REVIEW
I would invest in this venture. You had an excellent assessment of the market: very focused, very good potential. The private, bilingual school and private tutor/cram school market in Asia is enormous.
One of the best things about your presentation is that you identify the cultural concerns of “digital colonization” by Western products in China. This is a very real concern, and your suggestion to use existing Chinese content is brilliant. I think it is an excellent way to get government officials (who will need to be persuaded to allow your product on the market) and educators in general on your side.
I would have liked a bit more data on the numbers, even a rough estimate showing expenses and expected revenue and growth. It seems as if a market penetration of 30% of private schools and 5% of public schools (there are a lot of them in China) seems a bit steep, but with your request for a $2 million investment in a product that only needs a Chinese adaptation to it should leave a sizeable amount for marketing.
I believe that you demonstrated the usefulness of the product and the potential market seems wide open for your venture. Your very impressive Analyst Report (which was next on the Youtube playlist) provided excellent additional material that assisted my analysis.
Finally, I would invest in YOU. You have a very impressive resume and have demonstrated the kind of leading edge attitude that would make a good entrepreneur. Your work on your blog, and even hosting a conference on gamification as a presenter is exactly the kind of evidence of highly motivated leadership that is needed for a successful venture.
If I may, there is one area of feedback that I would like to offer. The biggest weakness of this product is not actually a failing of the product (because it does what it was intended to do), and it might not actually impede its sales. It is the idea that this kind of grammar practice can produce significant gains in fluency of second language students. I understand how this has worked to elevate the grammar skills of native language speakers in America, but I wish it would do more to address the different needs of second language speakers.
I know from your resume that you have experience in this field as well, but as an English language instructor in the Asian market for more than a decade, I can tell you that a focus on grammar in Japan has failed to produce fluent communicators. The curriculum in Japan is heavily invested in the kind of grammar activities that No Red Ink seems to provide, and it has yet to prove successful at developing fluency in either writing or speaking in large numbers.
What this kind of curriculum has produced are students who are capable of manipulating the grammar of sentences that have been provided to them… however, they have very low ability in general, to actually PRODUCE language. There is a huge difference between grammar knowledge using text that has been provided, and the ability to spontaneously and fluently generate their own sentences using this grammar. This product does not bridge this gap, but then, it was not designed to do that.
Having said that, I can see how students would benefit from the use of this tool as they are learning to use the grammar. I only wish there was a more comprehensive approach to this kind of software that would be able to not only utilize personalized lessons, but personalized CONTENT… taken from the student’s own writing and then adapted into grammar lessons. This is something that is beyond the scope of this product.