Hi, I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI)

2. Hi, I’m Greg Lewis, founder and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc. (SSI) My background is that of a secondary educator with a major in History. If you are like me, you wear a number of hats – I’m a teacher first and foremost but I’m also a “serious gamer”. I look after a computer lab as a librarian and one of the things I have noticed is the number of male students who play video games before and after school and during lunch. While some girls do play, surveys have shown that video games are largely a male pastime with membership being as much as 80%in favour of the gentlemen.

3. This got me thinking about a development that has been observed in high schools where males underachieve compared to their female counterparts especially in the area of literacy. Based on research and trends seen in the Canadian school system, it becomes increasingly clear that boys do not score as well as girls on language arts tests, their drop-out rates are higher and more girls attend university. Vs. And so…..?

4. So…What does my company offer – what is the idea? The product my company is developing is a historical online simulation. It will be directly linked to the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as set out by the Ministry of Education. The idea being, when students engage in these simulations, not only will they have fun (which motivates students to work harder), but they will come out of these exercises with very specific information found in the Individual Resource Packages supplied by said Ministry. There is widespread consensus that games motivate  players to spend time on task mastering the skills a game imparts. The story line is the Dieppe Raid by Canadian Forces in WWII (Social Studies 11 curriculum) Students will engage German forces in attempting to gain the beach assisted by British air cover. In order to be victorious, students will not only have to successfully invade France but they will also have to synthesize what would have occurred as a result of this action – would the war have ended earlier? Would lives have been saved? Critical thinking skills and the use of primary documents will form part of the simulation. The simulation, being online, will allow the user to send their answers which will be scanned using a computer program that recognizes words, terms, definitions etc and will ultimately return a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful” and suggestions on what could have occurred or information that should have been identified.

5. What market does your simulation address? As any school administrator will tell you, in order to have any sort of credibility, these simulations need to be tied to curriculum to justify the instructional time spent and the financial resources. Not only that but the game design has to focus on learning outcomes for serious learning to occur.The market that we are aiming at is the secondary school age group within Canadian schools. As well, there may be individuals or “war buffs” with a strong interest in Canadian history and the actual historical weaponry Canadian forces used at the time. While there has been a strong resistance to incorporating “games” as a learning tool within schools, this means that there is a huge market for our simulation given the right approach and presentation.

6. As of 2006,the education expenditures of all public schools was approximately 50 billion dollars or approximately 7% of GDP. Of this amount, approximately 2% goes to “other” which includes learning resources and technology. Including the costs of text books and office administration systems, the Canadian market would be realistically, 500 million at best. Given that we are targeting secondary schools, that figure would be further reduced by 66% meaning 165 million would be the value of the market.

7. Why will school districts buy your product? First, our product is not a mainstream online game – it is a “serious simulation” that is directly linked to learning outcomes. Secondly, there already exists many console type and computer based games that have massive amounts of money invested in their production. Most teenagers will play these and pay that amount of money. Several companies have been doing this for a long time and have a huge advantage and very deep pockets. Overall, we are not trying to compete with these companies obviously. Therefore, our serious simulations need to be presented during a time when teenagers don’t normally play – let’s say, during “school hours” within the context of instructional time. This may not go over so well with the teaching community to start with.

8. Why else will School Districts purchase? Are there other stakeholders? In general, School Districts are interested in supporting the people they pay and roughly 80% of all district budgets go to “wages”. The lion’s share is paid to teachers. For teachers, there is a bonus in that if they contribute ideas/criticisms/suggestions that we take to heart and use, then their school may receive compensation in the form of licenses or even small honorariums to the contributors. As with textbooks, any certified teacher will be given an evaluation copy of one simulation in order to acquaint themselves with the simulation. One of the biggest obstacles to success in the educational market is that, “serious games are seen as important, but teachers don’t know what to do or how to get involved.” As well, there will be an online collaborative learning environment where teachers can post FAQ’s or read forums on issues surrounding the simulation. It is crucial that we get teachers on board – if they do not understand and embrace our simulations, then we will not be successful. The other crucial stakeholder group we need to bring on board is the students. We will be releasing a portion of the simulation early on and send it to a number of high schools to try in order to elicit what they liked, what didn’t work, what would they suggest etc. We need to know what our future customers think.

9. Why do you believe you have the advantage in the marketplace relative to the market needs? Nobody is providing simulations based on curriculum (which teachers should love) that will appeal to students and motivate them to learn. The Y generation is very much in tune with electronic games that are sophisticated. We propose to woo these “digital natives” with the idea of combining their computer/cyberspace knowledge and habits with their interest in video games in order to draw them into playing our simulation. Secondly, the length of the simulations allows teachers to use this resource easily in under 45 mins rather than having to spend several days or a week in order to complete a three hour simulation. This is important given how hard it is to get into a computer lab generally.

