We Fixed It. You're Welcome.

Aaron Wolpoff [0:14 - 1:28]: All right, here's how this works. In each episode, we pick a company we all know that has something going on right now. Then we put ourselves in charge and see if we can fix it. You'll be hearing from Melissa in Operations Channel, Gino on people and culture, and me on marketing. My name's Aaron. As always, a quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking, have an engaging conversation, and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring by the end. If We Fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Welcome back to We Fixed It. You're welcome. I should say hola and bonjour too, given today's topic, if we had time, I'd say hello in 43 languages because I could learn them from the company we're here to talk about. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We are your fearless fixers. You've got Melissa Chino and myself and a friend of the show coming back to join us. If you listen to the TikTok episode, his voice will be familiar. He's our finance expert and panelist in residence for today. Give a warm welcome to Sam Palazzolo. Sam, for those who are hearing from you here for the first time, give us a little intro.

Sam Palazzolo [1:28 - 1:52]: Thanks for having me, Aaron, again, Sam Palazzolo, Managing director at Tip of the Spear. I led a couple tech companies to private equity exits about 13 years ago. So my main business today is I'm ex Deloitte, so I help businesses scale either through individual coaching, one on one, or consulting efforts within the leaders organization. So thanks again for having me. Look forward to participating.

Aaron Wolpoff [1:52 - 1:56]: Good deal. Thanks, Sam. And I have to ask, how many languages do you speak?

Sam Palazzolo [1:56 - 2:00]: Good one. No, probably three.

Aaron Wolpoff [2:00 - 2:12]: All right, fair enough. Thanks, Sam Chino, take us into it and I want to know which company we're here to discuss. And I'll also say if it's who I think it is, things seem to be going pretty well for them right now, so. So let us know what we're here to fix.

Chino Nnadi [2:13 - 3:13]: So today we'll be talking about the brand that has everybody talking, the marketing genius that is Duolingo, and kind of tap into why other brands can't seem to replicate their success. If you've been on TikTok or any social media for that matter, you've definitely come across Duo the Owl, which is Duolingo's mascot who recently died and has come back to life. They are chaotic, unhinged in the very best way. But here's the thing. Duolingo's social presence feels effortless, culturally relevant and genuine, while other brands try to replicate it and often fail. And so whether you relate to their post or not, they have the entire world talking. And so I want to let us dive into, like, what is their secret sauce? Why is Duolingo's approach working while others fall flat? So let's get into it.

Melissa Eaton [3:13 - 4:13]: Well, I do think believe that the reason why their marketing feels so natural compared to some other brands who have tried this, trying to be funny, is that it's rooted in the product itself. So the app is playful, gamified, slightly obsessive. Chino, you mentioned that. Think of all the streaks, reminders, leaderboards. So it's, you know, it's very competitive. Their marketing mirrors this tone that the Owl is chaotic, persistent, a little over the top, just like the apps, nudges and notifications to keep you learning. So, you know, humor, really, that feels natural when it's an extension of the product experience, not just a gimmick. It's something that I think is really important and I think that's something that some of these larger corporations could learn from in that authenticity of what Duolingo's been able to accomplish.

Aaron Wolpoff [4:13 - 4:47]: Yeah. And even if we stay within the same category, I think back to something like a Rosetta Stone. Not to say they don't have their place, but that felt like school. Right? It felt like I have to. And I think Duolingo has found a really interesting way to gamify and make it something you not only want to do every day, but you're compelled to do. Right. And we can talk about the tricks and gamification and all those things that go into it, but they found a way to naturally integrate into, into a daily routine as opposed to. Okay, now I've got to switch my school brain on.

Sam Palazzolo [4:47 - 6:14]: Yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you four things that I'm excited about this brand and I don't care what size organization you are, if you're an early stage, seed founded type of a startup, if you're an existing organization that's Fortune 500 oriented, there's four things I'm going to dig into today. One is that Duolingo, they've got a near zero customer acquisition cost. I'm an accountant by training. Those numbers speak to me Second, their engaged user base. It directly translates to revenue growth via subscriptions. It leads nicely into the third thing I'm going to talk about, which is success without paid marketing is possible. And it's one of those things where if you can control the narrative, growth wins. The fourth thing, and I've got some statistics that'll back this up, they track ROI via a couple, couple of key metric categories. I'll tickle you with a feather, I'll let you know. Retention is one of them. It sings to me because one of the tech startups I led to exit was a subscription model. Similarly, and any subscription model is a pipeline. Members enter in on one end of the pipe, hopefully you've got the other end crimped down so they kind of recirculate and stay a pipeline that's open on both ends the same aperture, that's direct flow, that's bad. Okay, so those are the four things I'm going to get into today.

