EP 87: Luis von Ahn (CEO, Duolingo) on The Marketing Formula that Propelled Duolingo to 500M Users

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Dec 1, 2023

Luis von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, discusses the marketing formula that propelled Duolingo to 500M users. Topics include user retention, A/B testing, balancing user feedback and data, viral marketing, social media marketing, dealing with controversial content, monetization challenges, expanding beyond languages, going public, employee selection, improving the education system, and setting up a honeypot website to catch cheaters.

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INSIGHT

Retention Before Monetization

Duolingo grew by obsessively optimizing user retention rather than spending on acquisition.
For five years the team focused exclusively on making the product stickier before monetizing.

ADVICE

Make Every Change An A/B Test

Treat almost every product change as an A/B test to know what actually improves metrics.
Build infrastructure and habit: run many experiments, accept failures, and learn from the winners.

INSIGHT

Data-Built Product Intuition

Repeated A/B testing builds an internal 'nose' for what works because teams accumulate hundreds of reps.
Hire and train people who learn from many experiments so product intuition improves with data-backed experience.

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