Advice Line with Luis von Ahn of Duolingo

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz: Advice Line with Luis von Ahn of Duolingo

Released May 1, 2025

In this enlightening episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz reunites with Luis von Ahn, the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. Building upon their previous conversation from 2020, Raz and von Ahn delve deep into the exponential growth of Duolingo, the challenges of scaling a rapidly expanding company, and address real-world business dilemmas from aspiring entrepreneurs. This episode is a treasure trove of insights on leadership, innovation, and strategic decision-making.

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Catching Up with Luis von Ahn

From Startup to $13 Billion Valuation

Luis von Ahn reflects on Duolingo's remarkable journey since their last appearance on the show. What was once a startup valued at approximately $1 billion has now surged to a market capitalization of around $13 billion. Maintaining its headquarters in Pittsburgh, Duolingo has expanded to 900 employees, marking significant milestones including its successful IPO in 2021.

Evolving Leadership in a Public Company

As Duolingo transitioned to a publicly traded company, von Ahn discusses the ensuing changes in his leadership approach. He shares, “[05:08] Luis von Ahn: ... being a publicly traded company forces you to make sure that all your processes are very well structured.” This new transparency necessitated more precise forecasting and disciplined operational practices, akin to maintaining a pristine home under constant scrutiny.

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Navigating Competition and User Behavior

Focusing Amidst Growing Competition

Guy Raz inquires about Duolingo’s strategy in a competitive landscape, particularly with the advent of AI-driven language learning tools. Von Ahn responds by emphasizing Duolingo’s dominant market position, stating, “[07:12] Luis von Ahn: ... 90% of people who are learning languages on mobile apps are using Duolingo.” He highlights that while direct competitors in language learning are minimal, the real competition comes from platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which vie for users' time and attention.

Understanding User Actions vs. Words

A pivotal discussion centers on the discrepancy between what users say they want and their actual behavior. Von Ahn shares a compelling observation: users express a desire for live human interaction in language learning but rarely act on it. “[08:11] Luis von Ahn: ... asking them if they would pay for live interaction, they say yes, but when pressed, they aren’t willing to engage immediately.” This underscores the importance of data-driven decision-making over relying solely on market research.

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Advice Line: Real Business Challenges Addressed

The episode features an interactive segment where real entrepreneurs call in to seek advice from Guy Raz and Luis von Ahn. Two notable callers, Steph Crim and Blair Haste, present their unique business challenges.

Caller 1: Steph Crim of Good Things Vending

Business Overview

Steph Crim introduces Good Things Vending, a Chicago-based venture that refurbishes full-size snack vending machines, customizing them with local artwork and stocking them with unique, nostalgia-infused items. These aren’t your typical vending machines; they offer curated, one-of-a-kind products, transforming mundane spaces into vibrant community hubs.

Challenge: Scaling Sustainably Amidst High Demand

Steph outlines her dilemma: “[12:29] Steph Crim: ... opportunities that exceed our current capacity. How do we decide when to say yes and scale?” She faces the classic startup conundrum of rapid growth versus sustainable expansion.

Advice and Solutions

Luis von Ahn advises leveraging the crowd’s willingness to invest in premium placements: “[17:12] Luis von Ahn: ... consider asking for a fee like $1,000 to locate your machines, creating a sense of scarcity and prestige.” This approach not only funds further growth but also filters committed partners who genuinely value Good Things Vending’s presence.

Guy Raz supplements this by suggesting collaboration with business schools to find dedicated individuals who can manage expansions effectively, ensuring that growth is both manageable and strategic.

Caller 2: Blair Haste of Behr

Business Overview

Blair Haste presents Behr, a design-driven brand specializing in high-end tech accessories for Apple products. With a focus on premium materials like merino wool, felt, and fine leather, Behr aims to offer minimalist and durable accessories that stand out in a crowded market.

Challenge: Product Focus and Market Validation

Blair explains, “[30:50] Blair Haste: ... Tame was meant to launch alongside Tote, but Tote hasn’t taken off as expected. How do I decide which product to prioritize with limited resources?”

Advice and Solutions

Von Ahn cautions against investing in nascent platforms, drawing from Duolingo’s own experiences: “[31:39] Luis von Ahn: ... make products for established platforms.” He emphasizes the importance of focusing on proven markets to ensure product viability.

Guy Raz echoes the sentiment, advocating for local market penetration and leveraging unique materials as differentiators. He proposes targeting influential communities who can act as brand ambassadors, thereby organically driving demand and establishing a strong market presence.

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Strategic Insights and Lessons Learned

Throughout the episode, several key themes emerge that are invaluable for entrepreneurs navigating growth and competition:

1. Monetization is Crucial: Von Ahn reflects on Duolingo’s delayed monetization strategy, advising, “[50:10] Luis von Ahn: ... monetize a little sooner because it allows you to fulfill your mission more effectively.”

2. Leverage Strengths and Delegate Weaknesses: Recognizing personal limitations, von Ahn shares his strategy of hiring experts to handle areas outside his expertise, ensuring the company operates efficiently and effectively.

3. Premium Pricing for Unique Value: Both callers are encouraged to reassess their pricing strategies. By positioning their products as high-end and unique, they can command higher prices, improve profit margins, and sustain growth without overextending resources.

4. Community and Brand Alignment: Success often hinges on aligning with the right communities. Whether it’s local artists for Good Things Vending or creative influencers for Behr, connecting with communities that resonate with the brand’s values amplifies reach and fosters loyalty.

5. Adaptability and Data-Driven Decisions: Emphasizing the importance of observing user behavior over stated preferences, Duolingo’s approach underscores the necessity of being adaptable and leveraging data to inform strategic decisions.

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Concluding Remarks

The episode wraps up with a profound moment from Luis von Ahn’s original interview, where he recounts a pivotal challenge: “[51:33] Luis von Ahn: ... nobody else will invest in this company. If you don't figure out how to make money, you know you're not going to find a bigger fool.” This realization propelled Duolingo to prioritize monetization, steering the company toward sustainable growth and eventual success.

Guy Raz encourages listeners to revisit Luis's earlier episode for a more comprehensive understanding of his entrepreneurial journey. He also invites aspiring entrepreneurs to join the conversation by submitting their business challenges, continuing the legacy of shared knowledge and community support that defines How I Built This.

