My guest today is Cem Kansu.
Cem is the Head of Product at Duolingo. Over 8 years, he helped Duolingo grow to 100M+ monthly active users and $500M+ in annual revenue. I had a super fun chat with Cem about Duolingo's unhinged product culture, the top drivers of Duolingo's user and revenue growth, and whether AI will democratize education.
Timestamps:
(00:00) We love being unhinged with our owl
(01:26) Duolingo is a game and this is our core loop
(03:46) The top 3 drivers of Duolingo's growth to 100M users
(05:55) Passive-aggressive push notifications work!
(08:12) How Duolingo onboards new users to maximize retention
(13:11) Our winding path to $500M+ in revenue
(17:25) We've figured out how international expansion works
(21:13) Will AI kill Duolingo?
(26:20) We made Lily an AI emo teenager on purpose
(32:41) How to A/B test without sacrificing quality
(37:09) What the best PMs at Duolingo have in common
Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/inside-duolingo-unhinged-growth-to-500m-cem-kansu
Where to find Cem:
X: https://x.com/cemkansu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cemkansu/
๐ Subscribe to this channel โ more interviews coming soon!
