Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Duolingo's Viral Growth

Shamus Madan interviews Gina Gotthilf, covering her pivotal career decision with Tumblr, an unexpected experience with a former boss, and she grew Duolingo to 200M users with PR. They discuss trust and risk in startups, PR misconceptions, meeting President Obama, and her work with Latin American startups at Latitude.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's 08 2010th.
Gina Godfrey's visa was about to expire, andshe had to leave the US.
But right before she did, She decided to emaila few people in tech that she thought were
interesting.
One of those people was Mark Cote, who was onthe early team over at Tumblr.
Not long after meeting, Tumber decided thatthey were ready to expand Internationally in

(00:20):
Brazil, where Gina was residing at the time.
So Mark reaches out to Gina.
And after a little initial hesitation, sheeventually agrees to lead growth for them
internationally.
She didn't know it at the time, but it was oneof the most important career decisions she has
ever made.
During that time, she learned the ins and outsof PR.
So once she joined Dualingo, Gina used thatsame playbook to grow the company from

(00:44):
3,000,000 to 200,000,000 users.
In today's episode, Gina not only shares thatplaybook, but she reveals what most people get
wrong about marketing and cold emails.
This podcast is a master class in storytellingpitching journalists, and capturing the
attention of a large audience.
But before we begin, if you are enjoying theseinterviews, please let me know by subscribing

(01:06):
below.
The bigger the show gets the bigger theinterviews get as well.
I'm 18 on a mission to learn from the smartestminds in tech and business.
And hopefully along my journey, I can help youas well.
Thank you very much.
And on to the interview with Gina.
Gina, thanks for taking the time to join.
It's a pleasure to have you on.
What are the 3 signifiers about you that wouldtell the audience why they should be listening

(01:29):
to this interview.
3 signifiers about me.
One, I helped do a lingo grow from 3000000 to200000000 users as their head of growth.
2, I worked on the Mike Bloomberg presidentialcampaign.
3, I am a little unhinged.

(01:53):
Before we get into what you have done withDualingo and Tumblr and now what you're doing
with Latitude, like to go into a little bitmore about your backstory.
What is your story and and how did you get intothe tech ecosystem?
Sure.
So I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
And I went to an American school.
I thought I wanted to be that person who, like,stands in SeaWorld and makes the dolphin jump.

(02:17):
That was like my my career choice number 1 ornumber 2 actress.
So, obviously, I didn't really know what wasgonna happen.
But one thing that I think is has always beentrue is that I I really care about trying to
diminish socioeconomic barriers, in society.
And I didn't know what that meant when I wasobviously growing up, but there was a, like, a

(02:38):
Shanti town community right outside our veryposh school.
And every day in the bus, we would see them.
And I just wondered, you know, what what can wedo to make a difference and kept being told,
like, don't give money.
Don't give you know, like, there's it's justvery hard to solve and ended up teaching
English as a way to give these people anopportunity to get better jobs.

(02:58):
And so that's kind of like ended up linkinginto dueling many years later, but I could have
never, perceived that.
So Other things that I think that are that areimportant, I my grandparents were Holocaust
survivors, so I grew up Jewish.
My hope family's Brazilian.
There's, like, almost no reason why I went toan American school.
It was just the best school in Brazil, and theythought that it would give me a lot of

(03:19):
opportunity, but then we're shocked when Idecided to move to the US, which was, like,
Hello.
And I've always wanted to live here.
So I I moved to the west for college originallywanted to study anthropology, as I mentioned to
you, ended up studying Chinese and philosophyand then going into neuroscience, and like to

(03:39):
talk a lot about, like, the a side and the bside of things.
I in podcasts often talk about my a side and,like, all the impressive things I've done, but,
like, one thing that's important about me,especially growing up, is that things didn't
work out a lot, and very, you know, just veryoften.
And so, you know, my first attempts of ofhaving a career in New York really didn't I got
both laid off and fired from 2 different jobsand lost my visa multiple times and really

(04:04):
thought that I wasn't cut out to have a careerat one point and then things really turned
around when Tumblr hired me.
Earlier on in your career, I heard you mentionthat your former boss was a heroin addict.
Could you share more about that story and howthat was actually a catalyst for growth, in
your career?
Yeah.
And we're still friends.
Actually, just was texting with her earliertoday, and she's doing great.

(04:25):
Yeah, I was I was an intern at this, smallagency that worked with pretty well known
brands.
And I won't go into details just so I don'texpose this person.
And I was I joked that I was the loser internbecause everyone else there was still in
school, and I was the one who graduated.
Like, why was I still there?
And my my boss, what she we got along reallywell, but at one point, she started doing very

(04:50):
erratic things.
Like, she stole ideas from me blatantly in ameeting and, like, presented them as her own.
And then would, like, not show up to thingsthat were really important for us.
And I started getting really worried that Ifshe kept doing that, I would be fired and I
didn't have a choice.
One thing that I think really has helped me isthe fact that, like, I'm an immigrant in the
US, So I had to keep my visa.

(05:11):
It wasn't like, oh, if I lose this job, therewas another one.
No.
Like, that was my OPT and that was myopportunity to get, like, the sponsorship.
So I had to make it work.
And so realizing that what was happened, I justhappening, I decided to do her job for her.
And that en enabled me to learn a lot more thanI was already doing because I had to think,
like, what would she do and step it up?

(05:32):
It was also formative because I ended up goingin, to an a an an a meeting with her, like,
which was, like, a twenty two year old, like,in Queens, it was a lot in, you know, a
Brazilian girl.
But but a fantastic experience.
And in my life, I like to collect stories, sothat's definitely one of them.
But That's ended up being an opportunity for mebecause she, you know, unfortunately had to

(05:56):
leave to to go to like a
rehab
rehab and they were like, well, how have youbeen, like, delivering your work?
And she was like, oh, yeah, the intern.
So then they just told me to do the work,continue doing the work.
Didn't pay me more or give me a better title.
They just asked me to actually do it formally,and it was really hard.
I cried a lot at work at that time.
But it really kept pushing me to do more thanwhat I was being given to do because I realized

(06:21):
that the way to grow, the fastest was not towait for someone to promote you, but to start
doing the job or jobs ahead of you.
I'm not gonna say do the job, though, the workof your boss, but make your boss's life super
easy and do whatever it is that you can, evenit's beyond what you think your scope is.
And you mentioned you were fired from, a coupleor your first couple of jobs here in New York,
and you lost your visa.

(06:42):
You end up paddling to back to Brazil, you'reworking on a farm.
What was going through your mind up at thetime?
And what were some of the conversations youwere having, I guess, with yourself, behind the
scenes?
So I didn't actually go work on the farm.
I wanted to Okay.
And I still want to go.
We're gonna park.
I feel like that's just, like, remain.
I still talk about this.
I I had spent my whole life, like,overachieving in in quotes.

(07:07):
I didn't think it was overachieving.
I was just trying really hard to succeed.
My parents told me that I could come in the tothe US only if I got, like, a 50% scholarship.
And at the same time, I had way too manyinterests.
So I took more classes than, like, were allowedhad to petition in high school.
Like, I I studied way more than I was I shouldhave been studying.
I just I was just working really hard all thetime.
And then My dream was to make it in New York,and I kept, like, falling on my face.

(07:30):
And I decided, you know what?
I'm a philosophy major.
I just wanna live a good life.
Want to live a fulfilling life.
I want to bring meaning to other people'slives.
I don't think that we need to be on this, like,route race to get more money to climb the
ladder.
I don't wanna do it.
I'm just gonna opt out.
And I'm gonna find something else.
And so that's, you know, I went back to Brazil.
I was taking a little bit of time off, and thenmy I actually bought a ticket to go around the

(07:52):
world.
And my plan was I I signed up for this thingcalled Wolf, the World Organization of Organic
Farms to go and then you can, like, live on afarm and they let you sleep there and they and
they give you food.
And you work there.
That's like the thing.
So like that, that's how you travel withouthaving money.
And I really I just decided, like, yeah, I'mgonna find a way to to pay for my lifestyle a
different way.
I'm not gonna have the lifestyle that I grew upin, and it's that's okay.

(08:14):
And I just want to make the most out of mylife.
But then it was quickly snatched back into theworld of, like, career and signifiers and and
whatnot because of an opportunity thatbasically fell in my lap.
How did you get that opportunity?
I got that opportunity because I think onething I I've done really consistently in my
career is networking.
And something I I actually like like talkingabout a lot because networking has such a

(08:37):
negative connotation.
It, like, makes people think that you, like, goto an event and you, like, Give them your card
or, like, these days you, like, touch phones.
I don't know.
Whatever.
Right?
Like networking is just meeting people andbeing interested in them and, like, identifying
people you're interested in and making aneffort and going out of your way to have one on
one time with them.
And I did that when I was in New York a littlebit.
So, When I when I was gonna be I I joked that Iwas deported.

(09:00):
I wasn't I I left the country before, you know,my be expired, but when my my employment ended,
I thought, okay.
Well, there are a couple of people that Iemailed with who I thought were really
interesting and I never got to meet.
And so I'm gonna email them and say, hey.
I'm having I have to leave the country.
I would love to have coffee with you.
And one of these people was Mark Kotney andMark Hat was leading media, I guess I don't

(09:22):
even remember what the actual title was, but hewas doing like news and features at Tumblr.
And he had come from Newsweek, and I thought hewas super interesting.
And when I and my previous job, which, like,where things were not going well, I thought,
hey, like, if we can get, like, our brand, wewere working with American Express Publishing
which is like these magazines.
I don't think you know what magazines are, butthey're like these, like, things that exist in

(09:42):
the real world and, like, they have pages inthem, and they basically just you know, kill a
lot of trees for no reason.
So the travel and leisure was one of themagazines and food and wine, and I was working
with them I thought that putting them on Tumblrwould be cool because it's such a visual
platform and there were like communities aroundfood and and beautiful photos of travel.
So I sent I I reached out to Tell Miller.

(10:03):
They were very small at the time, and I said,hey.
If you guys help me do an awesome job for myclient and make me look really good, then you
can use this as a case study for other bigbrands.
And so we ended up working a little bit, but,like, over email.
And so I met up with Mark once we had a coffee.
I told them a little bit about myself that I'mfrom Brazil, and then I went back to Brazil.
And when Timber decided they wanted to expandinternationally, they were like, who do we know

(10:25):
in Brazil?
It's always about who do you know?
Oh, that girl, you know, like, and theycontacted me.
And I was like, This sounds really nice, but Iam no I'm no longer doing the career thing.
Like, I'm out, and they were like, yeah, that'scute.
But, like, let's explain to you why, like, itwould be good to work with us at least for 1
month, get some money so that you can go, like,on this little eat, pray, love adventure of
yours.

(10:45):
It's those this was pre eat eat, pray, lovecame cut came out.
And and I accepted because it made a lot ofsense.
And in that month, we did a lot of really coolstuff.
I was just kind of like hustling to maketumbler grow and to, like, find the connections
for them and put them in front of media,whatever I could do.
We did, like, a a meetup and and one of mytasks was to find the person who would become

(11:08):
the leader of, like, timber growth in Latinsimilar growth in Latin America.
And I presented some candidates, and theydidn't like any of the candidates, and then
they begged me to stay.
And I, like, I joke like they were desperate.
They didn't, like, have a better option.
They, like, ran out of time.
They're like, well, can you just do it, please?
You know, well, like, you can come up with yourown title.
And I remember thinking, like, well, I, like,still wanna do this other thing.

(11:30):
I was gonna go actually do a documentary.
My my goal was to do a documentary abouthappiness around around the world.
Which is so trite now, but, like, at the time,just felt like a really good idea.
Yeah.
And, anyway, and I I didn't go because Irealized I think that this is one of those
moments where, like, if I don't take this, Ithink I'm gonna regret it.
Yeah.
You mentioned the networking aspect, which Ithink is super key.

(11:53):
College students don't do this enough, but ifyou're a college student and want a job or or
wanna meet people, just send people an emailand say, hey.
I'm a student at whatever university or I'meighteen years old or use your age others as an
advantage and say, we'd love to buy you coffeeor lunch and and learn more about what you're
doing and see how I can be of help.
You'd be surprised or or at least the audiencewould be of how far that can actually take you

(12:14):
and just compounding on that for a coupleyears.
It's huge.
A 100%.
And then I'll add on what you did, which is theart of following up, which is amazing.
Like, you know, if if someone tells you like,oh, you know, like, that sounds great, but
like, I'm busy.
Ask them again nicely.
You know, and at one point, they'll be like,okay.
And you can get conversations with people thatyou would never think we're gonna be open to
talking to you and I have never gotten a jobfrom applying.

(12:36):
I know people do.
I hear they do.
My husband allegedly did, but I only got jobsbecause, like, you meet people and then they
recommend you to other people and, like, it'sbecause when you are introduced to someone
else, you're highly derisked when we wanna talkabout, like, in startup terms.
You're highly de risked as a professional.
You're already, like, vouch by by someone thatthat person trusts, and it's that much easier

(12:57):
to make a decision about hiring you.
And also means that you become top of mind forpeople.
And so there's opportunities that never evenmake it to, like, a job description anywhere.
Yeah.
I had a, like, we were we were speaking before.
I had Noah Kagan on the show, and he mentionedto me that about 90% of the else he receives
from people he doesn't know.
He literally just deletes him and see whofollows up.

(13:18):
And, of course, I followed up.
So I he end we ended up, doing a pot together,but it's like, following up is one of the most
important things you can do, and it showsyou're willing to put in that extra work,
beyond anybody else.
A 100%.
And you did a great job with signifiers too.
Yeah.
That's true.
Before we get into Duolingo, I wanna cup do alittle bit more with Tumblr.
Before this, you told me one interest storywhere you had to wire money to contractors in

(13:42):
Brazil, but you couldn't do so.
You got stuck.
What did you do?
And how did you get around that situation?
Yeah.
So when you hear about these big, like, techstories, you think, like, wow, these companies
really have it figured out.
And then you worked at startups and you realizeno one knows anything, and it's like a mess all
the time.
It's like that image of the, like, the duckswimming, you know, like peacefully on top of a
lake and then the the flailing legs.

(14:03):
Like, that's a start up.
And it was very much the case at Semler eventhough they were already doing really cool
stuff.
And they hired me in Brazil, but first of all,there was a I didn't really have a real
manager.
Like, I kinda had a manager who was kind of myfriend.
And then they couldn't figure out how to pay mein Brazil, so I actually wasn't paid for 6
months.
Luckily, I was living in my parents, like,like, the bedroom I grew up in, so it was okay.

(14:24):
Like I had a little bit of money for food andstuff like that, but like, I didn't get paid
for 6 months.
And so in a similar fashion, they had asked meto do 2 launch events tumbler.
1 in Sao Paulo and 1 in Rio, which are 2 bigcities, and states in Brazil.
And I, like, I had a super low budget, butstill, there was a lot more money than I had I
don't know in retrospect, like, how how muchthat might have been, like, a few $1000.

(14:47):
And, we got a lot of things throughpartnerships and what Like, really, we still
had to pay the people who were, like, puttingthings together.
And until the day of the event, like, theystill hadn't figured out how to wire the money.
They just couldn't figure out how to wire themoney.
And, like, I remember just, like, standing atan ATM, like me and, like, my friend, I'm still
friends with her.
She lives here in New York, just Bennett, whowent on to actually start the gender column of

(15:10):
the New York Times and done a bunch of coolstuff after that.
Both of us, like, at the ATM, like, trying toget, like, as much money as we put out of our
own bank accounts to pay people because, like,we had to pay them.
Otherwise, these events weren't gonna happen.
And then I ended up borrowing money from thisguy who like, was actually, like, a founder of,
like, a Groupon thing in Brazil at the time.
Now he's, like, a really well known VC.

(15:31):
And, like, I I don't remember even how I gotthere, but I was just, like, can your company
lend this other company money?
And I think I ended up even borrowing a littlebit of money from my dad at the end.
And the way that they solved it was COO, if I'mnot mistaken, of the company, came to Brazil
with a bag of cash, like physical cash to topay for all of these things in the end.

(15:52):
How did you have so much trust in in the teamover at Tumbler?
Cause you weren't getting paid for 6 months.
You were also taking money.
And if your own account helped the company,why'd you have so much trust in in them in
team.
Honestly, I think it was stupidity.
Ignorance ignorance is bliss.
Like, I know I and from my position, I waslike, wow.
Like, this company is a really legit New Yorkcompany, you know, like, they're not gonna mess

(16:14):
around.
And they have, like, to be honest, like, I'm Imay not not have totally understood at the time
what this how this worked, but they had, like,legit backers, like Union Square Ventures, you
know, they're not gonna they're not gonna likelet something horrible happen that was that
would lead to a PR nightmare.
But I have also been part of companies,actually, just before that.
That definitely screwed me over.

(16:35):
So, like, I that my former boss, the one thatwe were talking about, still my friend, took me
to another company after, like, I'll, like,they forgot to apply for my visa on time,
whatever, then I I went to her work in her nextcompany after she was out of rehab.
And, they were all drug addicts, but I didn'tknow.
And, like, that was like a disaster.
Like, it it was and and one day, they just,like, laid off everybody.

(16:56):
No notice.
So, you know, just because there's a companyand it's legit doesn't mean that much.
And again, you need to look for the signifiers.
If I went back to being like, you know, twentyfive year old Gina be like, Gina, like, they're
backed by Union Square Ventures.
Like, there's this person on the team andwhatnot, like, But, yeah, I I think I had
little to lose, and I thought it was a reallyimportant moment of an, like, investment and I

(17:20):
was in the very privileged position of livingin my parent's house and, like, being okay
without, you know, getting getting money at thetime.
Right.
And let's talk marketing.
You mentioned PR, briefly.
In Brazil, what were some of the growthstrategies that you were doing to help Tumblr
grow?
I, yeah, I had no idea what growth growthdidn't even exist as a concept.

(17:40):
Of course, like, everything everyone was tryingto make things gross through marketing, but the
concept of growth that we know today didn'texist And my mandate was, can you help us grow
without any cash?
Like, no money.
We have no budgets.
And I was just like, yeah.
Totally.
You know, that doesn't totally work.
So I ended up doing a lot of PR, but at thetime, I didn't know it was PR.
I just thought, how can I get this in front ofas many people as possible?
But for free.

(18:01):
I was like, you know what?
Like, in Brazil.
I think I better can, like, convincejournalists that, like, these, like, New York
people are, like, special people worth talkingto if, like, if I position them in a certain
way, and so I just started finding, like, allthe journalist names that I could on Twitter,
on LinkedIn, and, like, I literally able to gothrough the, like, the newspaper, the
magazines, and, like, write down the, like, thenames of of those authors who I thought might

(18:22):
be interested in something like Tumblr.
And Tumblr was cool because it's not just atech company and a startup, but it's also,
like, has, like, a food niche and it has, like,you know, a culture niche and like a b I don't
know if has a business niche, but, like, itreally you could do a lot with it.
And so finding ways to interest thesejournalists and get them to to wanna talk to to
these guys worked out really well and thendoing things that led to PR too.

(18:44):
And it's like that's a that's a playbook that Iended reimplementing at, duolingo.
So for example, we did, like, I don't know, webrought, like, some important comedians onto
Tumblr and that became a story or, like, westarted doing, like, partnerships with the
government and that became a story.
We did their biggest ever, community meet upfor 1200 people and that became a story.

(19:06):
Those events in themselves, like, those thosetactics in themselves didn't actually lead
directly to growth, but then the story led togrowth.
What do you think people most misunderstandabout PR?
I think
There's so much people misunderstand about PR.
1st of all, first of all, most people hire outoutside PR agencies.

(19:28):
And as you know, I'm, like, you know, They'revery rare.
The ones that are really worth working with.
You think you need someone who has all theconnect and, like, who knows what to do, but,
like, you know, look at me twenty five yearold, like, sending tweet, like, tweets at
people.
And then at Duolingo, they asked me, like, theywere like, we're really trying to get in touch
with someone.
I think it was a tech crunch, and we can't.
Then I overheard this conversation somewhere.
And I tweeted at, like, that journalist andthey responded and they were shocked that,

(19:50):
like, I was able to do that.
And so it's like what you're saying, Shane waslike, shoot your shot and, like, You have to
find, like, what what it is that you can say tosomeone else that actually makes them respond,
and there's a lot of opportunity open.
More directly, I think people often think of PRas, like, these, like, very strict stories that
you wanna tell.
And often when it's a startup context, it'sabout, like, fundraisings.
Like, we raised around and, like, that's ourPR.

(20:12):
And then people come and say, like, we did PRand it didn't work with growth.
A story that works that's about fundraisingdoes not work for growth.
It's a very different kind of story than theone that works for growth because The story
about fundraising is a story that makes yourcompany look really, successful and investors
might be in person, but it doesn't make someonelike you and me read and go like, wow, I really

(20:33):
wanna download that app.
It's like, cool.
Good.
Good.
They have money, but a story, like, in the caseof duolingo about someone who was able to
double their, like, their salary because theylearned English with duolingo and they're,
like, you know, working at a mall in arestaurant.
That's an amazing story.
And if I read that, I'm like, I wanna double mymy salary too.
If that guy did it, I definitely can do it too.

(20:54):
You know?
How do you find those stories?
I think a lot of times those stories come toyou if you're lucky with startups because
you're you're early like a lot of a lot of yourearly users.
If there's if there are a few people whoreally, really love what you're building,
that's when you're, like, really start knowingthat you have product market fit in our case,
we already did have part product market fit.

(21:15):
Some of these people would write into us.
Like, thank you letters.
You know, thank you, like, because of duolingo,this, and that, and then we would establish a
relationship with them right away.
Originally, it was not just for PR, but it'sbecause when you're working at a company, your
life, like, even if you're working at a companywith a mission that you're like, wow, I'm
bringing free language education to the world,your job is answering emails and looking at a

(21:36):
screen and, like, getting annoyed with yourcolleagues and, like, just, like, like, stuff
that feels really meaningless every day andhaving real stories of how you're making an
impact was key to keeping the company engaged.
So we ended up using that as an internalcommunication strategy and sharing those
stories as often as possible.
You can also look for those stories, you know,like, and then and that's about, like, building

(21:57):
an audience.
If you're able to reach a lot of people, thenyou can ask for those stories or you can ask
other people to ask for those stories.
And I think in the case of duolingo, we werevery open to being playful.
Like, for example, what someone asked us tohelp them, propose to their girlfriend.
I think this might have been even before Ijoined or like renovating.
Someone had asked them to help them proposegirlfriend who loved Dolingo and, like, so then

(22:18):
the team at Dulingo decided to, like, make aspecial, lesson tailored for that and the and
the and the girl, like, took the lesson and endit said, like, will you marry me in duolingo?
You know?
And then that becomes a story.
So and sometimes you don't have the storiesthat come to you.
You have we have to engineer them.
When I go go back to the concept of signifiers,which we haven't defined and maybe we wanna do.

(22:39):
Yeah.
Do that.
When I talk when when Seamus and I talk aboutsignifiers, what we're talking about is the
fact that most people are lazy just that's howwe are.
Like, we we tend to take shortcuts.
Like, there's a lot going on in the world atthe same time, and we have to make assumptions
about things and we have to make decisionsreally quickly.
Some decisions, we don't even realize we take.
And in order to do that, we our minds takeshortcuts, and we look for things that we think

(23:04):
signify something else.
So when I talk about signifiers in context ofbuilding your career or building a brand or
doing PR.
It's about finding things that have meaning tosomeone else that is a shortcut for them to
think that you're impressive smart accomplishedor whatever it is that you want them to believe
about you.
Hopefully, you're not lying, but there are, youknow, like saying, like, you know, I wrote a

(23:24):
paper about blah blah blah blah blah blah blahmostly might not understand what you just said,
but if you say I wrote a paper published by theHarvard XYZ, and then it was reprinted in
whatever, you know, now people know the namesof those institutions and they're like, oh,
that's impressive.
Like, that makes this person impressive.
And it's actually surprisingly easy to do, butyou need to understand, like, to that audience,

(23:46):
what is impressive, and then, like, reverseengineer, how you get associated with that.
The way I learned this very early is that incollege, like I said, I was a super, like,
overachiever.
I worked really hard.
Then I went to my college counselor and shelooked at my resume and said, what have you
done with your whole life?
I have nothing here.
And I went home and cried, and I wasdevastated.
And then I got really mad.

(24:07):
And, like, we were we were talking before theshow, like, having a chip on your shoulder, I
think, can be really powerful.
And I thought, you know what?
Like, miss college counselor, like, you'relooking at what I did and you think, like, you
can't see anything useful here.
So how about, like, I think and I I just waslike, if the whole world, like, is that how the
world thinks?
It's not about what you know and, like, the,like, your capability, it's about, like, what

(24:27):
the words mean to them and how impressive theysound, then I'm gonna go study neuroscience,
and I'm gonna go author a neuroscience study,which I did.
But I really did that course, I'm interested inneuroscience, but I really did that because I
thought nobody knows neuroscience.
They're all gonna hear that I co authored aneuroscience study and immediately assume that
I'm very smart.
Which a 100% happens.
Yeah.
And, like, even, like, with a dumb, like,social media, like, intern job that I got out

(24:49):
of school, like, I remember them being, like,neuroscience, you know, and we're like, So what
about like philosophy and neuroscience have youused in your career?
I'm like literally zilch, nothing except forthe, like, impressing people so that you can
open the door.
What were some of the other growth strategiesthat you employed to help grow Dualingo from
from 3000000 all the way up to 200,000,000users.
So one of them was definitely PR.

(25:10):
I will also say that, like, I get I get all thecredit for growth at Dua Lingo because I was
the head of growth at Dua Lingo, but I didn'tdo it, like, all of this by myself.
Like, Dua Ling was an amazing app.
It's an amazing team, and they were all workingon growth because the whole team was a product
team really paying close attention to metricsand what worked and AB testing from the get go
as soon as we we could with such schoolsignificance, but I did end up getting asked to

(25:34):
lead, like, to start and and lead a growthteam, which was, as a marketer, my first chance
of ever ever, like, doing anything that'sactually product related and so touch like the
the experience itself.
And then it was a lot of figuring out, like,what are the things that are worth testing in
terms of hard is it gonna be to test this andhow likely is it to work out?

(25:54):
And if it works out, how many users does thatget us?
And coordinating the team to make that happen.
I don't have any unique skills.
I think that would make me succeed in thatexcept for the fact that I take risks and I was
always a pretty good communicator and thathelps in management positions, obviously, even
if I was, like, the same age as everyone elsebecause, like, the designer wasn't talking to

(26:17):
the engineer often, and so they wouldn't makedecisions that actually hurt each other without
realizing it.
And like, you know, so there's, like, thingshappening like that in the team and people
don't wanna volunteer things that are tough forthem because they don't wanna look incompetent.
So you have to, like, really tease out what'sbothering that person and then, like, make
their jobs easier by, like, making themcommunicate better.

(26:37):
So that's yeah.
And
with Dualingo, I guess you always try to find,like, underpriced Like, you did it with free PR
pitches.
You did it with dual lingo notifications.
I I spoke to Neil Parikh as I mentioned alittle bit earlier, who's one of the co
founders of Casper and one of the growth hacksthat they utilize as ads on the subway.
Yes.
Now it's pretty common.

(26:58):
A lot of people use ads on the subway.
Yes.
But what are what is a growth hack that youthink people are ignoring today that they
shouldn't be?
I think that's a a $1,000,000 question that Idon't know the answer to, but I think to that
point, I'll I'll I'll I'll give you a cop outanswer for now while I think about it.
Okay.
Which is, people often tell me like, well, youknow, now growth is too expensive because you

(27:22):
need to pay too much for it and like, well, youknow, like, now There's too many apps.
And it it's almost like they're looking at thethe things that worked for growth, and they're
like, yeah.
Well, you just got lucky that you, like, atthat point, like, those things worked, but they
don't work anymore.
So, like, we're in a different world, but thatthat's exactly the point, the one that you
made.
It's not about those tactics.
It's about understanding how things areevolving and where the opportunities are and

(27:44):
and where you can jump in.
By no means where there are no notificationswhen we, like, we were playing with doing no
notifications.
I think at this point, saturation is likereally at another level.
However, I still think that they have an an ana huge impact on on usage.
For any app.
Like, if you're able to figure that out,because even though people get a lot of
notifications, they still read a few of themand if you are able to get users to read

(28:07):
notification, that's the top of of your funnel.
So that might be like the the largest number ofpeople you can experiment with before they get
into the app and then actually go through theapp experience.
In terms of what people are doing today, Ithink, TikTok, if it doesn't get banned, it's
Although the a lot has been done over the pastcouple of years, I still think there's a lot