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Notable Quotes:

• “[05:08] Luis von Ahn: ... being a publicly traded company forces you to make sure that all your processes are very well structured.”

• “[07:12] Luis von Ahn: ... 90% of people who are learning languages on mobile apps are using Duolingo.”

• “[08:11] Luis von Ahn: ... asking them if they would pay for live interaction, they say yes, but when pressed, they aren’t willing to engage immediately.”

• “[12:29] Steph Crim: ... opportunities that exceed our current capacity. How do we decide when to say yes and scale?”

• “[43:16] Luis von Ahn: ... if you can charge more, you should just do that because that will solve most of your problems.”

• “[50:10] Luis von Ahn: ... monetize a little sooner because it allows you to fulfill your mission more effectively.”

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This episode serves as a masterclass for entrepreneurs, blending personal anecdotes with actionable strategies. Luis von Ahn’s experiences, paired with Guy Raz’s insightful questioning, offer a roadmap for navigating the complexities of scaling a business while maintaining core values and mission.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

Wondery subscribers can listen to How I Built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Stripe helps many of the world's most influential businesses grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way. Learn [e-mail] thank you to our sponsor, American Express. Owning a business means you get to chart your own course and create a meaningful life for you and your family. With AMEX Business Platinum, you can earn 1.5 times Membership Rewards points on select business purchases. Plus plus stay refreshed on the go with access to more than 1,400 lounges globally through the American Express Global Lounge Collection, including the Centurion Lounge. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn [e-mail] this episode is sponsored by Canva. If you make decks at work, you should make the switch to Canva Presentations. Canva presentations might be the most visually impressive presentations you'll ever use. Start with a stunning template, drag and drop images, graphics, charts and data visualizations from Canva's massive media library. Add animations plus interactive polls and quizzes to really set your slides apart. Built in AI also lets you generate slides and text in seconds from a prompt. And you can share your Canva presentations with anyone and instantly collaborate in real time. Canva is used by 95% of Fortune 500 companies. Whether you work at a small or big company in a team of two or two thousand, Canva empowers workplaces everywhere to create captivating presentations, save time and be more productive together. You'll love the presentations you can easily design with Canva. Your audience will too love your work with canva [e-mail] hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a 1 minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice [e-mail] and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for [e-mail] and we'll put all this info in the podcast Description. Description all right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Luis Von Ahn. He's the co founder and CEO of Duolingo. Luis, it's great to have you back on the show.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Great to be here, guy.

[Guy Raz]

You were first on how I built this back in 2020. We will put a link in in the podcast description for any of you who have missed that episode because it's so good. Really one of the best ever in that conversation. Luis, we talked about your childhood in Guatemala, like your early love for math. One of the. I think a lot of people were kind of stunned to hear about this. You were instrumental in helping to develop a technology called Captcha, which is of course those annoying sort of characters that you have to read to confirm that you are a human. Thank you for protecting the Internet. You became a professor at Carnegie Mellon and then you got a MacArthur genius grant. You worked at Google for a bunch of years and then you walked away to start Duolingo in 2011. And we told that whole story in the show. It's such a good story. Your company, Duolingo, has just exploded since we spoke, I think about a year after our interview. You guys went public in 2021.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

And today you've got a market cap of like $13 billion and you're still in Pittsburgh.

[Luis Von Ahn]

That's right, we're still in Pittsburgh.

[Guy Raz]

It's just an incredible story. Luis, before we get to some of our callers, I'd love to just kind of catch up on where we left off because I think when we spoke, Duolingo was valued at like a billion dollars, which of course was already amazing, as I mentioned now about 13 billion. You've grown so much. You've got 900 employees. Tell me a little bit about how you had to adjust as a leader of a rapidly growing, expanding company and brand. What's changed for you?

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, I mean, every year of my job is a little different, which is something that I like. I mean, we, you know, we started almost 14 years ago and since we last spoke, like you said, we became a publicly traded company. That makes my job a little different. First of all, I have to be a lot more careful about what I say about the future, which was not the case before. I've had to really learn that. For us, I think it's been really positive being a publicly traded company because our stock has done well, but really, I think it has also made us operate a lot better. I like to use this analogy that when you're a private company, nobody's really looking at how you operate. So it's as if you had a house and never had any guests. Usually that means that you're not forced to clean all that much. But if you're a publicly traded company, you have a lot of guests. So basically really forces you to make sure that all your processes are very well structured and everything. The other thing that changes when you're a publicly traded company is your forecast starts really mattering. We have to have forecasts that are really precise. And I actually really like it. I mean, now we really know it doesn't make Sense to hire 500 people next year because that will make us very unprofitable. And so I think we've done very well in that respect.

[Guy Raz]

One of the things I recently, in my newsletter, I wrote about the idea of sort of ignoring the shiny new object. And in your space, there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of companies that came after you, some that were around before you, and I wonder how much you. I mean, of course, you guys have a pretty strong position, if not the dominant position in this space, but there's obviously AI is coming into play, and that's going to be really significant, increasingly significant. But the other thing is some of these competitors also offer video with a live person, for example, or different ways of learning language. Do you guys look at that and say, well, we should really compete in all of these spaces, or do you sort of tend to focus on what you're doing well and you kind of stay in your lane?

[Luis Von Ahn]

We don't really look at what competitors, particularly in language learning, are doing. Too much, for one. If you take all people who are learning languages on mobile apps, 90% of them are using Duolingo.

[Guy Raz]

Wow, that's amazing.

[Luis Von Ahn]

So that's one thing, but the other thing is what we mainly compete for is time. So for us, what we look at is we look at what Instagram's doing, we look at what mobile games are doing, we look at what TikTok's doing, because those are real competitors. And the reality is we are losing. We are losing against TikTok and Instagram. They are significantly larger than we are. What we want to do is we really want to teach you a language, and we want to teach it to you. Well, now, interestingly, with live humans, by the way, this is one of the funniest things that I've ever seen. When you talk to people who are learning a language and you ask them, what do you want to do? The most common answer is like, yeah, I want to talk to live humans. That's what they tell you. And we've said, okay, so if you tell us that if Duolingo had live humans, you would use it. They tell you, yes, of course I would use it. You even ask, would you pay for it? And they say, sure, I would pay for it. And then you ask the next question. It's an amazing. You ask, would you do it right now? And invariably the answer is, no, not right now. It just turns out that talking to people in a language that you're not comfortable with, like 90% of people don't want to do that.

