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00:00we are really looking forward to hearing more about lingo today so whenever you are ready Ayesha
00:16go ahead and give us your pitch somewhere right now there's a student falling asleep during yet
00:25another zoom class and a parent trying to keep them awake between the billion other things that
00:32parents have to do all of a sudden parents are saying hey pay teachers more and realizing how
00:39difficult it is to keep their child's attention longer than it takes to learn a new dance on
00:44TikTok welcome to the world of lingo lingo is a hands-on self-paced coding kit that empowers students
00:53to build at home did anyone say tesla well we don't actually have any teslas to give away but
01:00our platform allows students to build the parts of a backup sensor that can prevent that car or any
01:06other driverless car from crashing but maybe you're saying i have an artist who wants to learn how to
01:11create the next hit song that's okay lingo is about the power of creating suitable for students from
01:18junior high to college it comes with step-by-step videos and detailed instructions and we even
01:23made the booklets big you know in case you're a parent that likes to look over your child's shoulder
01:29sure i may be a former nasa rocket scientist but people would never believe that i started my career
01:35with pre-algebra in a community college i started late because i was told stem was not for me and that's
01:43why i'm so passionate about lingo we are showing students that they too are stem they belong and
01:51they deserve stimulating stem activities taught by culturally relevant role models our content is
01:56specifically designed to engage to expose and inspire all while meeting specific learning objectives
02:03established by the department of education by design the lingo kit is versatile it can be used as
02:09part of core curriculum or as a supplementary enrichment tool for classes or after school clubs
02:14affordably priced at 69.99 we have sold more than 1 000 lingos in the past 30 days our customers our
02:23parents and those looking to support stem learning in the pandemic this list is long it includes microsoft
02:29ge howard middle school and southern university in fact our product has even been purchased internationally
02:36from canada jamaica to israel news coverage about lingo has garnered 52 million unique views globally
02:45it turns out that making parents and teachers days go just a little bit easier has global appeal self-funded
02:52today your investment will make a huge difference at lingo as we rapidly expand our content to meet the
02:58demand provide academic year support establish description model and secure strategic partnerships with
03:05retailers as we say at lingo no contact no problem that was awesome thank you so much for telling us
03:15more about lingo and before we even get to questions first and foremost a former nasa scientist like you're
03:23pretty cool by yourself without the whole product and entrepreneurship aspect so kudos to you on like your amazing
03:31accomplishments to date more than anything now we're going to ask a few questions as the judges um and
03:39i will kick us off so can you talk to me a little bit more about um how long lingo has been in business
03:47and then also can you can you outline a little bit more where you see the company growing whether it's on
03:55retail shelves and specialty still through schools like how exact like what's the what's the waterfall
04:02of where you see lingo being applied absolutely lingo is a product of a company i founded seven
04:10years ago called stem word and over those over those years we defined and we developed content because we
04:16saw a need in the community related to stem when i would go to classrooms students would see people like
04:22me and say there's no way you could be a rocket scientist and so my team developed these kits
04:27that we left with the students because after we left we wanted them to continue to build when the
04:32pandemic hit in april we were hearing more and more that technology was shining a spotlight in the inequities
04:38in education and we wanted to be able to take the same kits that we left behind in our camps and give
04:43them to the places that needed them the most and that's where my team said we need a solution we need to
04:50create lingo lingo as a standalone product has existed since april we launched it which was a
04:57polished version of our kits in july and the reception has been absolutely phenomenal as a result my
05:03engineering team has already built out four additional project-based learning modules we've
05:08partnered with dc public school teachers to pilot the content we have schools in minnesota who've adopted
05:14them we've executed over um let's see we've executed hundreds of camps over the summer which sounds
05:23wild but from southern university they had hundreds of lingos um in roads we had 125 students in five
05:30u.s states that all did the lingo activity together and so it has just been a phenomenal opportunity for
05:36us to build up the subscription model expand to universities and schools and deliver the lingo kits to parents at home
05:42awesome can you just tell me more about what's actually in the kit yes i would absolutely love
05:49to i happen to have one here i am uh at lingo hq so every student who receives a lingo gets a welcome
05:58card signed by me and it has some introductory steps on the back of this what you find is you have your
06:06instructional booklet which i wasn't kidding when i said they're large they're about as big as my face
06:10so if you want to look over them and see what the student is doing or you have a student who has a
06:15sibling that wants to try to share this can help the lingo and booklets are very very very detailed
06:21so from the top to bottom it gives every single thing that the student needs to know in order to be
06:26prepared as well as references to glossary terms but this booklet isn't the coolest part in my opinion
06:35we have an online video portal that is broken into discrete milestones that allows the students to
06:41watch the activity being put together while following along in the booklet in addition to that
06:47you also have the lingo kits inside this box this is my favorite it is jam-packed with stuff and this is
06:56part of the value in lingo not only do you have what you need to complete the introductory lesson you also
07:02have what you need to expand and explore so any student that goes to our site and purchases an
07:08additional booklet or does an additional video already has what they need at home in order to
07:13complete the lesson by getting the base kit or say they're inspired after building that backup sensor and
07:18they want to build a blinking light or a turn signal they already have it at home and they can keep these
07:24components they're reusable and use them to further deepen their knowledge all right so i have lots of
07:30questions um so what's the business model so i bought so somebody buys the kit for 69.99 and then
07:38what do you just do you buy a kit regularly or once you have a kit you have a kit sure so once you have
07:45the kit you have what's needed to complete a total of five project-based learning modules the initial kit
07:52on our side was done on a wing and a prayer this is why the investment today means so much to the lingo
07:59team we weren't sure that it was actually going to work or people would need or want our content
08:03but the reception has been phenomenal and so the additional content that we're providing not only