(28:28):
that can be built there.
I just invested in in a startup that reallywanting TikTok and they, like, like, basically
found people who they thought could beinfluencers and helped them become influencers
and hired them and then found, like, stuffthat, like, actually worked and put money
behind the stuff that worked and TikTok invitedthem to give a talk at their all hands because
it was, like, so successful.
But over the next 2, 3 years, a lot of newplaces where people spend their time are going

(28:50):
to emerge.
And and we just have to be, you know, open tothose opportunities.
I will also say with a subway point Like, thereare things that you don't think about that
aren't there, and that people kind of forget.
So it might not seem groundbreaking, but ifyou're if you're building building something
for, like, college students, for example, youmight wanna go and buy billboard ads around

(29:10):
that, like, one university and go buy all thebillboard ads around that other university.
That's not like an exciting hack, but, like, ifyou're able to just get in front of, like,
college students in a really targeted way,like, super super hyper targeted, that's that
can work for your for your product.
I guess as a founder, if I'm pitchingpublications like like TechCrunch or
businesses, etcetera.

(29:30):
I think for tech crunch, the the status, like,for every 1 in 10, the pitches they get, one
actually ends up getting published and becomes,becomes a story.
But How do I stand out to the journalist?
I have a couple tips.
The first thing is you actually have to havesomething that's interesting, which is
unfortunate because, like, there's a it's veryhard to hack of course, it can engineer things
like we said, like, ways that make you morerelevant than you are, but, like, at the end of

(29:52):
the day, DuaING was always quite good.
Of course, it was It evolved a lot over theyears, but so was Tumblr.
And I will argue so is latitude.
So when people talk about it, you havesomething of substance.
That's number 1.
Number 2, it's about peaking the interest ofthe journalist and that is misunderstood

(30:13):
because most people who do PR or who attemptPR, will send like a a very formal email with
all the details about a story and, like, here'swhat we're doing, and here's our press release
and, like, because it feels professional andright.
And again, people are lazy.
So, like, if I get a WhatsApp message fromsomeone who, like, put a lot of thought into

(30:34):
that WhatsApp message, like, sent me, like, anaudio thing and there's, like, an attachment,
I'm probably gonna leave it on red for, like, 4days because I'm just gonna be, like, whenever
I have time, I will go look at that.
Right?
But if they just had had sent me like a, hey,what's up?
Can I ask you a question?
I would probably just said, sure.
And now I'm engaged.
Right?
And then if they ask a question, I'm not gonnaignore for 3 days because, like, I already said
sure, and that would be super rude.

(30:54):
So I think establishing that, like, humanconnection with journalists is undervalued and
and easy to do on the internet because, youknow, you you can follow them.
You can you can see what they're what they'retalking about.
You can like whatever it is that they'reposting.
But importantly, like, they need to eitherrecognize your name when you email them.
So you're not like another name in their inbox,or you need to do something that makes you look

(31:20):
like someone legit on the internet so that likeand then use that to your advantage.
So in my case, My LinkedIn looks super legit.
Like, before before I met Obama, like, it I hadalready worked on it a bunch and, like, I had,
like, a recommendation from David Karp, and Ihad a recommendation from Luis Von on, and I
had, a lot of connections, like, back in theday, having more than 500 connections was,
like, good or whatever.

(31:40):
Right?
Like, so I would send people specificallymessages from my LinkedIn whenever I could
because they would see they would get to see alittle bit about me right away, and that would
give me credibility, especially if we had a lotof, like, common connections.
So there's things you need to use to youradvantage that make the person not only
interested in the story, which of coursematters, but also that, like, to connect with
you as a human, either because there'ssomething in common with you or because had a

(32:03):
conversation before because you follow a lot oftheir stories because you have a photo with
Obama because you have 500 connections incommon or whatever.
So I think that's that's one tip I would Iguess 2 tips I would give.
Even in, our inbox for the show, I think, like,at least 80 or 90% of those pitches that I
receive her, like, literally just this giant 3,4, 5 paragraphs of texts of just talking about

(32:25):
here's everything this person has done.
I was like, there's no way I'm gonna read allthat.
I was like,
like he said, I'll get to that later, and thenI end up never getting to it.
Totally.
And the thing is that, like, I I often I alsothink that we have a bias and think, like,
Someone's really that impressive.
You don't need that many words to explain howimpressive they are.
Like, you can just use a few signifiers thatwould it would be it.
Like, right?
Like, growth at duolingo.
For 2 to until 200,000,000 users.

(32:47):
Like, that's 5 words.
And then you're like, okay.
Like, that that seems like legit, but if youhave to write, like, huge paragraphs, It's just
harder.
Trying to convince somebody and then you loseout on that Foma.
Exactly.
Yeah.
It's and that's the other thing like Foma.
Like, when I did a bunch of stuff that's, like,very not you're not supposed to do in PR and I
got yelled at by my PR team.
As I think you might have heard on the 20 VCpodcast, but, like, one of them was, yeah, I'd

(33:09):
like email and journalists and journalists hatethis.
Okay?
I would email them and be like, hey, so and so,like, if they already knew, like, me, we had
already interacted at least once.
We have a huge launch coming up.
Do you wanna know like something ridiculouslike that, you know, just to get them to
annoyed, like, annoy at least say, sure.
And then I would like send them moreinformation, but, like, just to create, like,
the curiosity like the hook so they wouldrespond.

(33:31):
Yeah.
I thought of the answer to the to the previousquestion, which was, underutilized opportunity.
You know, this is not gonna be groundbreaking,but I I think that, like, the fact that over
the past, maybe 5 years, in a completelydifferent level, people have all become their
own little media brands.
I think not like this podcast is legit mediaorganization, but I mean, like, everyone is on

(33:54):
TikTok.
And, like, has things to say and have everyonehas a platform and wants to be something.
I don't think that that has been leveraged toits full potential from, like, the a micro
micro influencer perspective because peoplemake decisions based on what their friends tell
them and, like, their families tell them like,that's like the most important node that you
are able to capture.
So having a social following of any sort or anewsletter, whatever means that you're like,

(34:17):
you have, smaller group of people, like, reallytrust you.
And being able to leverage that, I think, wehaven't quite figured it out yet.
Like, for example, I talked about guys who useTikTok, but they found people and they have,
like, these, like, 5 influencers who are,workout, like, teachers.
So, like, I think that's still, like, that'slike you're finding someone and that's their
whole profession and you're making them into aquote unquote influencer.

