Duolingo Case Study
When Googling, “Top Language Learning Apps” you will most likely find Duolingo at the very top of every list you come across. Duolingo has long been a disruptor to the language learning application and web-based learnings for various reasons. In the past, we can observe services or disks such as Rosetta Stone being one of if not the largest virtual language learning experiences that was used around the world. However, with the boom of smartphone mobile applications, Duolingo came in and created an entirely new vertical to learn a language.
When usings the VARS framework to analyze Duolingo there are a few key aspects that I am going to focus on. The first being a freemium subscription. Duolingo’s mission statement, “We’re here to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. Our global team works together to make language learning fun, free, and effective for anyone who wants to learn, wherever they are” (Duolingo Careers, n.d.). Looking through their mission statement, you can acknowledge that they include the word “free” within it. While Duolingo is primarily used as a free service, they offer an upgraded version called Super Duolingo which allows users to fail at mistakes more frequently without having to “recharge” the hearts they have during each learning session. By sticking to their free service and adding a premium upgrade for those who choose to pay for it, it can be classified as a freemium type of realization.
The second aspect I want to analyze is the scope of the enterprise and more specifically the customer segments they want to serve. Referencing Duolingo’s mission statement once again, we can see that they pursue language learning to “anyone who wants to learn, wherever they are.” (Duolingo Careers, n.d.). This serves as a vague customer segment that Duolingo wants to serve. By enabling an open-ended group of targeted customers, anyone who wants to learn a language could do so for free through Duolingo.
A suggestion that I would have made for Duolingo would have been to introduce the aspect of a premium subscription for those who want more out of their language learning. However, in 2017, Duolingo did introduce a $9.99 per month subscription for the removal of ads and the ability to save lessons offline to continue to learn wherever and whenever they wanted. (Lardinois, 2017). By offering an upgraded experience, you would allow certain customers to choose how and when they wanted to learn which goes back to their mission statement. Many customers or users would prefer to pay a monthly fee to have the removal of ads after every lesson they would work on.
References
Duolingo careers. (n.d.). https://careers.duolingo.com/about#:~:text=is%20our%20success.-,our%20mission,to%20learn%2C%20wherever%20they%20are.
TechCrunch is part of the Yahoo family of brands. (2017, April 21). https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/21/duolingo-launches-paid-subscriptions-as-it-struggles-to-monetize-its-service/