Chino Nnadi [6:14 - 7:49]: I want to touch on kind of the marketing and the brand. So, you know, you talked to Sam, like the fact that they are a freemium. They're a freemium subscription, meaning that it's pretty easy entry level. You download the app, you explore and it kind of keeps you coming back and it keeps you in the cycle. But I also think when we look at it from a brand perspective, what I really loved about Duolingo was the fact that they were one of the first brands to really adopt TikTok. They were a primary driver there. And what was really interesting to me is unlike most brands where, you know, you have, you know, your hundred person team, you need 15 days to approve something they're really focused on, you know, using current trends, real world engagement, culturally relevant things that are happening and applying that into their content. And that was driven by a 23 year old social media like coordinator that started Zara, who was the one that kind of brought this to life and no being able to trust somebody that young and you know, to really take control where right now they again, of course they have a team, but it appears that there's not this lengthy approval process which allows them to move quickly and really capture that engagement. So I'm really curious, Erin, from your perspective from a brand side, like how has that been kind of a tool for them to be at the top?

Aaron Wolpoff [7:49 - 8:54]: Yeah, well, and we're making it sound like they're not spending anything on marketing. They, they, they've invested quite a bit to get to the point where it seems effortless. They worked with Wyden Kennedy and, and others. And they have, you know, brands of record around the world. I believe they still have existing relationships there with the agencies of record, but more and more they've seemed to have tapped into something internal. Right. You know, to your point, they, that lit a fire from within and, and what they're not having, it seems, is the higher ups or the agencies contradicting that impulse to just take something and run with it. And that's when you, you know, from the outside, when you look at a brand that's caught fire like that, that's really exciting because, you know, sitting on the outside with creative services over the years, a lot of brands want to do no harm, right? So keep it safe, keep it non confrontational, non controversial. But when a brand embraces that and says, no, no, we're running into the, straight into, you know, the, the heat of it, that's, that's a cool thing to see. Want to be part of that in some way.

Melissa Eaton [8:54 - 10:30]: I think it's also that what you were saying there, Aaron and Gino, it's about the ability to know your audience and know your platform. So they've really, like you said, embraced TikTok and the platform specific strategies that you need to thrive on TikTok. And because they understand that fast paced, meme driven culture, they have realized they need to give their creative team freedom. They need to have that team be adaptable and be consistent with their tone, their voice, but also with what is the trend of today. Right, because these viral TikToks happen like right away. Right. So because of that and aligning that again to the marketing, to Sam's point of like, when we look at it as a business, aligning that to your product and making these campaigns translate into real business results is really something to be, for them to be given a lot of credit for. Because we'd like to think it's like, you know, an intern sitting in the back and is like, you know, just like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, type something out and, and post it today. But there's, there's some thought going into that. But like I said, I believe that that consistency and that openness to allowing there to be accountability at that creative level is so important and also really like it's a business. So understanding tikt business and understanding how to use memes, how to use that viral technology and making sure that it drops on everyone's for you page whether you're using Duolingo or not.

Sam Palazzolo [10:30 - 11:58]: Yeah, Melissa, you bring up a great point. I'll reinforce it Seven days. Seven days in total. This is the amount of time it takes between ideation. We have an idea of what it is that we want to do to better market Duolingo to execution. This comes to me from. We're recording this on Friday, February 28th. On February 25th there was an article out of Drum. The title is Duolingo's TikTok mastermind on its unhinged social strategy in killing its mascot. And there. And Chino, you mentioned her. Zaria Parvez is the senior global social media manager at Duolingo. This is the TikTok mastermind. She says that it takes on average seven days to go from that ideation to execution. There's two things at play here and those of us that are financially oriented and even if you're a business owner, you know it. The speed at which you can execute something without having to rely on big agencies. This will is what causes things to come home to roost successfully. So you not only get quick execution but you save on all of the outside agencies who love to run up the meter. Right? The expenses just keep on trickling over and over again. But seven days. I challenge anyone to go from ideation to execution in seven days.

