The Ledger
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Luis von Ahn: Do not bet early on unproven new tech platforms
“What we've learned
Is not to bet on these very new products, because you really never know if they're going to work. So it's not that Apple Watch didn't work. Apple Watch ended up working, but what didn't work was apps on Apple Watch. There's just.
That's ju…”
Von Ahn: Duolingo could charge $150/year and users would pay
“The reality is it's not even 60 bucks a year. I mean, we can charge 150 and people will pay it.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 50x Rosetta Stone's users and 5x its revenue
“By now, I would say we probably have 50 times more users than they do. Our revenue is probably five X their revenue.”
Von Ahn: Education companies become marketing-driven because product improvement is hard
“A lot of companies in education eventually turn into marketing companies. For the following reason. You realize, man, making improvements in how well you teach is hard. And it really is very hard. It's, it takes years. So for every dollar you have, you quickly…”
Von Ahn: Duolingo captures 90% of mobile language app users
“If you take all people who are learning languages on mobile apps, 90% of them are using Duolingo.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 50x users and 5x revenue of Rosetta Stone
“By now, I would say we probably have 50 times more uses than they do. Our revenue is probably five X their revenue.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo promised investors it would never charge users
“And so when we talk to investors, the first thing I would tell them is, look, the one thing that will not change is I'm not going to charge for people to learn a language here.”
Von Ahn: USV invested in Duolingo despite doubting the idea worked
“I mean, they've now told me, look, we'd never thought this would work, but you had a really good track record. So why not?”
Von Ahn: Duolingo makes significantly more money from subscriptions than ads
“It turned out, and this is just, we really just didn't realize this subscriptions made us a ton more money than the ads.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo canceled revenue contracts to rely solely on VC
“So I made the difficult decision to cancel those contracts and forget about trying to make money and just raise more venture capital.”
Von Ahn: CapitalG partner warned Duolingo had to start making money
“And at some point, we raised money from Google. Capital G is one of their investment arms. And the partner from that firm sat me down and she said, nobody else will invest in this company if you don't figure out how to make money. You know, you're not going to…”
Von Ahn: Early Duolingo team were 'communists' who viewed monetization as evil
“When we started Duolingo, I can best describe us as communists. We did not want to make money. Nobody in the company wanted to make money, and it was thought of as a, as an evil thing.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo reached a $10M run rate from one lesson-end ad
“As soon as we put that ad, our run rate went from zero to, like,
Ten million bucks a year.
One tiny ad.
It didn't even cover the whole screen.”
Von Ahn: Maintaining motivation is the hardest part of language learning
“The hardest thing about learning a language is staying motivated. So we spend a lot of effort trying to make Duolingo more motivating and more fun, and the way we do that is just by adding game elements.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 40M MAUs and a 3% paid conversion rate
“Active users right now, we have about forty million monthly active users, and about three percent of them are paying subscribers.”
Von Ahn: Adding one ad jumped Duolingo's revenue run rate to $10M
“I mean, as soon as we put that ad, our run rate went from zero to like ten million bucks a year.”
Luis von Ahn: Duolingo daily revenue grew 50% to $600,000 during lockdowns
“Our revenue has gone up about 50%. So we used to make about 400,000 dollars a day. We now make about 600,000 dollars a day.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 40M MAUs with a 3% paid conversion rate
“Yeah, I mean, active users right now, we have about Forty million monthly active users, and about three percent of them are paying subscribers.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo waited five years until 2017 to monetize
“Certainly we took too long to monetize. I mean, we didn't, we did not start monetizing until 2017, so it's five years in.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo raised $3.3M Series A from USV, Ferriss, and Kutcher
“It's 3.3 million, which at the time, this was a normal series A. So it's three million dollars from Union Square Ventures and 300,000 from a combination of Tim Ferriss and Ashton Kutcher.”
Von Ahn: Subscriptions generated far more revenue for Duolingo than ads
“Subscriptions made us a ton more money than the ads.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo raised $45 million from Google's CapitalG
“And at some point we raised money from Google capital G is one of their investment arms. We raised money from them. It was, I believe it was forty-five million bucks that we raised from them.”
Luis von Ahn: Duolingo landed translation contracts with CNN and BuzzFeed
“And we landed a contract with CNN and a contract with BuzzFeed that we were going to Translate all their news from English to Spanish.”
Von Ahn forfeited part of Google payout by leaving before three years
“Leaving cost me quite a bit of money, because some of the reCAPTCHA payment required that I stay there for three years. Yeah, and I did not stay for three years.”
Luis von Ahn: Duolingo raised $3.3M Series A from USV, Ferriss, Kutcher
“It was 3.3 million, which at the time, this was a normal Series A. So it's three million dollars from Union Square Ventures and 300,000 from a combination of Tim Ferriss, and Ashton Kutcher.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo alone cannot make learners fluent like a poet laureate
“If you want to use Duolingo and start from zero and get to the point where you're the poet laureate of that country, that is unlikely to happen with Duolingo by itself. That's just not going to happen.”
Von Ahn: A CEO's job is entirely dealing with people's problems
“My job these days is 100% just dealing with other people and people's problems.”