ReadLang bought by Duolingo

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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby emk » Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:55 am

Now, I could be wrong, but given the revenue of readlang (painfully low for many years, according to interviews) and the headcount (certainly not a whole team), there's a good chance this is what the startup world refers to as an "aquihire"—half way between acquiring a startup and just hiring the founders. Sometimes this comes with anywhere from a year's salary to the price of a house. And the future for the product is rarely very bright.

Now, of course, I know nothing about this deal in particular. Maybe Duolingo loved the product, maybe they paid out more money. Or maybe they're just happy to get a great programmer who cares about language learning and who has entrepreneurial experience. Like a said, I don't know. But barring a major announcement from Duolingo in the next 6 months, I'd assume readlang is effectively dead.

There's a reason why I've never tried to build a really professional language learning tool using subtitles and SRS close cards. I've worked for several tiny startups, some of which later went on to success, and cofounded one which died a painful death due to lack of sales skills and targeting the wrong customers.

And I'm honestly not convinced that the market for effective language learning tools is very big. Readlang was a true gem, and he would still have made more money for less hassle working the night shift at a convenience store. Even Assimil (one of the better printed courses) is still a niche product in the US after three generations. And yet Rosetta Stone sells overpriced, mediocre courses in enormous quantities.

I think the US market mostly wants tools that are shiny and that promise results with minimal effort. Basically, it's like gym memberships in the first week of January. It might actually be easier to focus on teaching English to Europeans, who have a bit more motivation.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby Adrianslont » Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:42 am

Emk, I bow to your knowledge in the field of start ups but truly hope you are wrong - I guess you hope you are wrong, too.

I have only been using it for 50 days and love it and can foresee using it for some years into the future so it would certainly be a huge pity if it disappeared or lost the facility to upload texts. I was happy to pay for a year’s subscription and can only guess that inadequate marketing is the reason for its low ROI to date. I know that it isn’t for beginners (the majority of the market) and I know that it doesn’t offer fluency in three months but it is such a powerful tool that I’m sure it could gather enough users with good marketing. Let’s hope that is DL’s plan. And I would imagine hosting and maintainance costs would be trivial for DL. And they could surely leverage their profile to boost Readlang.

Duolingo, if you are reading this, you have just acquired a gem. If you care about language learning, please don’t kill Readlang.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby neuroascetic » Mon Nov 20, 2017 4:46 am

emk wrote: There's a good chance this is what the startup world refers to as an "aquihire"—half way between acquiring a startup and just hiring the founders. Sometimes this comes with anywhere from a year's salary to the price of a house. And the future for the product is rarely very bright.


What's odd about this deal is that Steve Rideout joined Duolingo a year and a half ago and put Readlang in maintenance mode. Duolingo already acquired the founder and since Readlang was just treading water, it was hardly a competitor.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby Cainntear » Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:20 am

neuroascetic wrote:
emk wrote: There's a good chance this is what the startup world refers to as an "aquihire"—half way between acquiring a startup and just hiring the founders. Sometimes this comes with anywhere from a year's salary to the price of a house. And the future for the product is rarely very bright.


What's odd about this deal is that Steve Rideout joined Duolingo a year and a half ago and put Readlang in maintenance mode. Duolingo already acquired the founder and since Readlang was just treading water, it was hardly a competitor.

As I said earlier, I suspect the original deal was "work for us for a bit, and if you like it, we'll buy you out and you can stay. If you don't like it, walk and you still have Readlang."
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby Cavesa » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:12 am

emk wrote:And I'm honestly not convinced that the market for effective language learning tools is very big. Readlang was a true gem, and he would still have made more money for less hassle working the night shift at a convenience store. Even Assimil (one of the better printed courses) is still a niche product in the US after three generations. And yet Rosetta Stone sells overpriced, mediocre courses in enormous quantities.

I think the US market mostly wants tools that are shiny and that promise results with minimal effort. Basically, it's like gym memberships in the first week of January. It might actually be easier to focus on teaching English to Europeans, who have a bit more motivation.


This is one of the huge problems of our society (and definitely not just in the US). We've got smart phones, so that we can buy dumb apps making us dumber.

The only thing I don't get is the need to destroy the good tools. Such as the stupid HiNative replacing Lang8, probable Duolingo Stories replacing Readlang. I get it that the market for shiny toys is bigger. But destroying the real learning tools is not gonna make the serious learners settle for the toys, so it is just loss of a small market with no gain.

I should get used to LWT instead. I hope at least LWT won't finish this way.

And teaching English to Europeans, that is an already oversaturated market. The ESL business is huuuuge, from crappy apps up to hyperexpensive schools. Unless you have tons and tons of money for marketing (or you can write the word Cambridge or Oxford on your product), you are highly unlikely to get any attention.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby emk » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:52 am

Cavesa wrote:The only thing I don't get is the need to destroy the good tools. Such as the stupid HiNative replacing Lang8, probable Duolingo Stories replacing Readlang. I get it that the market for shiny toys is bigger. But destroying the real learning tools is not gonna make the serious learners settle for the toys, so it is just loss of a small market with no gain.

It's not really that people want to destroy good tools.

