As a business which works with year abroad students, we are constantly hearing stories about how important the year abroad and foreign language skills are for your graduate career prospects. It's when employers start talking about "the lack of linguistic graduates in the UK" that it gets really interesting. You are a linguistic graduate! You are a valuable commodity! You need to understand that with a grasp of a foreign language or an inside knowledge of another culture, you are in a position to approach employers speculatively and offer your services to help them develop new business in those geographical areas.

Tom Adams is the Chairman of the Board for Rosetta Stone, having joined the company as CEO in 2003. He was named the Ernst & Young 'Entrepreneur of the Year' in 2009 and SmartCEO 'CEO of the Year' 2009. A native of Sweden, Tom grew up in France and England and is fluent in French, Swedish, English, and Spanish. He has a working knowledge of German and Chinese and is currently in the process of learning Russian.

I recently had the chance to speak to Tom for the brief 'Last Word' of my Languages and Entrepreneurship report, but his answers are so brilliant that I thought it would be useful to transcribe the interview in full...

To be honest, we procrastinated over this for quite some time. Market Research isn't the most exciting part of planning a business. It's all about stats, graphs and data. Despite the prospective bore fest ahead of us we knew it had to be done and it had to be done well. We'd put it off a fair bit getting carried away with fun bits like designing the logo. Most business advice articles and sites will tell you to do your market research first so that you fully understand your customers. Your market research is also fundamental in securing funding, so make sure you spend some time in getting it right.