Author: Khang Trần Hoàng

Lead trainer: Phan Hoang Lan

Program Manager: Nguyen Vi Hoa

Blog Advisor: Phuong-Linh Le-Nguyen 

Summary

• Students learned to map out their business ideas using the Business Model Canvas, focusing on key elements like customer segments, value proposition, and revenue streams.

• The session emphasized crafting an effective pitch deck, including slides on the problem, solution, market opportunity, competition, business model, and a clear call to action.

• Teams completed MVPs, tested their solutions, and presented their business models, receiving feedback in a lively rehearsal ahead of the final pitch.

• Key advice included keeping the BMC simple, practicing concise pitching, and using competitor data to support assumptions when direct user data is limited.

Day 4 of the Fulbright Innovation Bootcamp 2025 is over! Let’s look back at what our students learned today.

Key Learnings: MVP & Pitching

Let’s say you already have the product. If someone wants to buy it, what should you do next? There are still many factors to consider when building a business: who your product relates to, where your main revenue comes from, how you market to customers, and so on. These are the elements captured in a Business Model Canvas.

• [Concept] Business Model Canvas (BMC): a simple, visual tool that helps people understand and design how a business works. Think of it as a map that shows all the important parts of a business and how they fit together.

A typical BMC includes:

• Customer Segments: Who are your customers? Customer description and persona.

• Value Proposition: What problem do you solve for the customers? What are the pain points and Jobs-to-be-done that your product focuses on?

• Channels: How do you reach your customers? Marketing channels, Sales channels, and so on, to maintain an effective customer journey.

• Customer Relations: How do you interact with your customers? Do you set up a customer service to make calls? How do you keep customers coming back in the long term?

• Revenue Streams: How does your business make money? What are the revenue streams?

• Key Resources: What do you need to run your business? A factory, a farm, employees, data,…?

• Key Activities: What main things do you do in your business that match your product’s values?

• Key Stakeholder: Who helps you? Your suppliers, partners,... aka those you will want to keep in touch with within the process of running your business.

• Cost Structure: What are your main costs of running your business?

You can easily find many examples of BMC of big famous companies online. Do a quick search to see how other people are drawing it. Here is a very simple fictional example of a coffee shop’s BMC:

• Customer Segments: Young adults in your neighborhood (5 km radius)

• Value Proposition: A strong liquid to consume to wake them up in the morning; a place for them to recharge energy at the beginning of the day

• Channels: Brick-and-mortar shop on a busy street

• Customer Relationships: Friendly service, name on the cupholder

• Revenue Streams: Selling cups of coffee and drinks

• Key Resources: Coffee, sugar, water, condensed milk, cups, equipment, etc.

• Key Activities: Grinding and selling coffee; making other drinks and toppings

• Key Partnerships: Coffee farm or coffee brand (for supplies), local store (for ingredients), etc.

Cost Structure: Buying coffee beans, sugar, cups, etc. 

After finalizing your BMC, you’ll need to pitch it to stakeholders, typically potential donors or sponsors who might be interested in supporting your journey. They could be motivated by alignment with your mission or by the opportunity to share in your future success. Having a good pitch is essential to capture their interest. So, how do you prepare a strong pitch deck in advance?

There are several types of pitching styles, each tailored to different audiences and objectives, such as elevator pitch, sales pitch, product pitch, etc. An effective pitch deck should include the following slide order:

*1. Cover - Main Quote/Big Idea:

My Company [name of company], is developing [a defined offering] to help [a defined audience] to [solve a problem] with [secret sauce].

For investors, they hear hundreds of ideas and pitches, so the ones that lose their interest the fastest are those with weak and lengthy introductions. Your one-liner introduction should be short enough to say in one breath and structured clearly so listeners immediately understand who you are and what you do.

*2. Problem: 

Which problem are you solving for your target customer? Put supporting data that you have researched to prove that the problem is big and real for you to solve.

*3. Solution: 

Briefly describe your solution. Include a picture of your mockup for visualization, then a visual flow for the features of the product. Describe in detail which part links with which pain point of your customer.

*4. Prototype/MVP: 

How does your product/service work? Remember the keywords that define the features of your solution and put them up front. 

*5. Market Opportunity:

On paper, how many people will buy your product? Give an analysis of your potential market circle:

• Total Addressable Market (TAM): The biggest possible market for your product or service, aka everyone in the world who could possibly buy it. Think of it as the total demand if you had no limits.

• Serviceable Available Market (SAM): The part of TAM that you can actually serve with your product or service, aka the customers you can realistically reach based on your business model, location, or capabilities.

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The smallest and most realistic slice, aka the customers you expect to get first, your actual market share in the short term. 

The part your product should target is SOM. SOM can be limited by geography, age range, occupation, willingness to pay, etc. Make the SOM small since you need to be specific and not target a large, general customer group, but also not too small to become niche and hard to find customers for. 

