But my deep interest in the world's most downloaded language-learning app truly began last year when I saw first-hand its significant impact on new migrants to the US, a country undergoing one of the largest migration waves of the decade. At some point in their long journeys, Duolingo becomes an essential tool for these people on the move.
The migrant experience is not foreign to Duolingo's CEO and co-founder, Luis von Ahn, who was born and raised in Guatemala, a Central American country with over 55% of its population living in poverty.
"In a Latin American country, and in Guatemala in particular, if you have money, you can buy a very good education, but if you don't have money, sometimes you don't even learn how to read and write," Von Ahn told the BBC in a recent interview at Duolingo's brand new office in downtown New York. "That made a big impression on me."
So when non-native English speakers Von Ahn and Severin Hacker, Duolingo's CTO and co-founder, started their company in 2012, they knew that learning languages, and in particular learning English, has the potential to change people's lives. "This is why we've worked really hard to keep Duolingo free, because we want to give access to education to everybody."
To maintain the promise of an open and free app, Von Ahn and Hacker developed a hybrid business model that combines ad-supported access and "freemium" elements, while also offering a paid subscription with extra benefits, like an ad-free experience and a family plan. And it worked. "The main way in which we grow is by word of mouth, so people tell their friends," he says. One such word of mouth moment came from Bill Gates, who said in a Reddit chat back in 2015 that he regretted not speaking more languages and had tried Duolingo.
In the intervening years the app has found its way onto many, many screens. According to Duolingo's shareholders letter, in 2023 the company's revenue was $531m and the forecast for the full-year 2024 is $731m. Roughly 8% of Duolingo users pay for a subscription, contributing to 80% of the company’s revenue. Meanwhile, the vast majority, 90%, use the free version and see ads, which account for only 8% of the earnings.
The app combines short, engaging lessons and game-like elements to help users develop speaking, reading, writing and listening skills in 41 languages. Around half of users are practicing English, and Duolingo can be used to learn other major world languages like Spanish and Chinese, as well as some lesser-spoken languages, such as Esperanto, Navajo and even High Valyrian, a fictional language developed for HBO's Game of Thrones. There was some controversy last year when Duolingo paused its Welsh language course. The app now offers maths and music courses, as well.
To keep people coming back daily, Duolingo created a streak system and fashioned characters with strong personalities, such as the infamous green owl, Duo, and a goth purple-haired teen, Lilly. These characters send daily practice reminders and, based on social media posts, are magnetic to users. (...)
The CEO's journey to becoming a tech-founder billionaire began when he was an eight-year-old boy in Guatemala City, where his single mother, a doctor, gifted him a computer instead of the Nintendo he had wanted. He left Guatemala in 1996 to study mathematics at Duke University. He went on to pursue a PhD in computer science, and it was during his first year at Carnegie Mellon University, in 2000, when a pivotal moment occurred.
The young doctoral student attended a talk in which Yahoo!'s head scientist shared 10 problems the company couldn't solve. "At the time [Yahoo!] was the biggest internet company, it was huge. Yahoo! gave free email accounts to people, and there were malicious people that were writing programs to obtain millions of email accounts, and they didn't know how to stop them. I went home, I thought about it, and came up – along with my PhD advisor – with the idea of a Captcha, that is the distorted characters that people have to see online [to prove that you’re a human]," he reveals.
Captcha, an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", served as the foundation for ReCaptcha – best known today as Google's I am not a robot verification system. It was not only a technological improvement, but also a company founded and solely owned by Von Ahn. In 2009, Google acquired it for an undisclosed eight-figure sum, along with a game that helped improve the accuracy of Google Image Search. By his early-30s, von Ahn had become a millionaire.
Although Luis von Ahn didn't become the mathematics teacher he dreamt of being as a teenager in Guatemala City, these milestones, and the awards he has won along the way, allowed him to create an educational platform that now lives in the pockets of millions worldwide. Here, he tells the BBC more about his un-put-downable app and how a self-proclaimed "people-pleaser" gets by in the C-suite.
What do you think sets Duolingo apart from its competitors?
Duolingo's free version is really good, and I think that matters. And the second one is that we early on understood that the hardest thing about learning something by yourself is staying motivated, so we have spent a lot of time making Duolingo fun. With Duolingo it feels like you're playing a game as opposed to education apps which are just trying to teach you something without engaging you.
How does Duolingo keep users engaged and coming back?
Gamification is probably the most important thing. We try to turn the whole thing into a game, but we try to use storytelling. From the beginning, I wanted to have a mascot. I thought that it would make the whole thing more accessible. And having it doing weird things online really helps. But it's not like it started in one day. This is an evolution. It all works together to create a brand that people love. Most of the [features] we have now, we got to by trial and error. We've tried too many things that didn't work. The ones that are now there is because we tried them, and they did work.
by Natalia Guerrero, BBC | Read more:
Images: BBC/ Klawe Rzeczy; Duolingo