Aaron Wolpoff [11:58 - 12:36]: But Sam, I have to ask what. What kind of company structure or what kind of thinking has to happen internally to allow like it seems maybe fiscally irresponsible to come up with. We've got an idea, let's put it out there for a company of this size of Duolingo now, if you're a startup in your first year, you throw everything at the wall and see what happens. But they have subscribers, they have a reputation uphold. They could trip over themselves by doing that type of approach. So what has to happen structurally and institutionally to say we'll risk the financial repercussion because it's working well?

Sam Palazzolo [12:36 - 13:29]: And this is the Duolingo song that you might hear, not Dua Lipa. Duolingo from the perspective of success creates future success. So once you put into place somebody like Zaria and she begins having some successes, that fosters additional trust, additional forgiveness or just let's face it, the capability to provide a seven day window to attempt to go out and execute success is the cure of all diseases. It's just like making money within business, right? So I would say that all of those good things that happen from a what are our leadership mentality, what do we have to have in place organizationally structured in order to kind of keep this thing moving, the flywheel well greased, you need to have somebody creating success and Zaria has mastered that.

Chino Nnadi [13:29 - 15:59]: I agree. And, and I would say too, just talking about the talent that needs to happen and what needs to happen from a recruitment perspective. Right. So Zaria joined when she was 23, kind of as a coordinator and has now become like the global brand kind of co head with somebody else. And you know, that is quite rare. Right. You often have in agencies or in house where you have the coordinator that's kind of like putting the idea together and has to go to the creative director. And like you mentioned, Sam kind of running up that meter. And Aaron, I'm sure from like a marketing perspective it's, you know, there's all of the checks and balances in place in part because Duolingo has a huge brand and so there's even legalities around things that they need to check and, and go through. But I would say from a leadership perspective, it's being able to recognize talent, to give somebody that exposure to test. Right. Not every brand is able to kind of flex and kind of ebb and flow in a creative capacity. Right. There are some very strict guidelines that some brands aren't willing to go where. Duolingo was one of the first and actually one of the few that have said, let's, let's go, let's tap into the culturally relevant things. Let's touch into what's happening now where so many brands shy away from that. And if you look at this kind of seven day sprint that they have, it allows them to be current. You know, it's really kind of. You look on the opposite side though, and where sometimes this can go wrong is if you're trying to push for things to happen. I kind of look at and I remember the Burger King ad where it said, you know, women belong in the kitchen. It was a tweet that went out which had major blowback. It was during Roman's history month. And you know, it was one of those things that, you know, you did need the checks and balances and there was a big blowback from that. And so brands are also scared because we do have a cancel culture. And so it's like, where do they toe the line? And as leadership, you know, what are the reins you can give somebody to have that creative freedom while still reining it in from like a brand guideline perspective. So Aaron, I'd be curious to get kind of your thinking from a marketer's perspective, like, how do you ebb and flow? Where is. What's the limit here?

Aaron Wolpoff [15:59 - 17:34]: Yeah. And I was thinking of Other, other brands that you, they've positioned this duo mascot as not just representation of the company, but he's an aggressive presence on TikTok and other places. Right. So if you don't do your lessons, he's coming after you. And, and I was, from a brand positioning standpoint, that's, that's interesting. I was trying to think of other brands that have done that historically and I could think of, you know, the Kool Aid man will burst into your room and knock down your wall. The noid from Domino's Pizza back in the day was kind of a chaos agent. But to come up with this, this presence, you know, that is constantly after you, that's a really interesting tone to strike on social, to engage new listeners and challenge them. And, and they do, they, they've done very well at being zeitgeistian in the moment. So they, when they did a partnership with Squid Game when season two came out, they, they got people, you know, learning Korean. When the, the, when TikTok, the exodus from TikTok and onboarding onto RedNote, they, they, there was a spike in Chinese and so they said, okay, now you're learning Chinese. So it's, it's really this fun interplay with their, their audience and, and those, they even don't engage at the mom they're watching. They're. You have to pay attention to what they're doing. And I, I think that that's what they've been say it's so admirable what, you know, what they're doing to just be culturally relevant one one time after the next. And I think that's where other brands stumble and I'll get into that in a little bit. But they'll, they'll, they'll do something say look over here and then it's back to business as usual.