[Guy Raz]

I think that's so interesting. And it's an important point because you can apply this across categories, right? Which is to say that market research, especially sort of, you know, surveys, are not always reliable. And I've made this analogy before when I first sort of came up with the idea for this show and made a couple of pilot episodes. We ran it through panels of people, and universally they hated the show. This is like 10 years ago, hated the show. And yet here we are, right, 10 years later. And I think that the point is so right, because people will say, yeah, of course I want a person. But then when it comes down to it, they want the convenience of being able to interact with a language learning platform whenever they want. And it just makes a lot of sense that you get this kind of data, but your response is not to go and do it, but to say, you know, actually, we don't think what people are telling us is actually true.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, I mean, this is. In the history of Duolingo, this has been one of the most amazing lessons that I've had. Our users, or users in general, people don't really know what they want. They'll tell you all kinds of things, but you have to look at this. Not their words, but their actions, like their behavior. Just turns out people prefer playing mobile games than talking to other people. They may not tell you that, but it just turns out that's the case.

[Guy Raz]

Luis, let's take some calls and find out what People need help with. What do you think?

[Luis Von Ahn]

Let's do this.

[Guy Raz]

All right, let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. You were on with Luis Von Ahn from Duolingo. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

[Steph Crim]

Hi, guy and Luis. My name is Steph Crim and I'm calling in from Chicago, Illinois. I am the founder and the keeper of a business called Good Things Vending. We take full size snack vending machines, refurbish them, customize them, and stock them with local artwork, vintage and nostalgia items, and try to bottle a little bit of all that our city has to offer in an automated vending machine.

[Guy Raz]

That's awesome, Steph. Thanks for calling in. Congrats on starting this business. Because, you know, now vending machines are getting, at least in the US They've been cool in like Asia for a long time, but they're getting cooler. You go to airports and you see people selling electronics and cosmetics and CUPC and all kinds of things. So these are just vending machines that might ordinarily sell like packets of lays, but you've refurbished them and they. And you can get like one of a kind things in them.

[Steph Crim]

Yeah, exactly. So the. I very much agree with you. I think vending is having a moment. My machines are not those high tech machines that you see at the airport. Our machines are refurbished machines that may have been in a municipal basement or in a school cafeteria. We fix them up so that they are compatible with a credit card reader and then we have an artist paint them and we stock them with local artwork. So stickers, pins, patches, whatever you make. If we can shrink it down and drop it from about 4ft, we'll put it in the vending machine.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. How many of these machines do you have? They're all around the Chicago area right now. Yes.

[Steph Crim]

Yeah. So we launched the first one in 2021, and now we are up to seven machines with the eighth one going out next week.

[Guy Raz]

And are they inside the like, where are they located?

[Steph Crim]

They're in other businesses. So I am utilizing the community that's already been built around a spot. So I want to put myself in places like the popular local brewery or the conservatory around the corner. We love hospitality spaces. We love city landmarks. We love community buildings.

[Guy Raz]

That's awesome. And tell me a little bit about how much does it cost? Like, does each product cost?

[Steph Crim]

So right now, everything in the machine is $20 and under. The goal is to keep it super accessible, but it's definitely A higher price item than you'd usually see in a vending machine. Bigger profit margins still economy of scale. Like, it's still about the number of machines that I can get out there. But last year, for the first time, we broke $100,000 in gross revenue. And in quarter one of 2025, we're up 53% from quarter one of 2024. And that's without factoring in additional revenue streams. We just have a new website launch with a web store that will eventually have some of these artist goods on it, exploring some of those other areas.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome. Okay, before I bring in Luis, tell us what your pain point is. What's your question for us?

[Steph Crim]

Absolutely. So there's been a growing interest both in vending machines and specifically in the model that I've been building. And as good things vending grows, we're receiving opportunities that exceed our current capacity. How do we decide when to say yes and scale? Quickly hiring and expanding to meet demand versus saying not yet risk losing those opportunities, but maybe taking the time to build more sustainably. What framework or decision making strategies would you recommend?

[Guy Raz]

All right, good questions. Luis, I'd love to bring you in. First of all, any questions for Steph?

[Luis Von Ahn]

This sounds really interesting. These are artists. Some of them may have social media presence. Do you use their social media presence to boost up where the machines are, et cetera?

[Steph Crim]

Yeah, that's. I mean, a big part of it is community weaving. The idea is that we can all amplify each other. If you know that this brewery gets folks who are, like, loving Chicago things, and then you put objects from makers who are making Chicago things, it sort of has a natural harmony between those audiences, and there's a desire to amplify each other. I will say that the vending machine part of it has done a lot for us on social media. We've had a few, like, natural videos go viral, which has brought a decent sized audience to us. So now we're getting to kind of platform artists as well, which has been really joyful.

[Luis Von Ahn]

That's great. I mean, that's a really good, positive feedback loop because you can just, you know, get. Get more people to post on social media. Then your social media gets more popular, and then there's a whole feedback loop. So I love that.

[Steph Crim]

That's the whole.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Steph. What? Tell us a little bit about your goals here. I mean, you started this in 2019. You had the first machine, 2021, and now you're. You're approaching eight machines in Chicago. But what's Your. If you could, like, look out in five or 10 years, what do you want this business to be?

