Von Ahn: Core EdTech apps cannot rely on crowdsourced content
Luis von Ahn · 20VC: Duolingo's Luis von Ahn on How CEO's Can Scale With The Company, How VC Herd Mentality In The Valley Really Works and How Chatbots & AI Play A Role In The Future of EdTech · Oct 13, 2017 · at 5:09
Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, explains why building direct-to-consumer educational platforms requires solving content creation rather than relying on crowdsourced marketplace models like social media.
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“If you're going to decide to teach something, there is a big problem, which is, I don't believe there's an easy way to do a really simple app where in some way kind of you crowdsource the teaching from one side to the other. Like, for example, think of Instagram. I mean, Instagram is an amazing app, but it is not a massively difficult app to build. You build this app and you get basically people publishing pictures for others to consume. So you're not actually creating any real content yourself. If you're building an app like Instagram, whereas if you're going to teach something, I strongly feel like you have to really solve the content creation side. And it's not as simple as just making a little app that can just hook up people who know versus people who want to learn and they'll learn. I don't think it's as simple as that.”
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