Duolingo's sensational social media presence has spearheaded user acquisition & engagement, yet revenue per user is flatlining, forcing management to diversify its product lines & subscription plans.
I’ve used the free version of Duolingo and eventually became frustrated with it due to the extreme frequency of interruptions to shill for the paid version. I found the free model to be virtually useless which meant I dropped the app rather than becoming a paid subscriber.
Thanks for sharing. I personally used the app long time ago in 2016/2017. I never too was a paid subscriber. What amazes me is how the company is able to drive gamification to such an extent that people are willing to buy tokens to maintain their winning streak, it is almost like the app has a cult-following.
You think that’s crazy , take a look at DDI. This is a maker of online slot machines with no potential for winning any money. It’s purely playing for fun. Their average paying user spends $200 .... wait for it .... per month.
It is. I briefly owned some DDI and wound up flipping it for a small trade. I couldn’t get my head around how this wouldn’t be the first budget belt people tightened in a weak economy. What cinched it for me was a conversation with the company. I asked that exact question and their only response was “well people like their slot apps”
You will be surprised with the correlation between geographies that have high unemployment and/or low wages and sales of lottery tickets in those areas. Same correlation applies to periods of weak economies as well. Lottery sales start to move higher. I share your sentiments too but people spend a lot more on gambling when their household savings tend to be uncertain.
That makes sense, but remember this isn’t even gambling. They can’t make any money which is somewhat different. You can understand why someone who is extremely poor would see the allure of a lottery ticket and the resolution of all of their financial problems. These slot apps don’t offer the dream.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Brett. Im curious - did you entirely stop learning languages all together or did you move to another app, like Babbel?
I’ve kind of taken a break, but my plan is to look at some of the other options out there beside Duolingo. I might wind up deciding it’s the best, and pay up for a trial, but the constant hectoring turned me off.
Back in about 2013 or 2014, I remember using Duolingo to learn languages…when the design of apps was more a hit than a miss. However Duolingo, even back then, blew me (in an amazing way) out of the water.
Fast forward about 9 years later and I’ve sparingly used the app and completed just about two to three language courses on there. I still feel though that the design and experience and the gamification of learning a language on this app - remains unparalleled.
On another note, I’m surprised their CEO dismissed their users like that. For an app with their kind of superbly passionate following, CEOs cannot afford to be dismissive of their fan base. They will raise you up; they will be your downfall.
Duolingo seems to be excellent at improving user engagement. But it's difficult to estimate the medium-term impact of technological advances (real-time translation, for example) on people's willingness to learn a foreign language. Perhaps that's why they're diversifying into music and maths.
You have a fair point! By offering Maths and Music, they are opening themselves up to new market share of people who would otherwise not have come to the platform to learn a new language.
True. The company is very outspoken about how boring language learning can be which is why they hired language scientists and specifically skilled software engineers to gamify the experience. They're also trying to bank upon the AI craze by building their new subscription plans around Chat GPT's language models to kind of make Duo like a quirky assistant. Only time will tell if this pays off.
I just checked in the app, and I signed up in October 2013. So sometime this month is my 10th Duoversary. I’m currently on a 2,054-day streak.
Years ago, I finished the French and Spanish courses, but they’ve added so much content the last few years, that now I am only 2/3-3/4 of the way through each. And I finished the German course a year ago, gold and all, but they’ve since added more material to that.
Duo was helpful getting me back into French and Spanish after many years, but I also spend an hour talking to a French tutor every week and two hours talking to two Spanish tutors.
And Duo was helpful getting me started in German 4 years ago, but I've also spent 4 years of Saturday mornings during the school year taking classes.
So it's impossible to separate out how much of my progress is from Duo, and how much is from other activities. But I find it useful for practice and reinforcement. So I remain a paid subscriber.
Thanks John..You seem like someone who's ambidextrous in language skills. That's also an amazing Day Streak you are on. Duo gave up on me long long ago. :) But its time to pick a date with the quirky bird again. I might get overwhelmed with all the changes in app since I last used in it in 2018
I’ve used the free version of Duolingo and eventually became frustrated with it due to the extreme frequency of interruptions to shill for the paid version. I found the free model to be virtually useless which meant I dropped the app rather than becoming a paid subscriber.