[Steph Crim]

Yeah, I mean, it's such a good question, and one that I wish that I had a clearer answer to. I built this out of a love for community and art and vending machines and didn't really think that it would catch this kind of wave. But I'm not super attracted to the idea of franchising, like, for what that would mean for my life, for how I would have to operate. But there's so much interest in folks who want to sort of take this business model and bring it someplace else. I think for me, I want to share the knowledge, and I'd love to build a business that can sustain here and create exposure for artists in Chicago. I don't want to be doing the biggest possible thing. I always want to be able to be connected to the community that got me involved in this in the first place, which is the creative community, the hospitality community. So whatever comes next, I'd like it to be something that allows me to have the job that I want selfishly, you know, I want to be able to enjoy putting weird stuff in vending machines.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Luis, I'm curious to get your take on this, because I don't think that this is an either or choice. I think that she could do both. Work with a community and artisans and sort of the hospitality space. But still think about this as a business. I mean, this is a model that is replicable. It's not easy to replicate because you have the connections, the context, and you're creating these amazing, beautiful machines with great things in them. And to me, it seems like an interesting thing to think about. If people are coming to you and saying, hey, Steph, I want to do this in New York. I want to do this in Los Angeles to say, okay, well, let's set up a division. I'll help you set up a franchise of my business, and you can take it there anyway. Luis, I'd be curious to get your take on that.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, I agree that having, you know, it really makes you operate pretty differently and understand things better if you have a second city. You know, this is true with restaurants. This is true with a lot of things. As soon as you open your second city, you kind of start understanding a lot better what your business really is. You know, what is just Chicago and what is your business? So, you know, I would really recommend that if it's taking traction. Another question that I have is, are you working on this just by yourself?

[Steph Crim]

I mean, I have One contract worker, Dave, who's been incredible and like Restocks machines for me. But I think my hesitation with going to other states is that I really think that what makes good things vending exceptional is that really earnest connection to community. There's like also tons of locations in Chicago that want, like, I can't keep up with the want in Chicago.

[Luis Von Ahn]

That makes a lot of sense, but just in general, I would say I have seen people. It's just happened to me too. Sometimes I'm just a little afraid of the unknown. And it may not be another city, but just, you know, this is why I asked about if you're working with other people, it seems like you're at a point where you could hire another full time person and just they can worry about just the mechanics of it all. And then you can start really thinking about how exactly you want to expand. Because all of that takes time thinking how you want to expand. If you say, okay, maybe it's just Chicago needs a lot more places. Okay, well that's a thought. Another thought that I had. If you are in a position where people are asking you but you cannot quite deliver on all the requests, first of all, that's an excellent position to be in. It's way better than the other position where nobody wants your machines. Agreed. So that's an excellent position. But you can really start trying to do things when there's scarcity on your end. You can say like, well, okay, you know what? I have so many requests that at this point I'm asking that if you want the machine in your place, you gotta pay, you just gotta pay a thousand bucks. I'm making up. I don't know if $1,000 is the right number at all, but you gotta pay this to locate it there because there's just too much demand or there's like a wait list and then you can even make it a whole thing. It's just like, it just reminds me of kind of fancy restaurants where all these people are trying to vie to really get themselves in the wait list or whatever. So if you have a scarce resource, you can really do that.

[Guy Raz]

I'm gonna double down on this, Luis. Cause I think this is exactly right. I think you should focus less on what's in the MA right now for, for a brief period of time and focus more on how you can expand the machines. Right. And so you mentioned that you have somebody working with you part time and you know, your revenue is still fairly modest. So I imagine that you might be nervous about bringing on somebody full time. There may be an opportunity to try something a little bit unorthodox here, which is, you know, maybe look at some of the business schools in, in the area, Northwestern or Chicago, and see if there might be somebody from one of those places who would be willing to come and work with you for, you know, a percentage of your business to help you grow it. Knowing that they weren't going to make a lot of money initially, but that there's a spark here. That's the first thing I would think about doing. The second thing is I would really look at the data Luis mentioned. I mean, his business is so data driven and so many decisions are made or not made because of the data that they're getting in. I mean, I would think about adding artisanal foods, snacks that other people in Chicago are making. I mean, try different things out and see what's working because I think that you have an opportunity to really measure, you know, what kind of sticks with people.

[Steph Crim]

I think we have food in one of our machines. It was a location request, something that we're definitely like looking to expand a bit more. I will say that one of the advantages of my product spread is that it's a higher profit margin. Nothing expires, which is massive. So I think that there are some things that make me hesitate on food, like logistically, but we are finding that there is some interest. But yeah, I think like moving in the direction of trying to find folks who maybe have that business education would be very helpful.

[Guy Raz]

And also, as Luis, as you mentioned, I mean, the idea of getting people who want these machines in their stores to help finance them. Right. I mean, you think about how, you know, a lot of times when developers are looking to attract a great store, you know, like an Apple Store that's going to attract a lot of people, right. Or a Chick Fil a or a brand that just brings a lot of foot traffic. They will give those brands, those, those businesses massive deals because they want to attract other businesses into that mall or whatever it might be. You might want to think about what you're doing in a similar way. I mean, you are a premium product. That's fun. It's interesting. You're attracting makers and, you know, people who go to maker fairs and also startup people. And when they know, when they see your vending mach in a cool bar or a shop, they know that that is a cool store which already has an impact on the, you know, sort of the perceived value of supporting that place.

[Steph Crim]

It's very interesting. I like from. It sounds like less from A monetary direction, like not getting them to buy in as a source of income, but more as a prestige component. Like you gotta buy in if we're gonna move. Is that the thought?

[Luis Von Ahn]

Can I interrupt with one thing, please? That just kind of reminded me of something. When we started Duolingo, I can best describe us as communists. We did not want to make money. Nobody in the company wanted to make money, and it was thought of as an evil thing. The reality and what we have found is I think we're still like that. But we have found that a lot of times with things like when I said, like, you can get people to pay $1,000 to put your machine there, et cetera, is not necessarily so much about making money. And it doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's like, that can fund the rest of your operations to actually let you have more of these machines. But also, if these places are willing to put in the money for something, that means they care. And that's a way to suss out how much this place actually cares about having your machine versus a place that just doesn't care all that much. And I think that would give you better results. So it's not necessarily about, like, we're just. Or at least I'm not necessarily trying to tell you, oh, just squeeze everybody and make as much money as possible. It's not like that. And I think I'm noticing a little bit of early duolingo in your thinking, which we were like, no, no, no, don't worry. I'm not really trying to make money.