Sam Palazzolo [17:34 - 18:36]: Yeah. Chino, you asked the question, is it rare or isn't it rare? I would say it's rare from a couple of different perspectives. But perhaps the greater leadership challenge is to open yourself up to find your Zarya that works for you today. Right? To find that Zarya that works for you today. Because as a leader you need to be open to suggestions, open to new ideas. You probably have that individual, I would argue, within your team to today that's in marketing. But whether or not you choose to pay attention to them or to allow them to leverage tools like AI where they can dramatically compress the cycle at which you can go from that again back to that seven day ideation through execution to stay current to Stay relevant. Those are. That's the challenge. So is it rare? I think it's not rare. Probably from a marketer's perspective, it might be rarer from the leadership challenge moment.

Chino Nnadi [18:36 - 20:34]: Yeah. And I think a part of that, to be honest, it's ego. Right. As much as there's so many agencies and places where there's like, there's no ego. It's like you want to have your name, you are the creative director if you worked for X amount of years and you're the one that's kind of making these calls. And so it's really hard to turn to the intern who maybe is here for three months and has a brilliant idea and it kind of looks. And think of the Spotify wrapped intern who came up with the idea of the Spotify rap, which is essentially like everybody kind of waits at the end of the year for the rap to come. And again, if nobody paid attention to what this person was sharing, would we have this masterpiece that people look forward to? I don't know. And I think it really is a challenge for leaders to kind of look and think outside of the box. Of course, as leaders you have great ideas, you have the experience. But it's not to say that, you know, you're the Gen Z on Twitter or on, you know, TikTok, that you understand this current trend or this audio where you need to have that culturally relevant cycle being fed to you and ideas that might stretch. And again, not every client is going to be hungry for that. Some clients need to stay in their box. But I do think it's important to test the boundaries. Zaria had to see if you can make magic happen. And we're seeing that as well with Craft and the Mustard campaign that came out. If anyone was paying attention to the Kendrick and Drake, yes, I'm from Toronto. Kendrick absolutely won that beef. But I thought that was brilliant for Kraft Heinz to, you know, partner with Mustard, the producer and come up with this bedazzled, brilliant mustard limited edition. And again, culturally relevant on the nose. It was, it was perfect.

Melissa Eaton [20:34 - 22:23]: Yeah. I think from companies perspective too, when you think about all of these things, you know that they have a huge backing, corporate background, backing, and so they're aware that they need to make sure that brand alignment is there. So even in all of these types of situations with the, with the Heinz Mustard, with, you know, all of the others that have, you know, tsa, there's other accounts that are really doing well on social media, you know, ensuring that the humor tone aligns again with the brand Identity because if it doesn't, it will feel forced. It will feel and it could damage your reputation. Right, We've seen that happen. I mean you, you've mentioned a few that haven't hit the mark, but I'm assuming that they also have crisis management just in case something is offensive. Right. Have a plan in place for when things can go wrong, because they can go wrong very quickly. And we talked about Starbucks, we talked about cancel culture. That is a big thing. So if a campaign is misinterpreted or offense, what is the response and how do you do that quickly? So I think that along, you know, is part of what a business is there for and then also really like long term impact. So considering how playful and marketing fits into your overall brand, is that for the long haul and does that somehow overshadow what your product or your mission is? Right. And so here Duolingo's not. It is, it isn't doing that. So it's great. But you know, there are other brands where it could do more harm than good. So I do feel like in the background Duolingo has all of this going on too to allow for that freedom of creativity. Right.

Aaron Wolpoff [22:23 - 23:48]: Well, Sam, you mentioned Duolingo is a subscriber model. It's effectively a one product company. They sell merch and other things. Maybe they sell data behind the scenes, but it's a one product company. But when you talk about these companies that are part of a brand family or it's a little harder to discern what the long term impact is. And you look at other companies that do these stunt marketing approaches like Goldfish crackers rebranding themselves as Chilean sea bass crackers for one day or a very short period because they wanted to adults to know it was good for snacking for adults and not just kids. And we're grown up now. Now they're a billion dollar brand. So is it going to make a major impact now they can go back to business as usual, but then you have something like Planters that did the Mr. Peanut. They killed off their mascot and brought it back. Right. Same. Let's find the closest approximation to now in a very well publicized commercial. Did it make a long term impact? I don't, I mean their sales aren't. It's again hard to tell they're part of a brand family. Their sales aren't great compared to where they were at the time around the time that commercial aired. But. But did they make a long term commitment to being playful and being inherent in the brand personality? I don't think so. I, you know, they're not, they don't have the same level of, of public awareness, but I don't think they made this full fledged commitment that now we're a fun brand. And you're going to play, you know, play it's playful and you're going to come back to us for our take on everything that's happening the way that Duolingo has. And I think that's what makes the differentiation.

