Enterprise China Quote

John Pasden is quoted on Enterprise China in a recent article about start-ups in the Mandarin learning space:

"I became really interested in the individual side of learning Chinese; how it's a personal quest for each person. I wanted to establish a business where I could speak face-to-face with students, understand their needs and try to do some new things to help them learn. With AllSet Learning I wanted to use technology, but also bring a human focus. We're in China, surrounded by Chinese people, and that brings many opportunities for one-on-one conversations with locals; that's what we're all about. I think personalization is the key because many businesses, including start-ups, are obsessed with scaling. Obviously there's good reason to be obsessed with scaling – businesses have to make money or they die. We are completely privately funded. We were profitable within the first year and I'm in this for the long haul. We're not going to be huge anytime soon, but huge isn't the goal – the goal is to create something really cool."

AllSet has applied the 37Signals approach to a startup: outside money is Plan B.