[Steph Crim]

I listened to your episode, and I was like, when does being precious get in the way of the goal? Like, very much I feel that way, but I think some of it is on a practical level too. Like, if somebody bought in on a machine, I think that a lot of our best locations, because being put in a good location makes more money than anything else that we can do. A lot of those locations are not locations that can afford anything. I think the only other thing that, like, itches at the back of my brain is if it's not my business, if it's not good things, vending, my interest isn't representing every artist community in every city, but a vending machine could do that in every city could do it. How to move through that sort of part of the interest and that part of the business where folks are showing a high level of interest in sort of like replicating or building their own version.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, I mean, I think in general, my inclination would be to just make the best possible thing I can in Chicago. And then if it's good enough, it'll just get copied. Yep. It'll just happen.

[Guy Raz]

Yep.

[Steph Crim]

Kind of relieving advice. Honestly, I'd love that.

[Guy Raz]

I'm Steph Krim. The brand is called Good Things Vending. Thanks for calling in. Good luck.

[Steph Crim]

Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate y'all.

[Guy Raz]

Good luck.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, every time I'm like, walking through an airport, I'm like, do I need a pair of noise canceling headsets from that vending machine? Like, I do.

[Luis Von Ahn]

But you end up with one.

[Guy Raz]

I'm looking at it. I'm like, you know. You know what I mean? Like, there is something to it, but it's a cool idea. And I've seen different kinds of versions of this, and it's like there's this kind of Venn diagram of, like, people go to maker faires and craft fairs, and that's a critical mass of a community. I mean, there's a lot that I can see happening with something like this.

[Luis Von Ahn]

In addition to that, I really love that Steph wants to elevate Chicago, wants to elevate the arts. In my experience, that type of business usually is a lot more successful, even if early. If the founder is not necessarily all that much into making money, et cetera, they end up making more money than the ones that are where the founder is like, I just want to make money. There's something to be said about somebody who really cares about their community and what they're doing.

[Guy Raz]

Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. That's after the break. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. And now a quick vital break. A little more from our sponsor, Vital Proteins. What is vital proteins? It's a supplement that has four benefits all in one product. It helps support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. Because as we get older, especially after age 30, our body's natural collagen production can start to decline by 1% per year, which can lead to things like fine lines, saggy skin, and your bones and joints just not moving the way they used to. Vital Proteins can help. They're the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S. i take a serving of vital proteins every day to help me look, feel, and move my best, and I can really, really see the results. Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code built at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Wouldn't it be great to have a service that's like speed dating only for hiring? In other words, you could meet several interested qualified candidates at once, all at a designated time. Well, good news There is it's zip intro from ZipRecruiter. You can post your job today and start talking to qualified candidates tomorrow. And right now you can try Zip Intro for free at ZipRecruiter.com Bilt Zip Intro gives you the power to quickly assess excellent candidates for your job via back to back video calls. You simply pick a time and Zip Intro does all the work of finding and scheduling qualified candidates for you. Then you can choose who you want to talk to and meet with great people as soon as the next day. It's so easy. Enjoy the benefits of speed hiring with new Zip Intro only from ZipRecruiter rated 1 hiring site based on G2. Try Zip Intro for [e-mail] BILT Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com BILT Zip Intro post jobs today. Talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. How I Built this is sponsored by Claude, the Go to AI Assistant for millions of people and businesses around the world. The most helpful tools help you do your best work efficiently and reliably. And I've been using Claude to help organize my thoughts and brainstorm new ideas and discover things that I can't get answers to anywhere else. It's actually amazing. Whether you're drafting a business plan, analyzing market trends, preparing for a crucial negotiation, or simply trying to articulate your vision more clearly, Claude adapts to whatever you're working on. By using Claude as your personal or business AI assistant, you'll be in great company. Organizations like Salesforce, Figma, GitLab, Intercom, and Coinbase all use Claude in their products. Give Claude a try for free at Claude.com that's C-L-A-U D E.com welcome back to the Advice line on How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Duolingo founder Luis Von Ahn. Luis, let's take another call.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Let's do this.

[Guy Raz]

Hello, welcome to the Advice Line. You are on with Luis Von Ahn from Duolingo. Welcome. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Sure.

[Blair Haste]

Hey Guy. Hey Luis. My name is Blair Haste calling in from Atlanta, Georgia. My business I founded is called Behr. Behr is a design driven brand creating high end tech accessories that blend thoughtful design with durable precision craftsmanship. We use premium materials like merino wool, felt, machined metals and fine leather, avoiding disposable plastics to ensure longevity and sustainability. And our first product, Tame, is a minimalist cable organizer for Apple MacBook users.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay. Well, welcome to the show. Blair, you design products that are accessories for phones and computers.

[Blair Haste]

Correct. So right now we're focusing on Apple accessories. My background is industrial design, so I've been doing this for 20 plus years. So we have Tame, which is simple Cable wrap for MacBook products.

[Guy Raz]

Cable wrap for the, for what?

[Blair Haste]

For the, the charging cable.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

[Blair Haste]

So it very easily wraps. It kind of encapsulates the, the charging block for the computer itself. And then the other product is. It's called Tote. That one actually is. We're having a little bit of issues with that. So but it's. The idea is that it is a sling bag for Apple's Vision Pro headset. It's a fairly bulky headset, so it requires an external battery pack.

[Guy Raz]

Right. Which normally people would put in their pockets, I guess.

[Blair Haste]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

Or hold it. It's like a little bag that holds the battery pack.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yep.

[Blair Haste]

The idea was for people who either have too much in their pockets or like women who oftentimes don't have pockets. The issue I kind of alluded to earlier was I think Apple has experienced some.

[Guy Raz]

They're not doing well with the Vision Pro.

[Luis Von Ahn]

It's not doing well. It's not doing well.

[Blair Haste]

It's no secret.

[Guy Raz]

I'm looking at a photo of this and on your website and so your thing is all about design using merino wool and leather and nice metal. And these are your two kind of first products. Before I bring in Luis, tell me what your questions are.

[Blair Haste]

Sure. So I originally came in to this thinking that my biggest challenge was how to stand out in the crowded market. But I've realized that my real challenge is, is about making sure that I'm focused on the right product in the first place. So Tame was meant to launch alongside Tote, which was expected to be the momentum for the brand. But when Tote didn't happen, it's not really taking off like we had expected. So Tame is left standing on its own as the hero product for the brand, which is a role that it was never meant to play. So the question is, when you have multiple ideas but limited resources, how do you decide which one is worth pursuing and how do you validate whether it is a real market demand for before investing too much?