Thanks for sharing. I personally used the app long time ago in 2016/2017. I never too was a paid subscriber. What amazes me is how the company is able to drive gamification to such an extent that people are willing to buy tokens to maintain their winning streak, it is almost like the app has a cult-following.
You think that’s crazy , take a look at DDI. This is a maker of online slot machines with no potential for winning any money. It’s purely playing for fun. Their average paying user spends $200 .... wait for it .... per month.
Thanks for sharing! Is this the DoubleDown Casino app by DDI?
It is. I briefly owned some DDI and wound up flipping it for a small trade. I couldn’t get my head around how this wouldn’t be the first budget belt people tightened in a weak economy. What cinched it for me was a conversation with the company. I asked that exact question and their only response was “well people like their slot apps”
You will be surprised with the correlation between geographies that have high unemployment and/or low wages and sales of lottery tickets in those areas. Same correlation applies to periods of weak economies as well. Lottery sales start to move higher. I share your sentiments too but people spend a lot more on gambling when their household savings tend to be uncertain.
That makes sense, but remember this isn’t even gambling. They can’t make any money which is somewhat different. You can understand why someone who is extremely poor would see the allure of a lottery ticket and the resolution of all of their financial problems. These slot apps don’t offer the dream.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Brett. Im curious - did you entirely stop learning languages all together or did you move to another app, like Babbel?
I’ve kind of taken a break, but my plan is to look at some of the other options out there beside Duolingo. I might wind up deciding it’s the best, and pay up for a trial, but the constant hectoring turned me off.
Great write-up! I liked the coverage of some important SaaS KPIs such as Active Daily/Monthly users and ARPU.
Thanks Oktay!! Glad you liked it.
Thank you! Happy you liked it.
Back in about 2013 or 2014, I remember using Duolingo to learn languages…when the design of apps was more a hit than a miss. However Duolingo, even back then, blew me (in an amazing way) out of the water.
Fast forward about 9 years later and I’ve sparingly used the app and completed just about two to three language courses on there. I still feel though that the design and experience and the gamification of learning a language on this app - remains unparalleled.
On another note, I’m surprised their CEO dismissed their users like that. For an app with their kind of superbly passionate following, CEOs cannot afford to be dismissive of their fan base. They will raise you up; they will be your downfall.
💯💯 to your points on a CEO's views about the user base. Did you ever buy any gems or lingots when using the app?
Duolingo seems to be excellent at improving user engagement. But it's difficult to estimate the medium-term impact of technological advances (real-time translation, for example) on people's willingness to learn a foreign language. Perhaps that's why they're diversifying into music and maths.
You have a fair point! By offering Maths and Music, they are opening themselves up to new market share of people who would otherwise not have come to the platform to learn a new language.
True. The company is very outspoken about how boring language learning can be which is why they hired language scientists and specifically skilled software engineers to gamify the experience. They're also trying to bank upon the AI craze by building their new subscription plans around Chat GPT's language models to kind of make Duo like a quirky assistant. Only time will tell if this pays off.
I just checked in the app, and I signed up in October 2013. So sometime this month is my 10th Duoversary. I’m currently on a 2,054-day streak.
Years ago, I finished the French and Spanish courses, but they’ve added so much content the last few years, that now I am only 2/3-3/4 of the way through each. And I finished the German course a year ago, gold and all, but they’ve since added more material to that.
Duo was helpful getting me back into French and Spanish after many years, but I also spend an hour talking to a French tutor every week and two hours talking to two Spanish tutors.
And Duo was helpful getting me started in German 4 years ago, but I've also spent 4 years of Saturday mornings during the school year taking classes.
So it's impossible to separate out how much of my progress is from Duo, and how much is from other activities. But I find it useful for practice and reinforcement. So I remain a paid subscriber.
Thanks John..You seem like someone who's ambidextrous in language skills. That's also an amazing Day Streak you are on. Duo gave up on me long long ago. :) But its time to pick a date with the quirky bird again. I might get overwhelmed with all the changes in app since I last used in it in 2018