10. Additionally… We will also address the issue of security by offering a safe, secure server connection that will protect the privacy and anonymity of students if they send in written responses. For school districts and parents, this is a paramount concern and we recognize this and guarantee a service that will keep kids safe. against means

11. What is the revenue model? What does the product cost? The revenue model is that of e-commerce where the customer buys the simulation or a school district can purchase class sets or a site license for the whole school. Single user $25 Class set of 30 $175 School Site License $350 Schools/users can download directly from our servers cutting out shipping and handling charges and delivery wait times.

12. How do you propose to market your product? We plan to approach schools “electronically” for the most part although venues such as the Serious Games Conference and the Games Developers Conferences are events we plan to attend in order to learn and to promote our product. We hope to form reciprocal partnerships with other serious games companies in industry where we both place our company logos and information on each others’ products such as Terrace Hill Productions (Simulynx, a service rig simulation game built for training), Coole Immersive (simulations on oilfield training and healthcare training) and Xpan/Bombardier LMS (online courses in the transportation industry) We do not directly compete and the thinking is that if we advertize their products, then students may in fact end up working for these companies, i.e a possible labour force. We are going to offer a blog as part of our website – as other experienced owners have commented, this is “free” compared to advertizing and is very effective and current.

13. How else do you plan to effectively advertize? While we are planning on running lean and mean, as they say in real estate, “Location, location, location”. We will advertize via Facebook, Google (network reaches 80% of Internet users) and Findology(over 4 billion searches per month) where we will pay on a “cost per click” basis. By advertizing on Facebook we can target an audience based on age and location – in this case, teenagers and young adults in Canada. While this provides exposure, it is not “universal” and so our investment will be lower than that of Google and Findology that generate massive amounts of searches.

14. What’s the competition in the marketplace? At present, the main Canadian competition is the History Game Canada which produces a mod pack for the Civilizations 3 game.(Civilizations 5 is $20; Civ 3 hard to find-older) It deals with “the New World” or the settling of Canada by the French in the 1500’s. Another in this realm include Serious Games Interactive (“Global Conflicts –Palestine”) which produces a fairly high end series of simulations with 3D graphics and lengthy completion process. Their prices are twice what ours are. Our simulation is a flash based game that is online and take less than 45 mins to complete per event not including the analysis and writing the student will complete. Our simulations do not require the user/school district to purchase the Civilizations 3/5 game in order to play. As our business grows, we will develop further scenarios based on feedback from our customers and evolving curriculums.

15. Who’s the team that's going to make the business succeed? A number of educators that are experts in education retire relatively early and many are always looking for a “gig” besides being a teacher on call. From the storyline/educational learning outcomes end of things, we will be hiring experts that are motivated to write content for us which directly links with Ministry of Education prescribed learning outcomes. As I have written for an online Alberta simulation and marked Provincial Exams for many years, I will be one of those writers. We are going to use Adobe’s Flash as the online platform since it offers the widest commercial appeal in terms of a compatible browser tool. In terms of development costs, it is the lowest priced option while still providing a strong product. (Kevin Corti-CEO of PixeLearning) a serious player, will secure the services of an experienced yet modest project manager and a development team.

16. What’s the total funding required to execute the business plan? In order to start from scratch, our company will require approximately $100 000 to design, build, test and market our simulation or approximately 13 person months in total including a project manager’s salary. (Kevin Corti email – personal communication) Server costs are very minimal per month but with ongoing “support” to answer FAQ’s/run the blog, rent, and to secure technical assistance we are looking at just over $160 000. Please examine the table provided on the next page.

17. Expenditures for years 2009-2011

18. How much will your company gross in a three year period? Obviously, startup costs are an issue otherwise I would not be pitching this idea to you. I am fully prepared to invest $60 000 of my own money but will retain 51% of the company. We are looking for venture capitalists/investors to invest the remaining $62 695 for the company’s first year’s operation. On that investment, we are looking at a 40% return over a one year period. So if you invest the $62 695 you would get back $87 884. We would then look to start our second serious simulation (actually, it would have started six months previously or even earlier if sales bear out the way we project.) As the main investor I too would have to see a gain but I am basing this on “a reasonable for profit” option of 15%. I am not taking this on in the role of your typical venture capitalist. In order for us to meet these profit margins, we would have to generate (using the site license option) sales equaling approximately 465 schools. This does not include single sales to individuals outside the school system. The upside is that while the educational market is slow to grow, it less volatile and usually produces repeat customers for years to come.

