a subscription model – how do you market this and get behind that “wall”?
15. I love the pitch. I love the idea. I think it’s great that you are moving the church into the future with the virtual connection. The pandemic has really provided a lot more awareness that being in church in-person is not necessarily how things are going to be in the future. We need to fight for good Christian alternatives on the digital airwaves, instead of some of the other things that are out there.
16. Talking about valuation – you said you raised 400k from friends and family and a 10M valuation. Has Christ Vue put in money? Can you help me understand the connection? The only way I can make the jump is from Christ Vue to Crossflix – how do those two connect?
17. As an investor, when I hear the pitch, it gives me more of a sense of momentum if I understand that there are already some assets involved, or maybe some agreements about the registries, and the licensing, etc. I’d like to say that I am getting on board with something that is already a rolling thing. It gives me more of a reason as to why I want to invest. 
18. I appreciate all the work you do in this space – it is incredibly important.
19. I think it is timely.
20. I have worked with some companies that are selling a piece – I love that slide where it says the different features you are trying to differentiate.
21. I did not necessarily see those features when I looked you up online, so the ability to understand those in depth, I think are differentiators for you. I think that is what churches need to see.
22. As it is structures today, I do not know if a church will necessarily go to subscribe to content – they’ll leave that to the individual members. I think the churches would be most interested in the virtual class, the live webcasting, the donation links and so there are different partners in each of those. Those are some good ones in the Christian media space and for the donations, Subsplash. Finding partners to do this together, otherwise, the road you have in front of you is ambitious, and I think your projections are ambitious. To stay on the timeline, it is going to take something to help accelerate some of that work. 
23. This is exciting that churches are being digitized and being brought into the modern world and Covid has helped push a lot of North American churches into the digital world. There is also the content game. Part of my entrepreneurial/investor brain is asking which one you are going to be? Where are you really going to compete?
24. As an investor, I am wondering can you win at any game if you play both? “The man who chases two rabbits catches none”.
25. Where are you in the phase of your investment?

Baby Barista

1. You hit all the points. I love how you covered use of funds in a wheel and breaking it out. You hit all the points that a venture capital person would want to see.
2. I am not worried about the fact that you have a competitor, because you can market against a competitor. But do your patents really protect against the competitor?  Do you have that sort of simplistic methodology in the articles of the patent?
3. Your marketing message is really good, professional. It goes to what I would say is a high price point. It looks like a very expensive item because of the way you market it. Is that consistent with what you intended?
4. I think what may mitigate against the high price point – is what I consider as the BAM focus, where you allocate some of the money for the down syndrome research. It is important in Lion’s Den to see the Kingdom focus. 
5. To be candid, really like the product. Really like the opportunity.
6. When you have gotten so much great press, in a sense, why are you needing money? It’s one of those things where it seems like such a great deal and a great opportunity. I am interested, have you been saying ‘no’ to people?
7. I agree and also really like your product.
8. Tell me a little bit more of how you are going to sell and why you are not selling now? What is it that you are missing? Maybe putting your supply chain together? Where are you in your sales cycle? When do you expect to generate revenues? How can we be sure those sales channels will work?
9. You are in the trickiest stage and it is good that you have a competitor. It is easy to see what your competitive advantage is. Showing the one screen with all the parts of the bottle you have to clean – that was crazy! That was an excellent slide and was very compelling by itself.   
10. I thought that was excellent!
11. I am past all my babies, so I was like maybe I will not be this interested, but you captured my attention.!
12. I think your slides were so professional and I loved seeing who you are partnering with and who are your “champions”, who your team is.
13. I felt like you displayed a lot of trust and a lot of knowledge.
14. Wow – I am impressed with your business acumen. 
15. Wonderful presentation! My kids are all in their 20s and so I thought this will be one for someone else to pay attention to, but you captured my attention, you captured my heart, and I think I will go to Dallas to see you in person. It was wonderful.
16. I’ve got questions about the distribution channel, but you’ve already answered that you are at early stage.
17. One thing I would ask – your subscription model for formula packets, what type of margins are you projecting there? Just tell me a little bit about the difference between selling the hardware, the revenue model from the hardware perspective and the revenue that is going to be generated from the subscription model going forward?
18. Very exciting product! I loved the demonstration in the video and the design!
19. It’s like the Keurig for baby formula with an app.
20. It’s not like the Keurig which has more expensive than Folgers but not a very high price point consumable. Yours has a higher price point monthly consumable in the formula. What is the difference between somebody would pay doing it themselves and doing it with your method? And then it is just the convenience premium? So what is that equation for a busy mom?

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Guest Speaker 

Skyler Aspegren is the co-founder of Five, a personal finance app that makes it easy to plan for the future.  Prior to starting Five, Skyler worked on the Strategic Finance team at Uber, where he focused on emerging products including Uber Freight and Uber’s aerial taxi service called Elevate.  In addition, he worked on the corporate finance team at Uber during the year leading up to the IPO and has a background in corporate finance from Kimberly-Clark.  Skyler grew up in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica before moving to the US to attend Wheaton College, where he studied Business, Math & Computer Science.  In his spare time he enjoys skiing, coffee, board games and reading.  

Your Thoughts

"Love the energy and the opportunity to learn business from entrepreneurs' perspective."

About Avinu Media:  "It was good on how clear they are differentiated from the competition. Needed more on path to profitability. Also would be helpful to have one screen on the team and their credentials and expertise and role within team. And somewhere feature organizations, partnerships or champions."

About Baby Barista: "Excellent. Winsome, easily understood, touched on many points, visually pleasing graphics and presentation, entrepreneur is articulate and trustworthy. Only thing I would add is to mention the 3 patents and Intellectual property protection plan."

About Skyler: "Very informative, Presentation was visually pleasing, speaker was articulate and knowledgeable, and put it in a historical and global context. Only thing I would say is put the problem upfront— innovation in transportation like Uber is trying to solve the urban congestion problem."

"Made some interesting new connections."

"The investors made positive and constructive comments and asked good questions that helped clarify the investment thesis."

While impressed with the pitch, the investors still found good questions to ask and comments to make. I love Doug's comment "It's a good thing you have a competitor..."

About Skyler: "Very professional presentation and very informative perspectives on the transportation industry.

"One of the best ones yet."

"The investor's feedback was really impressive."

About Avinu Media: "Daniel Zeldin and his team did a great job with the concept of Crossflix+."

About Baby Barista: "I really love the Baby barista concept. Cara Armstrong is doing a really great job with that."

"The feedback was really informative. I love the freedom to share ideas."

"The event was a great on for me. I never was disappointed attending. I am to looking forward to the next one actually"