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Understanding Duolingo’s quiet $10M raise

50 points by prostoalex 7y ago

ConsiderCrying 7y ago
Huh, I had no idea Duolingo was this successful. Anybody with insight into General Atlantic that could speculate on what changes they could bring? I've read their Wiki page but it's pretty barren, although they seem to be enacting some curious initiatives like: "In 2018 General Atlantic invested in UK investment start-up Greensill in an attempt to challenge traditional lending systems"
- chris11 7y ago
  I knew they were successful, but I didn't know they were valued at 1.5 billion.
  - shiningdays 7y ago
    I can see this. I moved abroad in 2018 to a non-english speaking country and just about everyone I met had Duolingo on their phone. You'd be surprised at how many would cough up for a Premium membership just to keep their streak from breaking and making the cute green owl cry. That said, apparently their biggest market is actually people trying to learn English, which... checks out. In our modern times, english is the lingua franca. There's a bottomless pit of people who want or need to learn it.
    - danielscrubs 7y ago
      It's weird, because it's not very good at understanding the need of the users. If you are Chinese and want to learn English, you have to show the contrast between the grammar-points from a Chinese perspective in an meaningful way. It really feels like: how can I, as an english developer, teach language? Instead of: -How can I, as an elite teacher, create an app to teach language? Now that I think about it... is there any teachers with SF-developer-salary? Is there any language-teachers that talk about being the 10x teacher? Duolingo has done some cool stuff with AI: http://sharedtask.duolingo.com/ http://sharedtask.duolingo.com/ they just don't seem to use it?
- ore0s 7y ago
  When you get on the SF portion of the 101 you used to be able to see their hiring billboard with living in Pittsburgh as a plus. I wonder how how much of their being able to fly under the radar is due to their location.
- freepor 7y ago
  People who speak English as a first language never grasp the true market demand for language learning since all of their language learning is recreational.
enahs-sf 7y ago
I wonder who got liquidity here. C suite? Rank and file employees? Early team members?
- TrainedMonkey 7y ago
  > In this case, an existing investor in Duolingo sold a small portion of their existing stake to allow General Atlantic to have a bigger stake in the company. Looks like it was an earlier investor.
- ajsharp 7y ago
  It's almost never, ever rank and file. Like, never.
RandomBacon 7y ago
Hopefully they'll be able to afford some more support staff. I sent them an email asking for a simple feature request, and they never even acknowledged receiving it. A simple, "We will pass this along to the appropriate team to consider" would be sufficient. Otherwise great app! (I am a paying user.) Edit: If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. Downvotes are fine, but it doesn't let me know how to improve.
- tdrp 7y ago
  Not sure if that's what happened but as a B2C company we also don't acknowledge any feature or idea requests, and have strong ToS language against submitting any unsolicited ideas. Our CS staff generally deletes/archives them without reading them if they can tell by the title. The problem we had was that a lot of users submit ideas we've already had or were already working on (I mean if we've been working on a project for 5+ years do they really think this idea didn't cross our mind), but then some of them think they are entitled to a little something for it. One of them tried to demand some kind of reward once they saw the feature had been implemented (even though we were working on it well before they even mentioned it and it wasn't a groundbreaking change or anything), raised hell like she had been cheated posting screenshots of her unanswered e-mail, and even claimed to get a patent attorney to help her. Fortunately that feature was present in a bunch of other apps so it doesn't look like it went anywhere. I suspect if we had said "We have passed this along" then our situation would be much worse. Basically with Duolingo's userbase size I am sure they have at least some malicious users.
- cmrx64 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I'm not one of your downvoters, but since you asked for feedback, I will try and inhabit the mind of one: a complaint about duolingo's non-response to your email isn't terribly interesting. (And neither is a comment replying saying that your complaint isn't very interesting, sorry everyone who sees this before it disappears from the front page)
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
johntiger1 7y ago
Duolingo recently introduced a dark pattern where ads are shown after completing every exercise. Before, we were given the option to not see them (or see them for some "gems"). Evaluating Duolingo, I find it is not the most effective language learning app anyways, instead teaching pattern matching for some of the lesser popular languages like Chinese
- michaelcampbell 7y ago
  If I may ask, what do you find more effective? I've dabbled with Duolingo before and am not a paid user, but it seemed to kind of work for me. But open to alternatives (modulo, "move to the country where <x> is the native tongue" type stuff.)
  - johntiger1 7y ago
    I've been using HelloChinese, and find it a little more effective. With a language Chinese, I find reading/writing to be most challenging, so apps that force a little more immersion I have found most beneficial
    - blackearl 7y ago
      Any suggestions for languages with a Latin alphabet?
      - tonyhb 7y ago
        Memrise is surprisingly good, I've found. It focuses on phrases, and has short videos with native speakers talking that you learn from. Also has repetition. It's a good app.
      - prostoalex 7y ago
        Memrise for memorization and colloquial phrases - they film native speakers in native locations, prioritizing everyday conversations over academic study. Drops for pure vocabulary development - spaced repetition for the first 100/500/1,000 words.
bravura 7y ago
What's weird about this round is that they gave away a board seat to a new outside investor, who has ownership of under < 1% of the company. Is this common? I thought board seats were prized, and only given in deals where the investor is capitalizing the company and owning something like 20% post-money.
- cbowal 7y ago
  The new seat is an "observer" seat which doesn't have a vote.
  - gumby 7y ago
    I have never understood the value of an observer seat as you get exposure and concomitant liability without the ability to actually vote on something. Plus observers are not included in the usual D&O package.