Chino Nnadi [23:48 - 25:07]: Yeah, I would agree there too. And what's interesting is about kind of this consistent brand voice that we keep talking about with Duolingo and how that kind of translates to their product. And I'm very curious to see at the end of this year because, you know, you have Forbes, you have New York Times, you have Business Insider, you have news outlets talking about a death of a mascot of a brand that is very rare, especially in the climate that is there tonight right now. And it's almost like a reprieve from kind of what's going on in the world. It's been that little nugget where you're like trying to keep up with what's going on with Duo and I just think that will translate hopefully for them to more users. I did pick up my Duolingo again. You know, I had a bit of a hiatus on my streak, but, you know, I was like, oh, let me pick this up again. This is really interesting and just to see the changes that they've made in house as well. So I'm curious to see what's going to happen as a result in terms of their user base. And Sam, I'm curious to, to see or get your take on, you know, the brand and great campaigns and then kind of how that translates into the business and what this can mean for them.

Sam Palazzolo [25:07 - 26:25]: Yeah, I think it's a cop out for most leaders to look at the Duolingo success story and to sit there and say, well, they're not like us. I think that it's one of those situations where, you know, if you look at the success that they've had, could they potentially achieve the same level of success without paid marketing? These are the stats. 80% of their users today are acquired organically, which means that Duolingo could function with zero paid marketing. It probably wouldn't be optimal. Right. They probably need to throw in some strategic paid marketing into the works. I'll let Aaron comment on that. That's more his space. But 80% is a significant figure. When you couple that with some of the things that, you know, we've talked about brand and we've talked a little bit about the speed at which they execute their advertising. But the thing that Duolingo does as an organization is they back it up by creating a platform that allows for those speed and execution moments to take place as well. So their virality, it's just, it's an overarching business model for their enterprise as well. So.

Melissa Eaton [26:25 - 27:23]: Well, I think you mentioned this, Sam, as well. It's about driving customer retention. Right. And also the monetization. Because while the app is freemium, the engaging marketing and the engaging relationship that they are creating with their customers probably drives more conversions to a paid subscription model. And to your point, like, this is where it comes down to nuts and bolts, right? So I really, truly agree. I agree with you 100% that, like, this is genius. Increasing the brand awareness, boosting user engagement. But, like, when it comes down to the business that they're trying, that they're in and there are competitors, Rosetta Stone, for example, Erin, brought that up earlier. Driving customer retention and monetization of what they've been able to do is really fascinating and is something for us to definitely, you know, for others to look at to see how they've been able to do that.

Chino Nnadi [27:23 - 27:40]: Yeah. And it's also rare, too, like, what brand is bullying you to use their product. Right. That is what Duo has been doing. And so, yeah, you're gamified into, okay, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I think it translates so well. But, Aaron, I'd love to hear your take on that too.

Aaron Wolpoff [27:40 - 28:39]: Yeah, well, what you want to do as a brand is find your own lane, but it's so inherent to your DNA that no one else can do it. So if Rosetta Stone or Babbel started being funny and commenting on social, they've got a lot of catching up to do right now. They can compete in other areas. They can go the price discount strategy. They can do, like I said, more of the school academic approach where Duolingo is very gamified. When I was doing my streak, sometimes I would go on just to play the game and preserve my score and my streak. And I didn't learn a whole lot for a while. But they get you in different ways. But. But yeah, across the board. When you're in a competitive space, especially in a subscriber model, you really want to find your. Your approach and your lane that no competitor, if they tried to do it, you know, if they made a fun comment about what's happening in the news or some award show from Another brand, it's just going to seem like an imitator and people are going to see it for what it is.

Sam Palazzolo [28:39 - 29:13]: Yeah, let's go ahead. I was going to say let's take a look at this retention and monetization moment. Chino. Because it's not a minor moment. When you look at freemium models, they only work when users stay engaged. What Duolingo does is they convert long term free users into paying subscribers at a significantly higher rate than most other freemium apps because of that, as Aaron mentioned, that addictiveness that occurs from gamification. So not a minor moment to overlook.