[Guy Raz]

All right, Luis Vanon, this is time to bring you in here.

[Luis Von Ahn]

I mean, that's a very hard question. In general, I will say a couple of things. We have learned a duolingo. We've been burned by similar things by, in fact, the identical company as you. I'll tell you the story that happened. I mean, we had Apple really try to get us to do an app for the Apple Watch. And they tell you, oh, you know, these are gonna sell like crazy. Don't worry if you do it, they're gonna sell like crazy. They always say that. What we've learned is not to bet on these very new products. Cause you really never know if they're going to work. So it's not that Apple Watch didn't work. Apple Watch ended up working, but what didn't work was apps. On Apple Watch, there's just. Yes, that's just not a thing.

[Guy Raz]

They aren't. I barely use them. I really barely use them.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, it's just they tried to make them a thing. They're not a thing. But there was no way to know beforehand because Apple swore to God they were going to be a thing. And so we've learned we make products for established platforms. You know, sometimes people are like, oh, you want to be there early? I don't think you do. I mean, especially in the type of business that you're in, you don't need to be the first ever carrier of a certain product or whatever. You just need to be one that stands out because you have really amazing materials, et cetera. So I just. For one, I would definitely not bet on new products.

[Blair Haste]

I think that was my struggle. Early on going into this, I kind of was going back and forth, weighing the benefit of, do you go after the mass market or do you try to go after the smaller market, which is a little more niche, but you can be a big fish in a small pond, essentially. So that was kind of the two I chose, apparently a little bit poorly, but I'm looking to pivot and to readjust some of the strategy around some of those things.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is no I'm going to hear from people, but I just don't believe in saturated markets. I really don't. And we've had episode after episode after episode that's proved this to be correct. Liquid death entered a $300 billion market. Water. Who would be stupid enough to go into water? That's dominated by Coke and Danone and Pepsi. Well, he wasn't selling better water. Mike Cesario was selling a better brand. You know, he was selling monster style, you know, energy drink things that looked like beer, but it was just water in a can. Say what you want about it, but he entered a very crowded market, and he proved that there's always an opportunity. But what I tend to find, I think that there's something to this idea of really leaning in locally and starting local. I mean, you're in Atlanta. It's a majorly important place with, you know, important companies like UPS and Coca Cola and Delta. But aside from that, there is a growing, thriving tech community. There's a lot of creatives there. And is there a way for you to sort of start to try and find that wormhole initially into the creative community in Atlanta who are like, oh, what's that? You know, what's that cool merino wool case you have around your iPhone? Or that cool bag that you're using made out of merino wool and leather? Or that, to me, is a really interesting way to at least start and to see if you can gain traction and then get feedback from people on what they want.

[Blair Haste]

Yep. No, I think that's. That. That makes a lot of sense.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Starting Atlanta is, first of all, really cool. Thank you. Because it's such a cool city. But really, I mean, a lot of these, you know, what you're doing, the accessories, they're a bit like fashion. And I think the way to get these things off the ground is to start with. With kind of the artists or the hipsters or the, you know, the people that are. That are maybe not very wealthy or. But they're just the cool people that everybody wants to emulate. And if the cool, young, hip people are wearing these, I think that's kind of how these things take off.

[Blair Haste]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, this is the story with Instagram, Luis. I mean, they launched by making it available only to photographers for the first, like, two months, just 1,000 photographers that they identified and said, hey, will you play with this? You're trying to find creatives. You're trying to find, like, first movers. And I think that that's where the opportunity is going to be.

[Blair Haste]

Awesome.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, I would sell some of them in Goodwill. Somehow. A lot of these people buy their stuff in Goodwill, and then everybody wants it.

[Guy Raz]

I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Don't listen to that. Piece of advice. Don't go to Goodwill. But it's interesting because you do have something differentiated. Right. You are in a quote unquote crowded space. But merino wool, I don't think a lot of people are using that to make cases. There's some leather, but not that much. It's mostly hard plastic. So I feel like there's some opportunities here to work with the material you have that can really differentiate what you're putting out there.

[Blair Haste]

Well, glad you identified the material because that's obviously, you know, obviously sustainable materials, but also higher end materials that can stand out in the category that we're putting these products in. And I really do like your idea, Louis, about see what we can do to get these in some products in the hands of some, you know, influential people. And one of the other things that I am trying to explore is this idea of scent branding, which is trying to own every part of the unboxing experience. So that includes what you smell when you literally take the product out of the box, which is a coffee latte scent that is applied to the inside of the packaging. I don't know if you've noticed this, but a lot of times when people open brand new products, especially like tech products, they tend to have like a plasticky kind of factory smell.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Blair Haste]

It's still a work in progress, but also trying to think through long term how we can start to build a brand apart from just the look and the feel of it.

[Guy Raz]

I'm just going to be honest with you. It's interesting. It's definitely threw me for a little bit of a curve here. Yeah. But I think that your energy should be focused on what products appeal to people, what designs appeal to people. That's really where you smell things interesting. But I'm not sure that's going to be the game changer. But that's my. I might be wrong. I might just have critiqued a billion dollar idea.

[Blair Haste]

I don't think it's the billion dollar idea, but I think it's a small piece in the puzzle that could be enough that just sort of tips somebody one way or the other one day.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Blair, you're such a designer. You just remind me of all our designers. I keep telling them, like, guy, I'm like, just concentrate on the right thing. And they're like, no, no, no, no. But look at how this was made. What? I think that some of the best ideas come from this type of stuff. So, you know, I keep at it. But you are such a designer.

[Blair Haste]

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. That's a compliment, Blair.

[Guy Raz]

Good luck. The brand is called Bair B A I R we're chewing on, man. Good luck. We'll follow up with you.

[Blair Haste]

Thanks, Guy. Thanks, Luis. I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time.

[Guy Raz]

Thank you.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Thank you.

[Guy Raz]

Do you have a. You must have a nice case on your phone.

[Luis Von Ahn]

No, it's not a particularly nice case on my phone. I have it here. I mean, it's a case because I tried it without a case for a while and it just keeps breaking. So I have just a random case I bought at the Apple store when I bought my iPhone. Yeah, they do these things where they change the size of the iPhone by like a millimeter each time. And now the previous case doesn't work.

[Guy Raz]

All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.