50 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Huh, I had no idea Duolingo was this successful. Anybody with insight into General Atlantic that could speculate on what changes they could bring? I've read their Wiki page but it's pretty barren, although they seem to be enacting some curious initiatives like: "In 2018 General Atlantic invested in UK investment start-up Greensill in an attempt to challenge traditional lending systems"

chris11 7y ago
I knew they were successful, but I didn't know they were valued at 1.5 billion.
- shiningdays 7y ago
  I can see this. I moved abroad in 2018 to a non-english speaking country and just about everyone I met had Duolingo on their phone. You'd be surprised at how many would cough up for a Premium membership just to keep their streak from breaking and making the cute green owl cry. That said, apparently their biggest market is actually people trying to learn English, which... checks out. In our modern times, english is the lingua franca. There's a bottomless pit of people who want or need to learn it.
  - danielscrubs 7y ago
    It's weird, because it's not very good at understanding the need of the users. If you are Chinese and want to learn English, you have to show the contrast between the grammar-points from a Chinese perspective in an meaningful way. It really feels like: how can I, as an english developer, teach language? Instead of: -How can I, as an elite teacher, create an app to teach language? Now that I think about it... is there any teachers with SF-developer-salary? Is there any language-teachers that talk about being the 10x teacher? Duolingo has done some cool stuff with AI: http://sharedtask.duolingo.com/ http://sharedtask.duolingo.com/ they just don't seem to use it?
ore0s 7y ago
When you get on the SF portion of the 101 you used to be able to see their hiring billboard with living in Pittsburgh as a plus. I wonder how how much of their being able to fly under the radar is due to their location.
freepor 7y ago
People who speak English as a first language never grasp the true market demand for language learning since all of their language learning is recreational.

enahs-sf 7y ago

I wonder who got liquidity here. C suite? Rank and file employees? Early team members?

TrainedMonkey 7y ago
> In this case, an existing investor in Duolingo sold a small portion of their existing stake to allow General Atlantic to have a bigger stake in the company. Looks like it was an earlier investor.
ajsharp 7y ago
It's almost never, ever rank and file. Like, never.

RandomBacon 7y ago

Hopefully they'll be able to afford some more support staff. I sent them an email asking for a simple feature request, and they never even acknowledged receiving it. A simple, "We will pass this along to the appropriate team to consider" would be sufficient. Otherwise great app! (I am a paying user.) Edit: If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. Downvotes are fine, but it doesn't let me know how to improve.

tdrp 7y ago
Not sure if that's what happened but as a B2C company we also don't acknowledge any feature or idea requests, and have strong ToS language against submitting any unsolicited ideas. Our CS staff generally deletes/archives them without reading them if they can tell by the title. The problem we had was that a lot of users submit ideas we've already had or were already working on (I mean if we've been working on a project for 5+ years do they really think this idea didn't cross our mind), but then some of them think they are entitled to a little something for it. One of them tried to demand some kind of reward once they saw the feature had been implemented (even though we were working on it well before they even mentioned it and it wasn't a groundbreaking change or anything), raised hell like she had been cheated posting screenshots of her unanswered e-mail, and even claimed to get a patent attorney to help her. Fortunately that feature was present in a bunch of other apps so it doesn't look like it went anywhere. I suspect if we had said "We have passed this along" then our situation would be much worse. Basically with Duolingo's userbase size I am sure they have at least some malicious users.
cmrx64 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I'm not one of your downvoters, but since you asked for feedback, I will try and inhabit the mind of one: a complaint about duolingo's non-response to your email isn't terribly interesting. (And neither is a comment replying saying that your complaint isn't very interesting, sorry everyone who sees this before it disappears from the front page)
- RandomBacon 7y ago

johntiger1 7y ago

Duolingo recently introduced a dark pattern where ads are shown after completing every exercise. Before, we were given the option to not see them (or see them for some "gems"). Evaluating Duolingo, I find it is not the most effective language learning app anyways, instead teaching pattern matching for some of the lesser popular languages like Chinese

michaelcampbell 7y ago
If I may ask, what do you find more effective? I've dabbled with Duolingo before and am not a paid user, but it seemed to kind of work for me. But open to alternatives (modulo, "move to the country where <x> is the native tongue" type stuff.)
- johntiger1 7y ago
  I've been using HelloChinese, and find it a little more effective. With a language Chinese, I find reading/writing to be most challenging, so apps that force a little more immersion I have found most beneficial
  - blackearl 7y ago
    Any suggestions for languages with a Latin alphabet?
    - tonyhb 7y ago
      Memrise is surprisingly good, I've found. It focuses on phrases, and has short videos with native speakers talking that you learn from. Also has repetition. It's a good app.
    - prostoalex 7y ago
      Memrise for memorization and colloquial phrases - they film native speakers in native locations, prioritizing everyday conversations over academic study. Drops for pure vocabulary development - spaced repetition for the first 100/500/1,000 words.

bravura 7y ago

What's weird about this round is that they gave away a board seat to a new outside investor, who has ownership of under < 1% of the company. Is this common? I thought board seats were prized, and only given in deals where the investor is capitalizing the company and owning something like 20% post-money.

cbowal 7y ago
The new seat is an "observer" seat which doesn't have a vote.
- gumby 7y ago
  I have never understood the value of an observer seat as you get exposure and concomitant liability without the ability to actually vote on something. Plus observers are not included in the usual D&O package.