Melissa Eaton [29:13 - 32:25]: Yep. And I also, like Erin, what you said is that there's not an ability. Copying it is not what you can. What's going to be great for every company. Right. So you really can't copy this model in the sense of like, oh, I'm going to try to have a bullying mascot or whatever, you know. Right. Gina. So you really have to make it your own. And I think that's the essence of authenticity that we're talking about with this. One of the things that I thought was really interesting is that when you go on Duolingo's TikTok, right? And you look at when they announced the death of the owl, like how many big brands commented because they wanted like to get in on it because they saw that it would just went super viral, right? And, and so all these hu. Like Campbell soup, like all the. I was like, why do they. Why do they even care? Right? And then they're trying to make it kind of cutesy and funny and some of them landed, some of them didn't. And I think that's what you're seeing is that when a brand can embrace a unique tone and voice that is different from anything else, that's when they're successful. So like, I mentioned Wendy's before their Twitter and you know, their TikTok presence is very interesting. That's another great example. They're pretty savage in their Banter against like McDonald's and all their competitors. And they just, they don't apologize, right. They're just like, oh, yeah, that's a value meal McDonald's. Right. You know, and that, like, you know, all the things and it's. And it's great. And then, and then people are always wondering, like, what's happening to Wendy's, right? And she's commenting on all these different. On all these different sites that don't even have to do with fast food. The other one, that's kind of interesting, right? Now I don't know if you guys have seen is the tsa so the travel, the travel Twitter account because they also, they've kind of, and I, I've read interviews with their social media manager as well and they, they've said the same thing that they've chosen to go the route of travel tips and dad jokes and really bad puns. Right. And so they'll, and, and, and it's, it's informative because they're saying like, you know, people will then like post to them and say is this a liquid or is this not right? Like can I take my mom's chili on the plane? Right? And then they'll post something and then you know, like people are just like laughing about it and they're like well what about the onions and cheese and da da da da da and all these kinds of things. And so again I think that if they can find an authentic and really unique branded voice, that's what's really important as well. And I don't think you're going to be able to duplicate because what ends up happening is it doesn't align with either your product, your services, what your, what your company's about, your mission. And it falls very short. And we've seen that with other companies that have not been able to be as successful like Orion Air, like, you know, Meta. There have been some things that have fallen really short and falling flat.

Sam Palazzolo [32:26 - 33:21]: It's an interesting point. Aaron, I'm interested in your take on this. I know from a financial reason why it is that some of Those big Fortune 500 or, or commenting on the death of the Duolingo owl. I mean listen to some of these Q3 2024 stats. 40% revenue increase to just under 200 million. Annual 54% growth in daily active users. The DAUs, they're up to 37.2 at the end of Q3 last year and they achieved a 47% jump in paid subscription subscribers to 8.6 million. If you can, as a Fortune 500 get some type of transference from Duolingo's customer base to your own, isn't that kind of what brand is all about? And trying to get some of those folks over the curb. Those are the financial reasons. But what's your take?

Aaron Wolpoff [33:21 - 34:06]: Yeah, that's everything you'd want as a brand is to come, come out and say this is how we play, get to know us. And then when you see the response not just from user generated content, but like Sam, like you said, major worldwide brands chiming in on this thing where a mascot died, it's, it's amazing, right? When does that happen? And again I applaud them for. A lot of brands can step forward around the holidays or around key, key events that are happening. They created a milestone out of nowhere in February and got the world to pay attention. And I and their stocks trading I believe at an all time high right now. But, but Sam, I'd ask like where do you go from there? How do you sustain and how do you grow when you've hit. I don't know if they're at peak, peak zeitgeist, peak saturation or what do, what do you do from here from.

Sam Palazzolo [34:06 - 35:22]: A financial perspective, as my friend Chris Rock would say, sometimes the sky's the limit, other times the limit's the sky. I'll share with you a couple of metrics that I would look to deploy or to begin measuring just to determine how far can we go. The first 1k factor, right? This measures how many new users each existing user brings so there's potential for exponential growth. The second, retention versus churn. In other words, how many folks are we bringing in and keeping versus those. And back to my pipeline model that are entering in one end and exiting the other. The third, it's the ltv, the lifetime value, right. The fourth, revenue per user. Revenue per user. Most organizations want to look at revenue per internal customer or stakeholder. So your revenue per employee but revenue per user, if you can look at that, that's another key metric, the fifth and final one. Well these are the engagement metrics and this is TikTok views, likes, shares. All of these translate to real user acquisition trends. I would look at those five measurements and attempt to manage against.