Imagine for a moment that you're a brilliant programmer who can build attractive, high-quality web apps. You even have a good grasp of sales and marketing. If you go to work for Google or another major player, you might be able to earn US$200,000/year or more. (Admittedly, you'll spend much of that on your mortgage, because those housing markets are brutal.)

Now imagine that you have a brilliant idea for high quality language-learning tools. You figure out how you can afford to spend 1,000 hours a year (20 hours per week) building your tools and running the servers. And you do a great job.

...and yet, 3 years in, you're only earning $10k/year for 1,000 hours of highly skilled professional work. You're tired. You're feeling defeated. It's a rough place to be.

Now imagine that a successful competitor offers you $50k, or maybe $250k. Officially, it's for your company. But really, it's more of a signing bonus. They don't really care whether or not your app gets shut down, not really. But they're paying you good money, which you could really use right now, and they understandably want your full attention. You don't really have time to keep your stuff online and tend to the servers. And besides, you've got a new project at work which will reach 100 times more language learners than your old project ever did.

..and so in the end, you end up walking away from your great project. It's a sad story, but there's usually not a lot of malice involved. The heart of the problem is that you were always heavily subsidizing your project, putting in unsustainable time and money out of your own pocket, and eventually it becomes clear that it's never going to work.

An "aquihire" allows you to earn back some of the money you gave up to work on the project, and saves a bit of face. You succeeded, sort of, even if all you really did was learn some valuable skills.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby Cavesa » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:12 am

I get this, I just cannot see, why the buyer couldn't let it exist, perhaps on the creator's request (something like buying a piece of land, where someone else has a right to use the road on it, it is part of the contract), if the creator would like the great tool to still serve. You know, perhaps because of pride of the achievement. Afterall, if the company cares only about the programmer, why would they need to destroy a product that is cheap to maintain for them and comes as part of the package.

And in cases like HiNative, there wasn't even such a change of owner, they are just letting the good tool die, instead of letting it serve. Lingua.ly got shut down too, the team says they are working on something else. I don't think it will be better than the original product, looking at the overall tendency.

It's perhaps just tiredness making me rant. Tiredness of people loving stupid things. Of the growing prejudice independent learning=playing with app toys with no results, which is growing and partially becoming true due to stuff like this. Tiredness of looking for good tools, finding them, and then losing them again, just because the owners at some point decide that toddlers are a more profitable market than real learners.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby rdearman » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:43 pm

emk wrote:Now imagine that you have a brilliant idea for high quality language-learning tools. You figure out how you can afford to spend 1,000 hours a year (20 hours per week) building your tools and running the servers. And you do a great job.

...and yet, 3 years in, you're only earning $10k/year for 1,000 hours of highly skilled professional work. You're tired. You're feeling defeated. It's a rough place to be.


It is at that point they realise Market Research isn't just for big companies. :ugeek:
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby iguanamon » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:21 pm

This is a great discussion. Capitalism is a harsh master. It's why we have multiple drugs for impotence and no new antibiotic classes since 1986. Personally, I've never used readlang, nor LWT. As one who has learned some languages to a high level using my own system, I don't feel that doing so would be an improvement over what has already been successful for me on my own.

In a way, this forum and its predecessor serve as probably the best language-learning tool on the web right now but the forum can't be distilled into an app. The biggest hitch with learning from the forum is that it takes a large time investment in order to fully take advantage of what it has to teach and be able to filter out what is useful from those who are successful and also to learn what to avoid from those who are not. Which is one reason why we have people who join and do not succeed in learning a language to a high level (if that is how success is defined). If we have 20 people join in the new year, we'll be lucky if maybe three or four will stick around long enough to figure out how to do this. Great tools for language-learning are out there right now, but they still require the will of the learner to take advantage of them.
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Re: ReadLang bought by Duolingo

Postby Cavesa » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:43 pm

I don't think the new ATB haven't been found just for lack of trying. It is not that simple. (Btw you could earn so much by finding new ATB for the resistant bacteria which are bound to emerge in every hospital!)

Yes, it takes time. I don't mind the market being split in two parts, a large toy part, and a smaller serious part. It has always been this way (all those "learn Chinese in a month and 100 pages" courses). What I do mind is the serious part being pushed away from its already gained position and damaged by the toys. The more this happens, the more are newbie learners likely to fall for the trap and get disappointed instead of finding the solid sources. Instead of making language learning available to many people, we are getting toys and discouragement.

Many people believe they are bad at languages (or just dumb) due to school classes. And the internet has been helping a lot to overcome this, with the message "classes are not the only way to learn, you may just need a different path". But now, how are failed learners gonna regain motivation after not achieving their goals, promised by Duolingo? What is more probable after the clash with reality: "I am so dumb I failed to learn a language even with such a user friendly tool" or "Perhaps Duolingo isn't as great as it presents itself and there are other tools I need now"?

This process is also making things more polarised. People are even more distrustful towards autonomous learning (which I suppose are schools happy about), as they see Duolingo or the official Memrise courses or RS as the main representants. This is one of the reasons, why I am so glad there are the CEFR exams, despite their shortcomings. Having a certified level is the only way to face it as an individual.
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