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In an effort to keep all of our readers more informed of development regarding MFE, we've created a newsletter that will keep everyone up-to-date about developments, blog posts, partnership agreements, and future plans.

Who's going to buy?

Exploring Opportunities with Strategic Partnerships

One of the most essential questions any entrepreneur must answer before embarking on the start of a new business is who will buy your product. Starting cold, that is, starting from scratch without any customer base is one of the most challenging obstacles any new business has to face. In fact, I'd be willing to say it's one of the biggest causes for failure for small businesses-- no matter how good an idea is, how precisely executed a plan may be, without people willing to buy the business isn't going anywhere.

Having thought about that, I've tried diligently to build relationships with entities that control vast markets for My Foresight Education LLC. As many of you know from reading previous posts, I dedicated almost all of my spare (and sometimes not-so-spare) time to the International Affairs Association at Boston University and Model United Nations. During my time at BU, I made some incredible connections. I urge every entrepreneur out there to keep track of all the people you meet and develop relationships with them.

[Sidebar: Please understand, I'm not advocating that fake "networking" that you'll hear about from so many people. Get involved in what other people are doing and look for groups that share your common passion. Believe me, you'll meet hundred, if not thousands, of people with shared interests. Work with them, help them succeed, ask how you can help. You never know when you'll need a helping hand.]

Here are two avenues that My Foresight Education is exploring as potential strategic partners. Within the next two weeks, I'll be sure to update everyone with the outcomes.

Weland International

Estimated Year-1 Value of Partnership: $175,000

www.globalmun.org

Weland International is an education and Model United Nations facilitator located in Beijing, China. Last year they hosted the largest Model UN conference in Asia with more than 2,200 high school students participating. I was privileged enough to lead 6 BU students to Beijing to help organize and run the conference, meeting some truly inspiring people in the process.

I met with their Board of Directors and after representing BUIAA (www.buiaa.org), I had the opportunity to discuss My Foresight Education with some of the Board members. Within the next week, I will hopefully be presenting to the full Board to pitch a partnership agreement.

This is truly a monumental opportunity. The pitch is simple: MFE will provide a 5-week Model UN preparation course for all of the students which Weland represents (roughly 6,000; though that number is misleading because Model UN is currently growing at an approximate rate of 33% per annum in China and Weland controls over 75% of the market). Chinese students will become more comfortable with Model UN as a system, get an opportunity to practice their English skills with interaction from qualified collegiate instructors, and Weland will get a percentage of revenue for each student who enrolls.

Boston University

Estimated Year-1 Value of Partnership: TBD

www.bu.edu

The Alma Mater. One of the most crucial steps I took when I was researching the opportunity behind MFE was developing a relationship with an advisor. Every start-up should have one.

Luckily, Mr. Erik Molander has been generous enough to donate some of his time to helping me develop a value proposition, MFE's business plan, and now our strategic implementation. Evenmore, he's used his connections within Boston University's Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization (ITEC) to organize a meeting on my behalf with the Provost's office to discuss a potential partnership.

Distance education is one of the fastest growing fields in education within the last 50 years. What's more is that unlike previous education trends, distance education is profitable. Boston University currently supports one of the largest distance education schools in the country, Metropolitan College. Now, a potential partnership with My Foresight Education will allow BU to continue to expand, giving high school students around the world the chance to experience a BU education and showcase their talents before even applying to college.

In addition, MFE gives BU professors and graduate assistants the opportunity to add distance education course curriculum and teaching to their portfolio.

I can't underestimate how HUGE this partnership would be to unlocking further relationships with colleges and universities. As soon as I know more, I'll make sure to let everyone know.

But wait, what about...?

Answering critical questions on the way to launching My Foresight Education

Recently, I sent out copies of the business plan to some of my very trusted friends and family for feedback. As expected, they did their best to force me to answer some very tough questions and I wanted to share those questions and answers, as many people had very similar questions, over the course of a few entries. Please feel free to comment and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1.) How do My Foresight Education courses differ from Advanced Placement (AP) courses? How do they differ from Community College courses?

A great question. My Foresight Education (MFE) courses offer some of the same elements as AP and community college courses: they are meant to provide collegiate material to high school students so they are more prepared for university. However, there are some very important distinctions.

Let's first start with the short-comings of Advanced Placement courses. AP courses are a great option to high school students, but they target different needs than MFE courses. As most current college students will tell you, taking AP US History and AP US European History when you plan to study Political Science isn't as helpful as you might think. Most universities still require you to take their freshman prerequisite courses in your declared major. So even though you might have scored a 4 or 5 on the exam and received college credits, you'll still need to retake these courses. Ok, "so what?" you're thinking, "I've already taken the course in high school, it can't be that different in college!" As much as the college board would like to say that AP courses are the equivalent to college courses, they are not. The undesired consequence of courses with exit exams is that in many situations, teachers will teach students how to pass this exam. Let me be clear, I am not asserting this is always the case; however, when this does occur the educational value of AP exams plummets. My Foresight Education places a value on the transfer of knowledge; there are no exit exams. In addition, we work with current university professors to develop curricula which is then delivered by qualified instructors with extensive experience working solely with that subject matter.

Community college courses suit high school students much better than AP courses. Unfortunately, many community colleges have a misplaced bias that they are institutions of lesser education when in fact, community colleges in the United States usually have the same level of professional educators as any other college. So why don't high school students take more courses with community colleges? We believe there are two factors: (1) They are inflexible and (2) They seem expensive. Let's start with the latter. Because community college offer college credit, which will be accepted by most universities, rates for courses range from $150-$300/credit, making a course more than $450 in most cases. In reality, that rate is more than reasonable, but to high school students that cost usually seems expensive, especially when combines with the first factor, inflexibility. Although community college courses are offered during various times, high school students are constantly running from one activity to another, with schedules changing daily. My Foresight Education understands this and has developed its courses to be flexible to any student's schedule. In addition, we have developed analytical software which analyzes a student's time usage and recommends time maximizing efforts upon completion of a course.

In summary, MFE courses are not meant to replace AP courses or Community College offerings. Instead, we believe our curricula targets the increasing demands placed on high school students. In essence, our courses are meant to supplement the high school learning experience by exposing students to advanced topics (International Relations, Finance, Journalism, Ethics) not normally offered in high school. While some schools might offer similar courses as Advanced Placement or as electives, our courses are designed by professors and are instructed on a collegiate level.