Aaron Wolpoff [35:24 - 36:05]: All right, we are getting our wrap up signal. I am going to take it to the room and start asking if we look at sustainability of this voice and character. Obviously you killed duo, brought him back. You can't do that every month. You could try but people probably aren't going to follow you there. You got to come up with the next thing. Does this work sustainably long term? You know, is there a path forward for growth? Are we going to see increasing subscriber growth let's say and over the next five years or are we at the peak right now and what do other companies have to do to copy it? Does this kind of stunt marketing work? I'm going to ask you Tina.

Chino Nnadi [36:05 - 37:09]: I would say for other companies where you can learn from Duolingo success is finding that niche, finding that brand voice that is yours and running with that and making sure that that aligns to your product. Again, why Duolingo and Duo has been so successful because they're bullying us in their app and they're bullying us on TikTok and that kind of consistency is throughout. Again allowing your creative teams, your juniors to step up and have that exposure and to test this didn't happen overnight. You need to test different things and campaigns as a bigger brand to see kind of what sticks and once you find that, run with it. But I do think if brands can incorporate all of that absolutely they can find similar success. Maybe not as big as Duo but again that transference that you were talking about Sam, can hopefully happen for them as well.

Aaron Wolpoff [37:09 - 37:11]: What do you think Melissa, that they.

Melissa Eaton [37:11 - 38:14]: Have created such an amazing experience And I think that they can continue that long term as long as they keep in mind and aligning their marketing with the product experience and what the services that they offer, continuing to give their team creative freedom like Chino mentioned and embracing those platform strategies like TikTok or wherever they, wherever the next big platform might be and being adaptable. I think that things change and so next year may be something else and I feel like because they do have the agility and they've been able to do it like Sam mentioned in a seven day turnaround this is going to be really kind of their what's going to shoot them to the top because and keep them at the top is because they're going to be ability to really be adaptable, to really be at the, at the front of the race and continue to grow. So I, I'm really excited to see how this continues to play out for them.

Aaron Wolpoff [38:14 - 38:19]: What do you think Sam? What's the path forward for Duolingo and what can other companies replicate from their success?

Sam Palazzolo [38:20 - 39:01]: A wise man once told me the demands of the customer if we didn't have to put up with them, this would be a great business. Here's how I look at Duolingo when and this is an important message for any leader. Again, regardless of your organizational size. Anytime you can blend financial insights, viral strategy and monetization mechanics and put those all three into play, you'll achieve success more than you fail regardless of the demands of that customer segment I spoke of. So I'm Pollyannish. I'm optimistic about Duolingo and their ability to execute moving forward.

Aaron Wolpoff [39:01 - 39:59]: Very interesting. Yeah. And I'd say they have a world class brand as long as they don't trip over themselves. They do have, I think they've got a bright future. I would encourage to with, you know, thinking about our conversation to look beyond the existing subscriber model and say, what do we, how do, what do we do with our brand? Where do we take it from here? And I don't know if that's going into, we talked about Netflix a while back, if that's going into our friend Netflix and doing some original content as a pathway to user adoption. I don't know if we'll see a duolingo movie someday. But, you know, it's, it could be. But once you have a brand of that power, you start thinking, we've got one model. What do we do with it? How do we take it? Do we take it into the classroom? There's a lot of ways to go with it. So I'm excited, I'm interested to see where we go from here. Well, there's another fix on the books. I'll check that in. Our favorite I'd like to again thank Sam Palazzolo for sitting in with us, sharing his financial wizardry. Sam, remind our listeners how they can find you.

Sam Palazzolo [39:59 - 40:06]: Yeah, real simple. Just find me at Sam Palazzolo, you spell it just like you say it. Sampalazzolo.com Very good.

Aaron Wolpoff [40:06 - 40:19]: And thanks again for tuning in. Keep up your streaks. Throw us your listener requests@wefixeditpod.com and we'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by Straightforward Media Group. All rights reserved.

Sam Palazzolo [40:19 - 40:34]: If you'd like to learn more about how a podcast can help your company establish authority and generate leads, please email us at eric@forwardforwardmg.com or go to straightforwardmg.com for more information.