Inside Duolingo Unhinged Growth to a $500M Business | Cem Kansu (Duolingo)
Embracing an unhinged product culture, the top drivers of Duolingo's user and revenue growth, and how AI can democratize education
Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share a new episode with 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.
Watch now on Youtube, Apple, and Spotify.
Cem and I talked about:
(00:00) We love being unhinged with our owl
(03:46) The top 3 drivers of Duolingo's growth to 100M users
(05:55) Passive-aggressive push notifications work!
(13:11) Our winding path to $500M+ in revenue
(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
Unhinged product development at Duolingo
Welcome Cem! So Duolingo has made some pretty unhinged product updates. I still remember when you gave the owl boogers.
Yes, we've done that multiple times now. We initially designed Duo to be a motivating coach, but social media made him into this haunting figure that will come after you if you don't do your lessons.
When we change Duo’s icon, we do it for the entire user base for about 2-3 weeks. We've made him look wrinkly, melty, and sick with boogers. It feels personalized for users who have lapsed in their lessons, which brings them back.
I think it's brilliant. Every other company is making their logo more boring, but you're actually giving Duo some personality.
One thing we take pride in is using the term "unhinged" as a very positive thing.
When someone says a change is unhinged at Duolingo, you've done a good job.
It's part of our product philosophy. I think it adds character when you break sanitized product norms.
That’s wild! At most companies, changes like this would never make it through product review.
Ha! During our product review:
The feedback we gave was that there weren't enough boogers - it wasn't messed up enough.
Many ideas like this icon update start with someone saying, "What if we did this?" and then it bakes over time into everyone's consciousness.
The drivers behind Duolingo’s growth to 100M monthly active users
It’s incredible that DAU is still growing at 60% year over year after a decade. What have been some of the key drivers of Duolingo’s user growth?
There are a few drivers that have had an outsized impact on our growth: