Unlocking Duo Lingo’s Internal Economy with Solana Mobile
Product mock-ups to show how niche consumer apps can level up their community to an economy using crypto
Crypto assets & payments embedded within smartphones will enable certain consumer apps to unlock an internal economy.
Specifically, consumer apps with these 3 characteristics -
A niche but dense (often global) network of users
A robust internal reputation system
Exchange of digital goods
We think crypto will extend the market network thesis to these consumer apps. Think of apps like Chess.com, Strava, Duo Lingo, Replit, etc. They started off as tools for individuals - track your fitness or learn to code, play chess, speak a language, etc. But they’ve become social networks and communities around a shared interest.
What they lack in scale compared to, say, Instagram, they retain in community. The millions of users on their platform have a baseline shared interest.
But, the “platform” model doesn’t allow these users to self-organise beyond talking on a forum. It isn’t intuitive for them to work on shared projects, start companies, transact with each other, etc.
This sets a glass ceiling on what they can produce together.
The current generation of apps is a product of free and unrestricted information flow through smartphones.
The next generation will be built on the capabilities unlocked by a combination of
Solana (a fast & cheap public blockchain)
Solana’s mobile stack & the Saga phone
Internet-native dollars (USDC) and assets (SOL, BTC).
In this essay, we present a product spec – complete with mock-ups – to show how Duo Lingo can convert its strong community of users into a thriving economy. A world where users can learn from each other, complete gigs and earn $$, crowdfund courses, events, and more.
Duo Lingo has tried and failed to incorporate community into its product.
It is well recorded that Duo Lingo was able to blitz scale as a free learning app because thousands of volunteers contributed to creating its coursework. And while there is a thriving Duo Lingo community on Reddit, Discord, Twitch, etc multiple past attempts at incorporating community into the product have failed.
This is a problem because language is inherently social. If there’s one thing you want to learn from another human - it’s how to speak with them.
Duo Lingo Economy >> Platform
Apart from completing learning modules, you should be able to engage in 3 key interactions with other app users.
The biggest criticism of Duo Lingo is that it teaches you the words and sentences but not the essence of a language. Users should be able to learn from and practise with more proficient speakers.
Learning a new language is often a way to unlock better earning opportunities. Sponsors should be able to list gigs and tasks that become available to those who complete certain learning outcomes.
Emergent groups of users should be able to crowdfund learning journeys, testimonials, meet-ups, new courses, etc.
This needs a dual token system,
Native Token $DUO.
As a free user, you earn this token by completing targeted in-app tasks from sponsors like watching ads, filling out surveys, etc. You can then stake/pay this on forums to experts for their time and assistance.
Its value accrues from the advertiser/sponsor demand on the platform. A liquid, attention-based token is critical for the free-to-use part of the in-app economy (> 90% of users today).
USDC, BTC, SOL, etc.
Users & Sponsors should be free to trade with each other directly using stablecoins or crypto assets of their choice. This is critical for use cases where someone is willing to pay upfront for a particular learning experience, gig, etc.
Product Mock-Ups
Let’s see our version of what this looks like on the Duo Lingo app.
Set Up: In-App Wallet
Similar to the Reddit vault, customers can use this to hold and transact with their assets both within and outside Duo Lingo. With the Saga — the phone is your wallet, so this experience is as smooth as “login with Google”.
Better Learning: Get Unstuck
Anybody who is struggling with a particular lesson should be able to stake $DUO and invoke help from an expert.
Other members struggling with a similar topic may join in and increase the pool signalling a higher reward for a qualified user who helps out.
Proficient speakers are incentivised to help out because they can earn DUO which unlocks earning opportunities within the app / is freely tradable for USDC.
Better Learning: Learn through Conversation
Practise speaking what you’ve just learned with a range of speakers using async voice notes.
Or, drop in serendipitously to chat groups and practise in the context of a topic you are passionate about.
Earn via Bounties & Gigs
Duo Lingo can compete in the fast-growing $60bn language services market by opening up a Replit-style bounty marketplace.
After completing certain modules, verified users can earn DUO, USDC, BTC, etc from global sponsors with their in-app wallet as a bank account.
These can either be discovered within the learning flow or through a separate earnings section as shown below.
Crowdfunding
Anyone can fund verified users who have demonstrated the ability & commitment to learn. This can help people pay for a better phone/internet, take time off work to learn better, etc.
Users can crowdfund courses and local events.
Events have been pivotal to scaling Duo Lingo as per their former head of community Laura Nestler. There are 1000+ events that users all over the world attend each year. These are mostly volunteer-led so tools which help them fund and distribute these events to verified users will be incredibly useful.
This provides the ability for users to vote with their wallet to help preserve languages they are passionate about or fund the creation of courses important to their local situation (e.g. Swedish for Syrian refugees)
Duo Lingo can source testimonials at scale from users who’ve completed certain learning outcomes. Today, they do this through off-platform contracts and only pay a few members to make a handful of videos.
Instead, any user who completes a certain level should be able to submit a video testimonial & be paid automatically based on the number of views, sign-ups etc their video drives within the app.
Why does this need Crypto & Solana Mobile?
Neither of the two alternatives is good enough,
Conventional in-app reward tokens which aren’t freely tradeable like crypto, need extensive biz dev to make them useful. They also suffer from a lack of trust because their supply and price are manipulated entirely by the platform acting as a central bank.
Fintech isn’t cross-border by default, only serves customers who are banked and the product experience for receiving money is basically non-existent.
Crypto allows for financial incentives and p2p transactions to be built-into product design through concepts like staking, NFT-gating, etc. Smart contracts and digital escrows provide trust by reducing the need for intervention in the economy, a choice currently unavailable to platforms.
Solana has made all trade-offs to prioritise user experience and adoption. It is fast & cheap which reduces the cost of experimentation. It is by far the product leader in mobile UX with SMS & Saga.
A fork in the road
Duo Lingo seems to be increasingly moving away from its community-centric heritage & DNA.
After shuttering various failed attempts like forums and clubs, they’ve closed their volunteer program. They’ve launched an AI-powered subscription tier that allows you to roleplay conversation scenarios and get help on modules from a GPT-4esque chatbot. The biggest mistake Duo Lingo could make is to double down as a “platform” – which thinks of tutors, course creators, and community members as middlemen it can replace with processes, employees & AI.
The risk with shrinking your community to your employees is that they rarely match the passion, speed, or skill of an internet-native, emergent global community. This is why most platforms after achieving scale can only innovate through acquisitions. This also results in the best creators and contributors exiting to more favourable alternatives or competing with you – which initiates a downward death spiral for any platform.
We believe that apps like Duo Lingo should unlock their next level of growth by pioneering an internal economy. It won’t be easy — what’s the right product experience? Is there sufficient liquidity to match learners and tutors? Is there sufficient crypto adoption/regulation to expose these assets to users? These are just some of the questions to address.
However, the cost of not trying is way too high. A vibrant community is the most scarce and hard-to-copy asset. Duo Lingo has probably nurtured their community more than any other platform – giving up too early could be a fatal mistake.
Disclaimer: This post is not financial or investment advice. It is meant for informational & educational purposes only. Please do your own research about risks and compliance before buying, investing/ or trading.
This is a creative product visualization from a community blog. While we’d love to help make this reality, we’re not officially associated with any of the apps, or businesses mentioned here.
Well researched!