The price of knowledge

Luo Yonghao, founder and chief executive of the smartphone company Smartisan. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Luo Yonghao, of Beijing, founder and chief executive of the smartphone company Smartisan, has more than 30,000 subscribers on the app for his articles on how to make a startup company successful, each paying 199 yuan for an annual subscription starting from May.

Zhang Xiaoyu, of Beijing, a former analyst with Goldman Sachs, set up a newsletter with the same price that provides potted histories of big international companies, and within a month he had more than 8,000 paid readers.

Luo Zhenyu's online talkshow Logical Thinking. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Luo Zhenyu, of Beijing, the creator of Dedao－the name is Chinese, meaning "to get it", implying that those who use the app will get the knowledge they need to keep abreast of the times－used to be a television producer.

In 2012 Luo started an online talk show, Logical Thinking, recommending good books every day, and says it now has more than 10 million followers. It was free of charge.

Last year, drawing on his experience of the previous few years, he published a book titled Information Overload－I Know How You Feel.

"We need to change the way we think if we are to keep up with these ever-changing times," Luo says in the preface. "Change can be hard; it pushes us to learn continuously, to understand new things, but it is only in change that we can see the future."

The app is Luo's way of providing people with the knowledge to cope with change.

It offers written articles, podcasts, e-books, and live talks.

But unlike other educational apps whose content is mostly free, almost every product carried on Dedao has a price.