Harry Wang EECS 441 Duolingo

1. Harry Wang
harrydw

2. Problem
● Learning a foreign language
● Difficult
● Expensive

3. Products

4. Products

5. Persona
John
● 20 year old engineering student
● From USA
● Study abroad in Germany

6. Persona
Adam
● 24 year old software engineer
● From Vancouver, British Columbia
● New job in Montreal, Quebec

7. Finances
Value: $700 Million
Over $100 Million Funding
$40 Million Revenue - 2018

8. Business Model
● Freemium
● Certified English language tests
● Crowdsourced translation (discontinued in 2014)

9. Leadership
Luis Von Ahn
● CEO of Duolingo
● Created CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA
● Professor at Carnegie Mellon

10. History
2009
Luis Von Ahn +
Severin Hacker
start academic
project
2013
Apple’s choice for
App of the Year
2012
Duolingo
Public Launch
2015
Partnering with
schools
2017
Duolingo Plus

11. What’s Hot
● Leagues

12. Secret Sauce
● Gamified and Free
● Fun
● Accessible/Approachable

13. Competition
Gamified
Mobile
Cost/year Free! $120 $85
Languages 34 28 14

14. Prediction
● Success
● High Valuation
● Growing number of users

16. Sources
https://qz.com/1255133/duolingos-crowdsourced-language-learning-model-is-letting-some-weird-things-slip-through-the-cracks/
https://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration
https://producthabits.com/duolingo-built-700-million-company-without-charging-users/
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/duolingo-offers-free-language-while-helping-to-translate-the-web/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2019/07/16/game-of-tongues-how-duolingo-built-a-700-million-business-with-its-addictive-la
nguage-learning-app/#45bb47493463
https://making.duolingo.com/which-countries-study-which-languages-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it
https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/duolingo-700-million-language-learning-startup-pittsburgh-2018-surge-cities.html
https://making.duolingo.com/which-countries-study-which-languages-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-history-of-duolingo_b_8971104
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/218111443-What-is-Duolingo-for-Schools-

17. Questions?