Going Up

Going Up

Entrepreneurs by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

Phil Camillo, who once sold training materials to rocket scientists, really knows how to make a sales pitch. His latest success? Winning a national elevator pitch contest for entrepreneurs.

Resiliency and determination, an entrepreneur's chief currency, is like a basement ATM for Phil Camillo. Heck, his first job out of college in the late '70s was teaching a variety of subjects in Detroit's public schools.

More than a decade later, Camillo added a new wrinkle to his stick-to-it ways when he went through a year-long process of selling a computer-based training program to rocket scientists. He licensed a product to NASA, through one of several businesses he founded since leaving the teaching profession.

Now living in Siesta Key, Camillo is testing his ambition one more time with PixLit, an online venture dedicated to the world of home schooling.

The business, which Camillo co-founded with his wife, Caroline Gallagher, provides avenues for home school-based parent-teachers to assign work and check students' progress, while using new video-based programming and technology to teach lessons. Some of the site is built around free memberships, while for-sale products include interactive math and science lessons and tutoring.

Camillo and Gallagher launched PixLit out of a home office in 2005 on $80,000 in combined savings. Its biggest boost came in early December, when it won a nationwide contest for the best elevator pitch, beating out more than a dozen other entrepreneurs.

The contest was sponsored by StartupNation, a small business clearinghouse created by brothers Jeff and Richard Sloan, whose entrepreneurial empire includes a radio show, a book, an e-newsletter, an information and advice-based Web site and for the past two years, an elevator pitch contest. (The Sloans, who spoke at the Sarasota Manatee Technology Conference Aug. 31, were featured in the July 6 Review).

For winning the contest, Camillo will be flown to the Sloans' Michigan StartupNation headquarters for in-person coaching, business plan consultation and meetings with potential investors.

Camillo's especially jazzed about the introductions to venture capitalists and angel investors, as one of the lessons he's learned in 15-plus years of running his own business is that access to capital is essential. "You have what you think is a great idea," he says, "but you have to get someone in the investment community to buy into it."

"I've always had an entrepreneurial sprit," says Camillo, 61 "and this is a great opportunity."

A tough customer

In addition to his entrepreneurial spirit, Camillo has a penchant for building things. After a few years of teaching fifth-, sixth- and seventh- graders, Camillo, a Michigan native and graduate of the University of Michigan, left the public school setting to open a private school based on Montessori principles. He also founded a children's computer camp.

Camillo then moved on to teaching adults, first as a director of technology instruction for an office furniture business. In 1991, Camillo founded Turn-Key Training, a business that built computer-based training and education systems responsible for managing an organization's entire training process, known in industry circles as a Learning Management System (LMS).

The systems he built at Turn-Key, a company he started on his own with $1,000, were designed for business-to-business use, Camillo says. He didn't know it then, but the highly-technical Turn-Key systems would later serve as a blueprint for PixLit.

Back then, though, Camillo set out to sell Turn-Key's system to NASA and three divisions of the U.S. Deptartment of Defense. While the NASA process was a year-long red-tape struggle, it ultimately paid off in several ways: One, in terms of actual dollars, as NASA paid $1.7 million in 1995 for licensing the product (Camillo still has a framed copy of the first check, cut for $500,000).

The second payoff was in terms of opening up Camillo's eyes to his future: Computer- Internet-based educational training systems. "That was a turning point for me," says Camillo. "It got me excited about Learning Management Systems."

Camillo had a founding role in two other companies after Turn-Key. One business, Cameo Multimedia Productions, produces education programs for adults and children, and a second company, Campus K12, is an online training and development Web site for teachers. Camillo remains on Cameo's board; he sold his interest in Campus K12 to start PixLit.

Not just video games

PixLit utilizes many of Camillo's past experiences in the field. And it has two other positive aspects going for it, Camillo says. First, the target market - home school parents, teachers and students - is a large, and largely untapped, market. Second, the business is coming of age at the right time technologically, as online video is the Next Big Thing. Says Camillo: "We think we're sitting on an opportunity to improve the literacy of children using video."

