Founders

I read Duolingo’s Handbook so you don’t have to. Here’s the core principles, with crypto commentary:

Take the long view

“A 100 year brand”, if someone cloned Duolingo, they would come back for the characters. “We knew that building the best education app would be a multidecade effort”. Streaks has been years in the perfecting process

They even built custom built a notification tool that PMs can use without engineering support to test them out

They excel at high impact and low cost efforts,a a thoughtful balance of organic growth and marketing

An early story was replacing the “tree” learning structure, with a “path”, even tough it was more restrictive, it helped lay the right foundations to users, and ended up being the right decision

Few crypto companies build for the next 100 years

Raise the bar

Duolingo is going to be the best work in their careers. They built a shake to report feature for employees to report bugs and other feedback while testing seamlessly

If someone doesn’t own it, it’s not going to be excellent. People ship V1s, and not MVPs. Everything is polished

Luis and Severin still approve every hire

Crypto talent is often elusive, remote, and sketchy. Get an office and ship

Product builder and investor — @socialgraphvc

kindness, compassion, forgiveness

Ship It

“Clock Speed” is the mindset. In microprocessing, it’s how fast a process goes. In Duolingo, it’s how fast the ship goes. How fast can feedback get implemented?

They often run “99 bad ideas”, where teams brainstorm all the bad ideas, experiment with them, and find one that might be the next moonshot

Crypto often involves long timelines, and cumbersome governance process. Cut them

Show Don’t Tell

First, “prototypes not decks”. It starts with a prototype that actual humans will use, not a deck laying out an abstract narrative

“Metrics should be at the center of all our work.” This is how they decide if something belongs in the app

In crypto everything is onchain. Get yourself a Dune dashboard and judge objectively

Make it Fun

We’ve all seen Duo on socials. It’s unhinged, and it’s part of the company culture. “Humor doesn’t scale, it’s subjective, and often polarizing.” Most times, not everyone would get the joke, and that’s ok. Commit to the bit, and focus on those who loved it. There’s a lore on Duo

Crypto has a dark humor twist, don’t overdo it, but leverage it

The Green Machine

Their framework to build has six steps. Whenever someone is stuck, revisit the six steps:

Staff great people
Define success
Think long term
Build the thing and set feedback loops
Execute with urgency and excellence
Double down on what works

Crypto companies lack this kind of process, adopt it to win