The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo
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Jun 20, 2025 
Cem Kansu, Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, leads the charge in product innovation for over 90 million learners. He discusses how smaller teams can drive faster development, and delves into Duolingo’s strategy for successful AI integration. Cem shares insights on monetization challenges, the effectiveness of targeted paywalls, and the quirky psychology behind retention strategies. He reflects on the future of product managers in an AI-driven world, sparking a thought-provoking debate on the balance between user engagement and monetization.
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Chess Product Bottoms-Up Innovation
- The chess product started with a PM and designer prototyping the full experience independently without engineers.
- This bottoms-up innovation quickly evolved into a full course launch within eight months at Duolingo.
Smaller Teams with AI Speed Up
- Small product teams are the future as fewer people can build prototypes fast with AI tools.
- This efficiency enables more innovative bets quicker, enhancing product quality and velocity.
Master AI Tools Early
- Learn AI tools deeply as they will rapidly evolve and become core to product building.
- Experiment frequently to harness AI's power to build and iterate products faster.