[HN Gopher] I Bought Back My Acquihired Startup
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I Bought Back My Acquihired Startup
Author : mokkol
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-03-23 21:35 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (steveridout.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (steveridout.com)
| nicky0 wrote:
| Dude made Duolingo Stories! One of my favourite features of Duo.
| ewalk153 wrote:
| Warms my heart to see a big company make this deal with the
| author rather than just shut it down. Bravo Duolingo.
| steveridout wrote:
| Yep, I've got nothing but good things to say about Duolingo :-)
| steveridout wrote:
| Hi! Steve here. Happy to hang around here for a while if anyone
| wants to ask anything! :-)
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Without asking for numbers you don't want to share, how did the
| price you acquired it back for compared to the price they
| originally purchased it for?
| waboremo wrote:
| Yes I have a brief one, sorry that it's not specifically
| related to Readlang!
|
| You kind of stopped blogging as much when you joined Duolingo,
| what would you say were the biggest factors why? I'm assuming
| Duolingo weren't super restrictive on what you could post so
| that might not be the big reason, but I could be wrong!
| schnebbau wrote:
| I had not heard of Readlang before, but I had heard of similar
| tool Toucan. I assumed they pioneered this type of tool, but
| evidently not.
| steveridout wrote:
| Tucan actually works in reverse compared to Readlang. Say
| you're a native English speaker learning Spanish. With Tucan
| you browse the English websites you're already used to
| browsing, and it'll automatically translate some of the words
| to Spanish to sprinkle in a bit of practice that fits within
| your normal routine. It's a nice idea (actually this is the
| first one I saw doing the idea:
| https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/3/2995523/google-language-
| im...) but for me it didn't stick. I found it weird to be
| learning isolated Spanish words out of their normal context,
| and pretty soon it just became annoying to have these Spanish
| words popping up everywhere. Maybe it works for some people
| though.
|
| With Readlang the idea is that you read actual websites in the
| language you're learning. If you're learning Spanish you might
| read El Pais or BBC Mundo for example. And to aid you, you can
| click on the odd word or phrase you don't understand to get a
| translation in English. It's intended for intermediate and
| advanced learners. Unlike Tucan you need to seek out texts to
| read in your target language, and Readlang offers a list of
| popular sites in each language to help you there:
| https://readlang.com/es/links, but there's obviously more
| friction than something like Tucan which fits into your normal
| English language browsing routine.
| schnebbau wrote:
| Interesting, thank you for the explanation. I tried Toucan a
| year or so ago and just as you said, it was weird and didn't
| stick for me either. I will try Readlang!
| williamstein wrote:
| Great post! (However, I just read the entire post and I still
| have no idea what readlang is.)
| steveridout wrote:
| Good point! I just made the first mention of Readlang into a
| link to the website: https://readlang.com
|
| It's a web-app and browser extension to help people learn
| languages by reading texts or websites in the language they are
| learning, get helpful translation hints and definitions to aid
| comprehension, and then to practice the new vocab with
| flashcards.
| waboremo wrote:
| What a nice story, I wonder if they negotiated much on offers or
| if it was really a simple low ball for duolingo to get rid of.
| Generous if the latter!
|
| To be that attached to your idea after all this time is also very
| impressive. Most people would have just abandoned it and moved
| on, even if it was making decent money.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > if it was really a simple low ball for duolingo to get rid of
|
| At 4K MMR it was probably a pain in the ass for Duolingo to
| maintain and the reason for acquisition was hiring the
| developer and avoiding a potential concurrent (which in the end
| never realized) so I'd imagine it was a very easy buy.
|
| And I'm not saying that as a criticism of ReadLang, I think
| it's a great tool actually.
| steveridout wrote:
| Yeah, it was pretty easy. Relatively low offer and not much
| negotiating. From their point of view it wasn't worth
| maintaining. I'm just very happy they offered it back to me
| instead of shutting it down.
| czbond wrote:
| @steveridout Interesting post and journey, thanks for posting.
|
| Readlang - what would you say is the user persona you're going
| for? I need to learn (tourist) French. I'm not going to read
| sites about "where is the bathroom?", for example.
| steveridout wrote:
| It's mainly for intermediate and advanced learners who want to
| tackle longer texts. I originally made it so that I could read
| novels in Spanish.
|
| Readlang may not ever be appropriate for complete beginners.
| But it could do better at providing stories written in simple
| language appropriate for beginners in specific situations like
| yours. Right now there is a public library of shared texts:
| https://readlang.com/fr/library, and a list of popular
| websites: https://readlang.com/fr/links. But you're largely
| left to your own devices to find content, which adds friction
| for new users and isn't ideal.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-03-23 23:00 UTC)