[Stephanie Carlson]

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[Steph Crim]

Thanks.

[Stephanie Carlson]

Have a good one. Yep, that too. Want one place to manage all your online and in person sales? That's kind of our thing. Wherever you sell. Businesses that grow grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month [e-mail] Listen. Shopify.com Listen.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking your calls with Luis Von Ahn from Duolingo. Luis, let's, let's get back into it and take another call.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Let's do this.

[Guy Raz]

Hello, welcome to the advice line. You are on with Luis Vonon and me. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

[F]

Hi, I'm so happy to be here. I'm Stephanie Carlson. I am in Carmel, Indiana, which is just north of Indianapolis. I founded Nature spiral landscapes in 2016 after raising four children. My intent was to teach people how to build, plan and grow their own gardens. But somehow it evolved into biophilic design, which is the practice of bringing nature indoors. And today, fast forward almost nine years and we offer interior and exterior landscape design, build installation and maintenance services. Creating designs inspired by nature.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay, so I'm assuming what you're talking about are like those like plant walls you see inside of stores and is that what you do?

[F]

Living walls, moss walls? We also do interior plants. We design green Spaces, bringing nature indoors to create healthier, happier places.

[Guy Raz]

And tell me about how this business started.

[F]

I was just going to help people design gardens. So all my kids, every year we planted a garden, and it was fun. It was great to eat your own food. We loved making salads out of our gardens. So I was like, okay, they're all grown up. I need a new baby. I might as well start a business. So I started Nature Inspired Landscapes, thinking I was going to teach people how to grow gardens, build their beds, design. And then it just evolved. As we were doing this, someone would say, hey, can you do this? Oh, I have an office. Can you do this? And during 2020, when everybody was going home, the plant business really blew up, and everybody was wanting plants in their homes. And once people went back to work, biophilic design became very, very popular. Because the one way you can encourage people to come back to work is to make their space prettier and more attractive.

[Guy Raz]

That's awesome. I mean, I love. I'm looking at your website, and I love those, like, walls of moss or ferns or plants. They're so cool. Every time I see one, I'm like, I want one in my house. But I just. It's too complicated. But tell me a little bit about how the business is doing. I mean, are you guys making money? Is it challenging right now, or what's going on?

[F]

So we've done actually really well. I've had some great opportunities to do exterior landscaping in. You know, we've done some apartment buildings, some medi areas, some ro. We also did the bicentennial unity Plaza here for the Pacers in Indianapolis. We do do moss walls in homes, so that's an option for you.

[Guy Raz]

All right. And this all in the Indianapolis area?

[F]

Well, we've been in Chicago, we've been in Knoxville, We've gone to New York, but most of it's in Indianapolis. But I do want to grow into some other areas.

[Guy Raz]

How many people do you have working for you right now?

[F]

I have five right now. So would I have something that I know my staff can't handle? I bring in my subcontractors.

[Guy Raz]

Tell us what you. Before I bring in Luis, what's your question for us? What's your pain point?

[F]

Okay, so right now, we have grown so much. We are almost at a million dollars in revenue.

[Guy Raz]

Amazing. Congrats.

[F]

Thank you. And I want to get there this year and maybe a little bit over, but I need more people, but I need to know how to pay those people. So we have great revenue. We don't have a great profit because.

[Guy Raz]

The costs are high. I mean, I'm looking at the quality of what you put out there, and I cannot imagine not how expensive, but how it costs you.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Right.

[F]

And they're not easy. I mean, when you do the moss wall designs, the fabrication is very, very challenging. And I mean, we have so much demand, and there's so many opportunities for us to go and get. And it's hard. We just can't get it all because we don't have enough people. And I'm really scared of. Of burning out the good people I have because I have to be really respectful of their time and their abilities. So I'm at a point where I need more people and I need to figure out how to pay those people. Do I do it through loans? Do I take some more money out of my savings? Because I know if I have the people, we'll get the business.

[Guy Raz]

Luis, please.

[Luis Von Ahn]

I have one quick question. I assume you've thought of this, but can you not charge more?

[F]

That's what we're working on, too. We are going to start charging more. And actually, I think this is kind of how I viewed it. I wanted the job so badly that I just wanted to make sure they were happy with the price. But now I need to start charging more. Because if you look at our website and our Instagram, we have created some just. I'm so excited with what we've created beautiful projects, and we have a portfolio and a personality and a brand now that people trust.

[Luis Von Ahn]

I mean, in general, I think you really want to make sure that you have a good business, and a good business is good profit. I've had to learn this the hard way from our cfo. I didn't really understand that before, but really, if you can charge more, you should just do that because that will solve most of your problems. I mean, otherwise, yeah, you can get loans. You can get all that. And I wouldn't be against you getting a loan. That would be perfectly fine. But if you can do it without loans or without any of that, that would be much better.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, also, I would think that in a business like yours, you could probably charge enough where your Profit margin exceeds 50%, because so much of the value that you bring isn't in the actual plants or moss. It's in your brain. It's in the design of those things. And that's not something that is easily replicated. I would think that pricing is the first thing to tackle for sure, because you want to be able to have enough cash flow where you can fulfill all the demand. You need other people on your payroll, probably to have a full time employee. If you're including benefits and other things, you're probably looking at at least 50, 60 grand a year, probably for a starting person, right? Yeah, yeah.

[F]

And I want to pay them well. They do. They work hard and they deserve to be paid well. And that will keep them loyal to my company. So I'm looking for other revenue streams too, like we're maybe going to do a plant shop. We're looking at a plant cafe, we're looking at, you know, maybe renting our space for activities after hours. So I'm kind of looking at other revenue streams because a lot of times we'll have, you know, it's not consistent revenue. We may have a great month, bring in $100,000, and then 30 days later, someone hasn't paid. And I'm doing whatever I can to keep the cash flow going.

[Guy Raz]

What is your worry about taking out a loan? I mean, you've got a business, you've got a business model, you've got an established track record. I'm assuming at this point in your life you might even have property, maybe you've got a house or something. So you're in a better position to get an SBA SBA loan than somebody who's, you know, 22, who's, who's got no assets and is just starting out right. It's just harder to get right. What's, what would be your reluctance to take an SBA loan?

