Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
Scaling Duolingo, embracing failure, and insight into Latin America’s tech scene | Gina Gotthilf (Latitud, Duolingo)
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communication is constantly underrated, and communication isn't about being able to convey a message, it's about being able to convey a message in a way that the listener receives it and understands it, and remembers it, and that's really hard to do. One of the things I've helped employ at Duolingo that I think is still there today, it's definitely not just me, it was an amazing team, is a unique voice, and what that means is not just another language learning app where we give you instructions and you follow directions. There's always a quirk, like it's unexpected, the way we talk to you is a little bit funny, it doesn't take ourselves too seriously, and it makes the person receiving this message feel something. It's about how you make people feel, and you feel like either you giggle, or you're like wait what, they just did what, you know, and using that to your benefit. Today, my guest is Gina Godhill, Gina is most known for leading growth and marketing at Duolingo, helping take them from 3 million to over 200 million users, primarily through organic and non-paid growth channels, which we explore in depth. She also worked on the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign, where she oversaw a historic digital ad budget, and she shares learnings from that experience. She also led growth in community for Tumblr in Latin America. Currently, she is the co-founder and COO of Latitude, which is a company dedicated to helping build the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America. In our wide-ranging conversation, Gina shares a ton of new insights and tactics on how Duolingo grew early on, how they grew today, and most interestingly, what they did to become one of the very rare successful consumer subscription businesses. We also talk about how every life and career has an A side and a B side. Also why PR and brand are way under appreciated by most startups. She shares a bunch of stories of failed experiments, and also some of her biggest wins. Also why Latin America is so interesting right now, as a hub for startups and for innovation. Also there's a bit of philosophy sprinkled in and a bunch of real talk. This was such a fun conversation, Gina is delightful, I am excited for you to learn from her. With that, I bring you Gina Godhill after a short word from our sponsors. You fell in love with building products for a reason, but sometimes the day-to-day reality is a little different than you imagined. Instead of dreaming up big ideas, talking to customers, and crafting a strategy, you're drowning in spreadsheets and roadmap updates, and you're spending your days basically putting out fires. A better way is possible. Introducing JIRA Product Discovery, the new prioritization and road mapping tool built for product teams by Atlassian. With JIRA Product Discovery, you can gather all your product ideas and insights in one place and prioritize confidently, finally replacing those endless spreadsheets. You didn't share custom product roadmaps with any stakeholder in seconds, and it's all built on JIRA, where your engineering team is already working, so true collaboration is finally possible. Great products are built by great teams, not just engineers, sales, support, leadership, even Greg from Finance. Anyone that you want can contribute ideas, feedback, and insights in JIRA Product Discovery for free, no catch, and it's only $10 a month for you. Say goodbye to your spreadsheets and the never ending alignment efforts. The old way of doing product management is over. Rediscover what's possible, with JIRA Product Discovery.
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