19. So, how do you view your chances of succeeding? There are a number of factors that work in our favour. Given that the market is worth $165 million, the sales we have projected represents just .001% overall. Second, the educational market is ready for simulations that are tied to curriculum and presented in a very quality manner that will appeal to students – many inside the serious games industry have attested to this. These simulations will be supported in terms of providing teachers with questions to answers and even providing additional materials that will assist them in teaching. It is a simulation created by teachers for teachers. Our prices are roughly half of what other competitors are charging and there are not that many competitors in our particular niche. By starting slowly with a single, quality simulation we hope to follow up with more robust simulations that utilize full 3-D graphics seen in console type games. If you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to expand on our vision/mission. Thank-you for your time, Greg Lewis – creator and CEO of Serious Simulations Inc. 250 951 9626 glewis@sd69.bc.ca

20. References: Aldrich, Clark. "Costs for Simulations." Isegoria. N.p., 27 Oct. 2007. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.isegoria.net/labels/Games.htm Aldrich, Clark. "How long does it take to build a serious game or educational simulation?." Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009. http://clarkaldrich.blogspot.com/ Corti, Kevin. "What are the business barriers to SG adoption - Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking Portal." Serious Games - The Serious Games Networking Portal - A place for people with an interest in serious games. N.p., 23 Oct. 2007. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. http://seriousgames.ning.com/forum/topics/630751:Topic:18066 Derryberry, A. (2007, November 14). Adobe Serious Games Whitepaper By Anne Derryberry | SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. SERIOUS GAMES MARKET. Retrieved November 19, 2009, from http://seriousgamesmarket.blogspot.com/2007/11/adobe-serious-games-whitepaper-by-anne.html "Global Conflicts Portal." Global Conflicts Portal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. http://www.globalconflicts.eu/

21. Jha, J., & Kelleher, F. (2006, January 1). Boys’ Underachievement in Education. The World Bank. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLACREGTOPGENDER/Resources/CommonwealthBoysUnderachieve.pdf Ontario Ministry of Education, (2004). Me read? No way! A practical guide to improving boys' literacy skills Ontario: Queen's Printers. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/brochure/meread/meread.pdf "PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and development." PIXELearning - serious games and immersive simulations for learning and development. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. http://www.pixelearning.com/ "The Daily, Thursday, August 27, 2009. Public school indicators." Statistics Canada: Canada's national statistical agency / Statistique Canada : Organismestatistique national du Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/090827/dq090827d-eng.htm

22. "The History Game Canada." The History Game Canada. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2009. http://www.historycanadagame.com/page.php?sid=70 Wilson, Lee. "An Education Consultant Speaks - School Sales & Marketing 101 Part 3 :: The Education Business Blog ." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 19 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2008/10/an_education_consultant_speaks_2.html  Wilson, Lee. "The Dark Ugly Truth About Project Management." The Education Business Blog :: Published by K12 Education Market Consultant Lee Wilson. N.p., 21 Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. www.educationbusinessblog.com/marketing_management/

23. Self-evaluation… Where to start…well, I have certainly learned a lot about serious games and the business end of starting up a company. It is quite daunting actually – I have very little background in “business” per se – us unionized teachers don’t exactly have to major in that. This assignment was a lot tougher than what it appeared as and certainly there was more there than Assignment #1. Kevin Corti from PixeLearning helped immensely in terms of providing real world figures for start-up length and costs to develop your first serious simulation. Strengths: I think that my concept is pretty strong – a lot of experts inside the industry seem to support the idea of simulations moving from Healthcare, the Military and Industry and into Education…it’s just when. The money is certainly not there compared to the other three. “Selling the idea” to school boards would not be that hard – it is very educationally sound and directly reflects curriculum. However, things are very tight in this market at the moment. I think I structured this fairly well based on what we were given in ETEC 522 and what I read by a number “pitch experts” in the business.(pun)

24. Weaknesses: My budgeting is probably not as accurate as someone inside the industry or even a business owner would have submitted. I am sure there are costs that I have omitted or simply didn’t include. I tried to make it as realistic as the information I could access. Sometimes getting real information like what I required is difficult – businesses don’t want to give the competition any sort advantage in terms of competing. I am not sure I targeted my advertizing/marketing towards the School Boards/Districts as much as I should have. I did try and get information about this but nothing jumped out at me. Lastly, the format of this presentation is rather “old”. However, I tried using MovieMaker and quickly realized that the learning curve (and this is with help with a Tech teacher colleague of mine) would be too great and I couldn’t figure out to make the program do what I wanted. I also didn’t want to narrate through an interview or just be myself. So, I used Powerpoint. Since a big part of selling a product is presentation I would rate this as a weakness. However, the substance of what follows I am satisfied with.

25. Last Thoughts… Like others, a lot of hours went into this. I think I have presented a decent product and hopefully (this time) followed what was expected. Glad it is done. Greg Lewis