*6. Competition: 

Describe your competitive advantage compared to current solutions. Do your teammates have recognition in the industry? Do you have a special source of supplying production resources? Or do you offer something your competitor misses or can’t? Spell out clearly why you think you are better than other solutions in the current market.

Remember to give competition examples.

*7. Business Model: 

Describe how you get the revenue. To calculate the revenue:

Revenue = Cost + Profit

Describe the revenue and profit structure. Consider giving information regarding channels, pricing, and customer engagement.

*8. Transaction/ Proof of Feasibility:

Proof that people are willing to buy your product. If you have not started selling your product yet, it is okay to skip this part.

*9. Product Roadmap:

You have to show how your product will be developed over time. How long will it take for you to build the product and get it out to the market?

*10. Business Roadmap:

The investor wants to know how much time it takes to get to 1,000 customers to show that they are investing in a project with a clear vision. This should be consistent with your product roadmap.

*11. Financial Projection:

Show the projected revenue, expenses, and profit/loss. Decide the estimated price of the product/service and your ability to sell it in the upcoming years.

*12. Fundraising Plan:

Capital is needed for every startup, so you need to show that during the time you cannot sell the product yet, you can still keep the operation running by calling for help, aka fundraising. Show when, where, and whom you will ask for the funds. 

*13. Call For Investment/Action:

The most important slide. What action do you want the listener/investors to take? Do you want them to leave you their contacts, give you the investment, or sign up for your socials/newsletter? Make it big with only a few words. 

Student Progress Highlights: Preparing The Final Steps 

Continuing from yesterday’s lesson, our student teams prioritized completing the MVP assignment that the trainers had given out. For a recap of the MVP lesson, check out [FIB LEARNING BLOG #3] to read more about the tips and tricks of testing the hypothesis. The teams had to finish their Canva website before 3:00 PM to experiment with their solution. 

Let’s see what the teams are improving for the pitching day tomorrow:

• Team 1 - Chill guys: working to reduce the guilt associated with overpackaging in food delivery. They plan to offer an eco-friendly container option within existing apps, such as Grab, to make sustainable choices more accessible.

• Team 2 - Bún đậu mắm tôm: tackling the problem of a lack of community and belonging. Their solution involves offering a physical product—a bracelet with charms—to help users identify with the community, complemented by regular workshops to foster engagement.

• Team 3 - Crumb n Calm: is addressing the challenge faced by overloaded students who try to separate tasks but still end up procrastinating. They are focusing on helping overconfident users better visualize the long-term impact of their workload.

• Team 4 - EduNauts: The team realized their user interface was overloaded with features. After user testing, they decided to simplify their product by separating features into different pages and shifting their customer focus. Notably, they found that a color-coded timer feature helped reduce stress for testers.

• Team 5: The team identified that distraction-rich environments are a key root cause of procrastination, a finding supported by research. Their customer journey highlights how users attempt to work but are frequently sidetracked by notifications, making it difficult to resume their tasks.

After the lunch break, the teams completed their MVPs, reflected on their experiment, and discussed what could be done better. With those lessons at hand, the teams jumped into making their own BMC, and each took turns presenting to the entire class. The students got really energetic when they asked questions and gave feedback, showing the bootcamp’s innovative spirit. This session also served well as a mini rehearsal for their real final pitch with our special judges tomorrow. Stay tuned for the closing ceremony! 

Reflection: Actionable Tips For You To Do 

This is the final sprint! Here is a quick blast of advice for your team to prepare for pitching night:

• Testing & Measuring: Data is valuable, but people are hard to get data from. Other than the tech companies that sell billions of dollars’ worth of user data every day, you and I will have a hard time reaching out to people, convincing them to take specific actions, and then measuring it. Don’t stress too much about not having numbers from testing as proof of your assumption/hypothesis. You can use the numbers of your competitors, who have a product similar to yours in many aspects, to illustrate that the problem you chose actually has demand.

• Business Model Canvas: The BMC is just a tool; it does not serve as the definitive mind map for your business. Keep the canvas simple and focused, and use it as a collaborative tool to align your team and clarify your business strategy.

• Pitching: Please, do the slides quickly — even a draft — so you can practice speaking with a timer. Presenting is the most important part of pitching, aside from the images you show on slides. Cut the words on the slides down and only include keywords; your audience will appreciate it. 

What’s Next? Teaser For The Final Day! 

We at CEI can’t believe how quickly our 5-day innovation bootcamp flew by! Join us tomorrow at Fulbright University Vietnam’s Crescent Campus for the exciting Gala Night of the Fulbright Innovation Bootcamp 2025.

👉 Stay tuned as we’ll share the final reflections from FIB 2025.

🔗 Curious? Drop us a message if you’d like to learn how to run your own innovation bootcamp or partner with us.