The Marketing Formula that Propelled Duolingo to 500M Users

Luis von Ahn is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duolingo, the world’s #1 language learning application. In the episode, Luis shares the marketing formula they use to drive rapid user growth, including the backstory of Duolingo’s famous owl mascot that has become a viral internet sensation. Luis also dives into the A/B testing and product gamification experiments that have helped make Duolingo a $9B public company, as well as a handful of valuable lessons from his entrepreneurial journey.

(0:00) Intro
(0:54) Building a Culture of Iteration and Continuous Improvement
(2:29) The Importance of User Retention in Duolingo's Growth
(3:24) The Power of A/B Testing in Product Development
(7:57) Balancing User Feedback and Data in Product Design
(10:24) The Role of Marketing in Duolingo's Growth
(15:54) The Importance of Setting Constraints in Product Development
(18:35) The Role of Metrics in Decision Making
(24:02) The Power of Viral Marketing and Memes in Brand Building
(30:44) The Impact of Social Media Marketing on User Acquisition
(35:41) The Impact of Passive Aggressive Notifications
(37:42) Dealing with Controversial Content and Backlash
(42:40) The Importance of Being Scrappy in Marketing
(45:13) The Challenges of Teaching Languages
(49:25) The Importance of User Retention in Duolingo
(51:14) The Journey to Monetizing Duolingo
(56:40) The Challenges of Introducing Monetization in Duolingo
(1:04:16) The Expansion of Duolingo Beyond Languages
(1:09:13) Growing User Base and Utilizing AI
(1:11:16) Impact of Going Public on Duolingo's Operations
(1:16:00) The Importance of Employee Selection in Duolingo
(1:22:42) The entrepreneurial journey
(1:33:46) Improving the Education System
(1:37:21) The honeypot website to catch cheating students

Produced: Rashad Assir & Leah Clapper
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.