(34:38):
Like, I think everyone has some sort ofinfluence.
Of course, like, on a spectrum and being ableto understand how to how to cap capitalize on
that en masse.
Can be can be huge.
And you mentioned president Obama before.
What's the story?
How did you meet, Obama?
So Duolingo was invited to present at the firstever White House demo day.

(35:02):
I joked that it's also the last demo day.
And I I I always went, with with Luis who, asyou know, was my boss and also my boyfriend.
I all I always went with him to to presentthings because I was a communications person.
I was this, like, second face, of duolingo fora while, and so He he asked me to come to this

(35:25):
and he was like, you need to know I was inBrazil at the time with my family, and I would
have to, like, come home early, like, to to goto this.
And he was like, you should know, like, Obama'snot going to this.
It's just a thing in the White House.
It's gonna be like super lame, but, like, I Ithink, you know, it's, like, whatever.
Right?
Like, it would be good for you to be there.
And me being Brazilian.
I'm like, the White House.
That sounds so cool.
I'm definitely gonna go to the White House, youknow, but I remember, like, till and then being

(35:47):
like, Do you think Obama's gonna be there?
And he and him being really annoyed at memultiple times being like, no.
He is not going to be there.
Like, it's just gonna be people who work at theWhite House.
And so I kind of, like, put that idea behind meand when I remember, like, showing up and there
were, like, 40 companies throughout the UnitedStates that were selected.
And I think the goal was, like, the to showcasethe diversity of amazing talent around all of
the states, you know, not just California anddoing most based in Pittsburgh, which helped

(36:11):
But, like, the Pinterest guys were there and,like, some others, and they took us all the way
to the little to the last room of the WhiteHouse, and I'm not I'm not smart enough to know
what room that was.
Although, like, I was messaging my my bestfriend and she studied history and she's like,
what room is it?
And I'm like, I don't know.
She's what's on the walls?
I was like, paintings.
She's like, this is not helpful.

(36:31):
There's like a man on the painting.
She's like, there, there's been all thepaintings.
So We were in this little, and I said, and Ijoked, and I said, Lee, I they took us to the
loser room because it's all the way in theback.
And it ended up being the room where they hadselected 5 startups that were gonna get to
present to the president but I had no idea.
And I just remember the people at the WhiteHouse being really annoying because they would
show up to our, like, little table and be like,Can you tell me what your pitch is?

(36:54):
You know?
And, like, I did that a million times, and Iwas just like, we're, like, a language learning
platform, like, bored.
You know?
And they'd be like, We're gonna need you to,like, improve that.
And I'm like, okay.
And that one point, they were like, why is thiscomputer not, like, perfectly parallel with the
table?
And I was just like, you know, like fixing it.
And then at one point, I just said, like, Idon't know.
I, like, I think I I realized something weirdwas happening and then someone said, do they

(37:17):
not know?
And I was like, no, what?
And they're like, no, we haven't told them yet.
I was like, on a scale of 0 to 10, what arewhat are the odds that president Obama's gonna
show up?
And they were like 10.
And he came in like 3 minutes later.
So, like, we had 3 minutes to prepare, me andLuis, where I was like, oh my god.
Like, okay.
I got this part of the pitch.
You got this part of the pitch.
And I I did an an okay job, but I remember justthe whole time being like, be normal, be

(37:40):
normal, do not think, you know, and you candefinitely tell if you watch the video on
YouTube.
And there's someone who went on there andactually commented on the video, like,
literally making fun of me the whole, like,minute by minute, like, laughs awkwardly at no
joke.
You know, like, looks up for no reason.
And then, like, of course, my intern at Dulingo found this video and, like, shared it
within the company.
So that was that story.
But I also remember feeling, and I told Luis Iwas like, this This is I have peaked.

(38:04):
I am quitting.
Like, it doesn't get more more exciting thanthis.
Yeah.
Product is also super important in marketing.
So I I think product creating a balance betweenproduct and marketing is hard.
Like, sometimes founders will spend, like, 90%of their money on the product and then end up
having not much budget or or not spending anyof their time on the marketing side, which
leads to, well, there being no growth.

(38:25):
But then on the other side, founders mightspend too much time on marketing.
And then when they bring people in, they justhave a leaky bucket and doesn't have a solution
there either.
Yes.
How do you create the right balance betweenhaving a great product, but also having a great
strategy on the marketing side?
It's super tough, and it's a great question.
I don't think we talked about product and ABtesting a lot so we can go into that a little
bit more.

(38:46):
I think so as an investor these days, I willtell you that I will invest 9 out of 10 into
companies that I think have an amazing productand shitty marketing than a company that has
amazing marketing and a bad product.
On one hand, it's because I know marketing, soI feel like I could help them.
But on the other is, like, you have to havereal substance.
You have to build something that actually hasvalue and that is weirdly underrated.