08:09aligns with national learning standards but the students that already have the boxes can complete it
08:13and it extends the total content to nearly 20 hours of learning and this is how students and teachers
08:20are able to pick it up and conduct the activities over the course of an academic year
08:24in addition the subscription model that we're building at lingo will allow a student to receive
08:30additional content on a recurring basis and that's what i have a lot of excitement around because once
08:36you buy the base kit you will then get constant content drops where you can go in and continue to
08:43elevate your knowledge and exposure to stem gotcha so it's buy the kit and then subscribe to the content
08:50and those two revenue streams are what begin to build your business it's like it's like it's like
08:57peloton buying a bike buying a bike and then buying the content once you get the bike yes our educator
09:03kit as well is going to be a um subscription so the schools purchase the hardware but then they also
09:10subscribe to the curriculum framework that was developed and the learning modules as well as the video
09:16portal and honestly i think with the way that lingo is going you're going to see more from us we have
09:22lingo space box that's in development as well as trap lingo which i love because we want to lean in on
09:28this idea that we can teach you how to make music with our boxes almost every market vertical has been
09:34digitized to date and stem is no longer just about being an engineer or being a scientist it's about being
09:42a modern day worker and how are you sourcing uh the the stuff that goes in the kit oh absolutely so
09:51we just we developed a relationship with a component manufacturer and we established um the ability to
09:58customize our kits based off of their component inventory and so right now when we develop lingo we
10:05order lingo on the batches of the thousands and then we check the boards and all the components for
10:10quality upon reception our manufacturers for all of the other packaging are domestic and so from our
10:16factories in north carolina that make the boxes to the printed material that's done right here in
10:21washington dc we have a very a very reliable supply chain where are you assembling everything once once
10:29it's in the same place absolutely what what we love about lingo is that the assembly is minimal we
10:36essentially have four pieces to our box we have the box the insert the booklet and then the um the
10:43actual components kit that is all being done here in washington dc at our offices gotcha so the com but
10:50the components kit comes to you already put together yeah so my engineering team during the process of
10:58creation that was their idea so once we get we order the entire packaging and the components from the
11:06factory assembled in the configuration that we like and we're extraordinarily detailed over here at team
11:12lingo so every single component is individually wrapped and protected we're particular about our sensors
11:19everything is very well organized and this is ready made when we receive it how much of your revenue will
11:26be b to b versus b to c wow that's a really great question right now they're both competing what
11:33we're seeing with lingo is that there's such an extraordinary demand i mean i was receiving orders
11:39up until midnight one o'clock in the morning last night from parents that are looking for activities
11:44in order to meet their students needs and between that and the schools that are coming to us i think that
11:51a lot of it is going to end up being universities and organizations as they provide the most volume
11:57in sales but the exposure that we will receive from this opportunity is phenomenal and i really couldn't
12:05tell you what it's going to be like once the nation gets a chance to see lingo as i mentioned we get orders
12:11now from foreign countries and we have very little marketing and very little budget backing our our efforts
12:18one of the reasons why i asked is um because i i wonder about the affordability for the average
12:26parent to pay 70 for for a kit but oh absolutely yeah no i think it's a absolutely wonderful question
12:36and one of the things that we noticed is when we went on target online and we looked at some of the
12:40toys that they had in the catalog we were actually priced much lower than some of the items there so if
12:46you were to go and you were to look at a lego kit or look at a edison robot or any of the other kits
12:52that are out there oftentimes they're one time use which means that you buy the kit you do the activity
12:57and you're done and they're at upwards of a hundred dollars in terms of price point whereas with lingo
13:03you buy a kit and you have additional content that allows you to extend not only the lifetime of the
13:08kit but your ability to do other things that may be outside the kit with the components box that you purchased
13:16what's the subscription cost look like another wonderful question so we're we're looking to
13:23have our subscription box be somewhere between 25 and 35 dollars we really wanted to get the price
13:29point of this down and so we're going to be tailoring the lingo subscription box to probably have more
13:36ideas focused around computer science music and art which doesn't require us to include as many of the
13:42sensor components as we did initially i want to mention um again that when we started lingo it was
13:48really about providing students who didn't have access to lab or stem teaching in their curriculum
13:54as many schools in the united states and urban areas do not offer that with the ability to conduct
13:59activities year-round with their kit and so we really thought about what do you need in order to be
14:03able to tinker for three months or six months and that's the core of lingo now but the subscription
14:09model will be a pared down version that will be focused on our subscription content that will
14:14allow students to build and accomplish things along the way we really are focused on the idea of not
14:20only making stem fun but gamifying each level and driving the desire for the student to come back and
14:27complete more and how much content do you already kind of have in your arsenal at this point
14:34we have a lot of content when i say lingo spacebox and when i say trap lingo they're real things that
14:41we've actually done before and so we have a whole lesson for example around music through movement
14:46where we teach the students how to create the song that goes to mario you know the old school
14:51dun dun dun dun dun dun dun well that also can be applied to your favorite rap song or any other
14:59type of music that maybe you wrote and you want to put on this board and so for us it's really putting
15:04the financing behind taking these ideas that we spent several years cultivating because of our personal
15:10investment in the community and turning it into printed content that we can deliver via our online platform
15:17so first of all a phenomenal presentation and you did a fantastic job answering uh all of our questions
15:27you know covid's been so extraordinarily challenging for all of us and everybody around the world but
15:33uh one of the bright spots is that some wonderful businesses are coming out of it and this clearly
15:38seems to be one of them so congratulations on your success to date uh and good luck thank you thank you
15:45for your time and i'm so excited to have the opportunity to share a lingo with you all thank you thank you so much
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