They have marketing people working for them, so they're obviously spending money on "marketing". Advertising, which I think the article is alluding to, may or may not be worth it. ROI in your ad dollars is really where the trick is with paid acquisition.
How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
11–20 of 68 posts
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#12The gamification aspects of Duolingo are a nice touch, but even if it didn't have this it would probably still be popular. I don't think there has to be some sort of "one weird trick" here. It's not perfect, but Duolingo 1) is free, 2) has no ads, 3) has both a website and apps, 4) is interactive with audio and voice recognition. There really isn't any competition to this. Lots of people want to learn languages; is i…
Memrise ticks (1) (2) (3) and (4), although I believe it is now a fremium model.
Have you seen Wanikani? It's the best! Before I used Wanikani, I was struggling to learn Nihongo, also known as Japanese to you non-anime experts. I was able to get my katakana and hiragana down, and I was also a pro at romanji, but I just couldn't get myself to study the kanjis! By the way kanjis are like the Japanese alphabet if you were wondering. Anyways, I spent 2 years working really hard on my Japanese listening ability by listening to native material, but try as I did, I couldn't get anywhere, but then I used Wanikani, and WOW did it boost me up to a whole nother level! I'm starting my 4th year now learning the language, and I'm still working on Wanikani. Some people do it faster, but I'm happy with my pace. Anyways, I now know 756 kanjis thanks to Wanikani! It's definitely joyous to see all the progress I've made! Once I get through the rest the kanjis, then I'm going to learn the grammar, which should be easy due to all of the vocabulary and kanjis that I'll know. I do know basics, but I still have a lot of work left for my grammar.
Yeah, I really feel like technology is bringing us into a whole new era for language learning. At least it has for me.
みんなさん、どうもありがとう！
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#13The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited: - They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible. - They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market. - They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after. - They delib…
Not to mention a high-profile TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_...
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#14The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited: - They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible. - They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market. - They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after. - They delib…
s/marketing/advertising/ would be useful.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#15The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited: - They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible. - They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market. - They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after. - They delib…
And they created a product that is useful and fun to use.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Memrise ticks (1) (2) (3) and (4), although I believe it is now a fremium model.
Have you seen Wanikani? It's the best! Before I used Wanikani, I was struggling to learn Nihongo, also known as Japanese to you non-anime experts. I was able to get my katakana and hiragana down, and I was also a pro at romanji, but I just couldn't get myself to study the kanjis! By the way kanjis are like the Japanese alphabet if you were wondering. Anyways, I spent 2 years working really hard on my Japanese listeni…
Well, we know wanikani is spending on advertising.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#17The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited: - They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible. - They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market. - They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after. - They delib…
Maybe the title was changed but the title now says without /spending/ on marketing. Your examples were, in theory, all free.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you seen Wanikani? It's the best! Before I used Wanikani, I was struggling to learn Nihongo, also known as Japanese to you non-anime experts. I was able to get my katakana and hiragana down, and I was also a pro at romanji, but I just couldn't get myself to study the kanjis! By the way kanjis are like the Japanese alphabet if you were wondering. Anyways, I spent 2 years working really hard on my Japanese listeni…
Well, we know wanikani is spending on advertising.
I use wanikani, and I'd be surprised if this was a fake/paid for post. The team that builds it is really small (just one guy develops the product, he has 2-3 employees for community management etc), and their user base is really in love with the product.
I might be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was just an excited user. Partly because for the reasons I just listed, and partly because his path to learning Japanese sounds... counter productive to say the least (learning 756 kanji over 4 years before you tackle grammar is... silly).
Regardless, wanikani (and other Japanese products made by this small company) is excellent. I recommend it, and am not affiliated with it.
Keep in mind in that learning a language, limiting yourself to a single source is silly. Try different textbooks, online courses, apps, YouTube videos, etc. Some of them will convey grammar in a way that clicks more with you, others pronunciation, others vocabulary, etc.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#19Where does this idea of glorifying not spending on marketing come from? I think it involves a fundamental misalignment of the point of building a business. I view a business as an investment vehicle and marketing is how you turn over that investment. I would be much more impressed with a business that can consistently arbitrage advertising into profits at scale. In reality anything that touches a prospect, customer o…
> Where does this idea of glorifying not spending on marketing come from?
Its probably playing on some peoples notions that marketing is evil, and therefore money shouldn't be spent on it. Obviously not true, but there is a general dislike for marketing.
Re: How Duolingo got 110M users without spending on marketing
#20The title of the article belies its content. Several examples of marketing are cited: - They identified a market: people who want to learn a language as quickly, easily and inexpensively as possible. - They analyzed and understood the needs and desires of the target market. Presumably they further segmented the market. - They created an offering that met the needs of the segment(s) they were going after. - They delib…
Maybe the title was changed but the title now says without /spending/ on marketing. Your examples were, in theory, all free.
It costs money to pay people to do those things.
Maybe we can say "without advertising or promotions"?