Camillo says PixLit, which stands for picture and literacy, has great potential for reaching the home school market, as it supports parents in why many of them decided to home school their children in the first place: Management and control of their children's education.

PixLit features include a real-time management system that tracks what a student is working on, what's left and when an assignment is due; a variety of subjects and grade levels; and lessons, homework and assessments that require no teacher preparation. Lessons cost $20 or less, depending on grade level and the subject.

"We want to deliver a high-level educational curriculum," says Gallagher, who worked in TV editing before founding PixLit with Camillo. "We aren't just throwing up video games."

In addition to the number one challenge of finding enough outside financial support to build and market the business, Camillo says there are other challenges to meeting both their own goals and the standards of their customers. Technology is a big one, as the PixLit Web site is content heavy, with hundreds of videos and other streaming material. Finding the right online shopping and payment process is also a cumbersome task, says Camillo.

Camillo has been running a test of the lessons and educational programs with 114 families in 15 states. He's received feedback from that group, as well as other focus groups he's set up, and soon the Sloans will weigh in with advice. While the past year and a half as been geared toward getting the site and all its content ready, Camillo hopes 2007 will be PixLit's "coming out party."

Winning is Contagious

Winning a national contest for entrepreneurs six months ago has been a big boost for Elena Neitlich and Cari Whiddon, a pair of Osprey stay-at-home moms who started a business to help fellow parents succeed in the challenges and struggles of raising children.

The business, Moms on Edge, and a Web site under the same name, was one of six companies to win the contest sponsored by Entrepreneur magazine and ProStores, an eBay-based software firm. Neitlich and Whiddon are receiving advice and training for a year on how to improve product lines, marketing, and online sales techniques.

And it's been working. Whiddon says the products - from a good manners board game to a Time Out Mat for Tots - are in five more stores since winning the contest; Whiddon hopes to add Publix in the next few months. What's more, the pair has created two new products that could be ready for distribution in early 2007.

Neitlich and Whiddon, who call themselves momtrepreneurs, have also added several features to the Web site, including a blog of movie reviews, recipe links and essays regarding parenting issues.

-Mark Gordon

How he did it

Here's some elements Phil Camillo suggests entrepreneurs focus on when writing a successful elevator pitch:

• Revenue model: What problem does the business solve and how does it make money?

• Recognize market competition;

• Market validation: Will the dog eat the food?

• Executive management's past experience and successes;

• Investment request: Equity for capital;

• How investment funds will be used;

• Future projections and exit strategies.

A plush elevator ride

Phil Camillo beat out 14 other ambitious entrepreneurs to win StartupNation's second elevator pitch contest - a sales pitch made in a short time, such as an elevator ride. Camillo made several pitches before a panel of judges before ultimately wining for PixLit, an online business catering to home schooled students and their parent-teachers.

One runner-up runs an online dating Web site that matches people based on musical tastes, while another runner-up is behind an effort to start a community center that combines assisted living with a learning facility.

For more on StartupNation and the elevator pitch contest, go to www.startupnation.com.

A nice ride

levator pitch contest sponsored by StartupNation, an enterprise that supports small businesses and entrepreneurs through a Web site, books and a radio show. Here's a copy of Camillo's winning pitch:

I would like to introduce you to a business opportunity called PixLit.

Our mission is to help improve children's literacy through the visual media.

We are targeting one of the fastest growing consumer markets today - home school families - and it is a market that is virtually untapped with no real, direct competitors.

We are an e-commerce website that makes money by selling solutions for the three basic needs of home school parents:

• Quality education programs

• A supportive community and

• A management system to track progress

PixLit will maintain a significant competitive advantage because of our exclusive content partnerships and special communities.

For the last 6 months we have been validating our business model and you can review many positive testimonials on our site.

I am the co-founder of PixLit and I have over 15 years of success in the e-learning industry. One of my previous companies developed a learning management system for NASA and was acquired in three years.

PixLit is seeking $500,000 to implement its marketing strategy and is offering Round 1 investors a 20% equity position with dilution protection.

We project 13 million in sales by year 3 and by year 4, we will pursue an acquisition by a major education publisher.