[F]

You know what? I think I'm kind of very serious about looking into the SBA loan. The rates was one of the things that it would help me grow.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, it would give you more cash, Luis.

[Luis Von Ahn]

I mean, yeah, I think getting a loan makes a lot of sense. I'm still stuck on the idea that your pricing is such an interesting thing. A lot of times people think that the lower price will just sell more and it's probably a little more volume. That's probably true. But especially for businesses like yours, I think you can just set your own price and just say, look, we're high end. I mean, this is similar with things like contractors or a lot of times art installations. The range of things like art installations, which I would think plants can be thought of as art installations completely. The range is insane. I mean, you can get it from $50 or you can get it $50,000. I can imagine that you can probably increase your price and make you even more desirable. And you just tell people, we are. You're Paying for quality. We are the highest quality. I think you want to get to a position where your profit margins are.

[F]

High, and I think maybe hiring another person so that I can spend more time on estimating. And we're really doubling down on marketing, too. Marketing and sales are what we're really doubling down on this year to get to that higher profit margin.

[Guy Raz]

I think a lot of. A lot of times, a mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make at the beginning, and I count myself among them, and I think, Luis, you count yourself among them too, is that we really undervalue what we're offering. I mean, if I told you, Luis, in 2012, right when you started Duolingo, that people would pay 60 bucks a year for this product, you would have been like, what?

[Luis Von Ahn]

Oh, for sure. And by the way, this is the thing that our CFO keeps telling us. The reality is it's not even 60 bucks a year. I mean, we can charge 150 and people will pay it, but, yeah, well.

[F]

We'Re getting more well known, which is nice. And, yeah, I think I definitely have to raise my prices and just put a value sticker on it.

[Luis Von Ahn]

That would help a lot, because then immediately your margins are good, and then you can afford to hire, et cetera.

[Guy Raz]

By the way, I'm just thinking, like, I don't know, for some reason in my mind, I keep thinking the music. Any of these walls have music coming out of them?

[F]

No, but that'd be a great idea. In fact, we were playing with the scent idea that Blair mentioned of adding scents along with the plants into these.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Coffee. Coffee scents.

[Guy Raz]

Coffee scents.

[F]

Coffee scents.

[Steph Crim]

Coffee.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Coffee scents.

[F]

Coffee beans.

[Guy Raz]

You can have coffee plants to make.

[F]

A place smell good. At the same time, they are enjoying their plants.

[Guy Raz]

But maybe, like, you could add a. You could add a waterproof speaker as part of your price and say, hey, you know, we also.

[Luis Von Ahn]

For triple the price.

[Guy Raz]

Triple the price.

[Luis Von Ahn]

For triple the price we put in.

[Guy Raz]

There'Ll be nature sounds, birds.

[F]

That actually is not a bad idea.

[Guy Raz]

Just beautiful, you know, like a Zen garden, like. And it's subtle.

[F]

That is a really good idea. So when the students are studying in the mechanical engineering building over at U of I, they're getting this extra umph.

[Guy Raz]

I'm telling you, do that. I want to know if you. I want to. I want to find out if you can do that. Stephanie Carlson. The brand is called Naturespire. Good luck. Thanks for calling in.

[F]

Thank you. It's been great. Love talking with you.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Guy Raz]

I've always seen those. I'm like, it'd be so cool to have that in my house. But then I'm worried that it's going to drip on the floor. But I'm sure there's, like, there are all these redundancies put in. Right, to prevent that.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Yeah, we have a few plant walls here at Duolingo. It works, and they're beautiful.

[Guy Raz]

Does music come?

[Luis Von Ahn]

No, no, they don't have music. I like that idea. But, you know, I'm really hoping Stephanie will just. Next time she shows up to give a quote, she just doubles. Yeah, whatever she was gonna say, just double it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Luis Von Ahn]

I bet you some people will say yes.

[Guy Raz]

I agree. I agree. Luis. I've asked everyone who comes on the show a version of this, and I still, every time, I'm always surprised and amazed at the answer. But now that you. I mean, you came in, when you started Duolingo, you had already had a lot of experience. You'd worked at Google, you won a MacArthur Fellowship. I mean, a lot of things going in the right direction for you, but nothing to say, hey, now, start a tech company, and that's going to be valued at $13 million and going to transform how people learn languages. If you could now go back to 2012, when you were starting that and you could sort of give yourself advice, what would you. What do you think would have been helpful for you to know back then?

[Luis Von Ahn]

Oh, a number of things. Certainly we took too long to monetize. I mean, we didn't. We did not start monetizing until 2017. So it's five years in. I would have told myself, monetize a little sooner than that. And again, it's not because it's so much about making money. It's because it really allowed us to fulfill our mission. When we started making money, we were also able to invest more in teaching more people. It took me a long time to realize that there are certain shortcomings that I have that are okay and that I just always kept trying to be like, no, I gotta be good at this and this and this and this and this and this. And the reality is, yes, you should always try to be better at everything, but there's some stuff that you're just kind of never gonna be great at. And what you do is you just hire people who are great at that and let them do that. So most everybody in my executive team is excellent at something that I'm really bad at. And I am now fully okay and not apologetic about the fact that, for example, I am just not very interested or good at finance. I'm just not. And at some point you realize you should get the right person to do the right job.

[Guy Raz]

Makes a lot of sense. Luis Fanon, co founder of Duolingo and the CEO of Duolingo, thanks so much for joining us.

[Luis Von Ahn]

Thank you, Guy.

[Guy Raz]

By the way, if you haven't heard Luis's original How I Built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. It's so good. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.

[Luis Von Ahn]

You know, I was feeling good, I thought, okay, well we can continue raising money for a while. And at some point we raised money from Google Capital G is one of their investment arms and the partner from that firm sat me down and she said, nobody else will invest in this company. If you don't figure out how to make money, you know, you're not going to find a bigger fool. We're the biggest fool. And that's when we started kind of freaking out and trying to figure out how we're going to make money.

[Guy Raz]

Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for [e-mail] each week. It's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo@hibtid wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Kathryn Seifer with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Casey Herman and our audio engineer was Sina Lofredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, John Isabella, Elaine Coates, J.C. howard, Iman Ma'ani, Chris Masini, Kerry Thompson, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.