(39:08):
People just, like, believe a lot of, like, thethe marketing is great, but it can also be
steam, you know, like, just substanceless,substanceless.
The concept of growth is cool because itapplies a lot of, like, the marketing mindset
onto the product, which is understanding whatare the different moments of interaction that
someone has with your product or whatever withyour company and how you can leverage each one

(39:30):
of those moments and, like, make changes toeach one of those moments that will increase
the number of people who get to the next stepsignificantly, and then you do it over and over
and over.
And of course, that only works when you alreadyhave a product, again, that works.
And when I say that works, I mean that hasproduct market fit, which in itself means a
product that, like, people some even if it'slike a small number of people, but it, like,

(39:52):
you know, like, a a group of people reallythink you know, their lives would be worse
without that they truly see value in that andand really don't want you to to to get rid of
the product.
That might mean product market fit in in somecapacity.
A lot of people wanna do tech like the stuff Itold you about, which is like the AB testing,
which is like tweaking each little moment ofthat you that the person has with an app, but

(40:16):
if you don't have that core thing already, thenyou're just kinda slipping on ice and you're
just like really not going anywhere anywhere.
When I say interacting with every moment, I I'mI'm also gonna be specific in case that that is
helpful.
So with duolingo, right, like, maybe today whenyou wanna learn a language, you think, oh,
duolingo.
But, like, think back, like, 10 years ago, andpeople were, like, interested in learning a

(40:37):
language.
They dualingo.
They would think like Rosetta Stone, butRosetta Stone is so expensive and they sell it
in, like, seedy rums and malls.
And we so but they might go on Google and say,like, I wanna learn English or, like, how to
learn English or whatever.
Right?
So, like, that's your first moment.
It's like when someone's looking for what iswhat it is that they want, and how do you
become relevant in that moment?

(40:57):
How does dual lingo show up?
And that's like where it's SEO comes up and,like, other things like that, but how do you
create relevance so that people can find youeasily.
Same thing on the app store.
Like, what are people looking for in the appstore and how do you make sure that you get you
come up?
But then coming up isn't isn't enough.
Like, what actually makes someone click on thatone versus all the other options that they had?
And when they click on it, what makes the whatwhat makes them go, okay, I'll try this out.

(41:19):
And when they say, okay, I'll try this out.
What makes them, like, actually, like, try alesson or actually sign up, all of these
moments are overlooked sometimes but everysingle step of the way you're losing people.
So when you think of, like, marketing in termsof, like, your funnel, then every every
literally every click on a screen means thatyou're losing a percentage of the people who

(41:41):
were there before and so you need to be superintentional and smart about what you do to
minimize the number of people who fall off andto increase the number of people who will try
that again tomorrow.
Marketing I think in in the past has been a lotmore focused on the acquisition side of things,
which is how do you get people to the product?
And I think in terms of a balance, I'm a bigbeliever in as much as you can.

(42:05):
No paid marketing until you actually have realrevenue, for a startup.
So, like, invest your resources in building thething and On the marketing front, I think that
what's super important is the founder, and wewere talking about this before, the founder,
and if the like, the founder or the secondperson needs to know how to tell this story
really well.
And that is your biggest marketing lever in theearly days of your startup.

(42:26):
Like, how engaging is that story.
How how much does it make people think thatthis is awesome that you are awesome or that
they wanna try this thing?
And How can you get that message to as manypeople as possible without paying?
Which often ends up being PRs or influencers oror or whatever.
You can find ways to do that without money ifyou have, like, a very scrappy professional, a

(42:47):
good story, and a really good product.
But you can't build a great product if you havea great story and a great marketing and
whatever.
You know, like, you just So I would invest,like, 90% in product.
And we mentioned before the the show, theimportance of getting people to feel things so
that they remember things
Right.
What is the importance of emotion and how canyou drive emotion in potential customers?

(43:11):
As humans, we have emotions all the time.
We sometimes understand them.
Sometimes we don't understand them, but we'reconstantly feeling something.
So Seamus and I were we were actually talkingbefore the show.
Like, what what was your favorite interview?
And you asked me the same thing.
What was your favorite interview?
Neither of us brought up what we discussed inthose interviews.
We just talked about how they were fun.
And, like, to me, the one I mentioned, it wasfun because I remember feeling my best self.

(43:34):
Like, I felt like, you know, the the the thethe person was bringing out, like, the best
questions, making people feel something,whether it be excitement or or pride of
themselves or even negative things like fear,anxiety, that's very related to memory and that
those are the moments that we most remember inour lives.
It's like when we were feeling something.

(43:55):
And so if you're able to weave that into yourproduct and marketing, you're in an advantage.
And it's easy to overlook because in business,we think, no, no, emotions are outside of
business.
I keep it out.
Like, this is a very serious thing.
But people operating business things, even ifit's a B2B SaaS, there's still people there.
And if you're able to make them laugh, like,imagine you're, like, in the middle of this
really boring thing.
You're doing this, like, operation that you doeverything something really funny happens in

(44:18):
the middle of the software.
Like, you're gonna remember that, and you'regonna talk about it.
And so that's the kinds of things that makepeople develop a relationship with the product
and with the company and actually wanna talkabout it with other people, which is how things
grow through word-of-mouth.
So At Dualingo, for example, one thing that wasreally interesting to me is that although I was
the head of growth and all the experiments wedid in my team were focused on increasing our

(44:43):
number of daily active users.
There were certain things that we did atDualingo that we, even though they didn't
actually increase DAUs directly, we keptbecause we thought, like, this actually gives
we're we're we're determining that thisprovides delight It was like this feeling of
delight, and you can't measure it.
So for example, I don't know if dealing with abusiness, but if you, like, scrolled, like, all

(45:03):
the way up, the owl, like, would be, like,upside down and, like, would show up.
It's just, what does that do?
Nothing?
Like, but that's like a feeling of delight thatmakes you feel connected Again, like, it can be
in your messaging.
So we talked a lot about bringing free languageeducation to the world and how that can change
people's lives, and you can have a role inthat.
That is making people feel and connect with acause that's bigger than the product or company

(45:24):
itself.
And so that was a message that people who arevery willing to share in their social media
versus, like, check out this cool app.
It's like, it's about a movement.
It's about, like, changing the world and doingsomething meaningful.
And it's also something that actually impactedour conversion rates for people signing up to
duolingo subscription because on the landingpage, if we said signing up means that other
people, like, will get to use the lingo forfree, whatever because they can't afford it.

(45:46):
Of course, in much better words that I don'tdon't remember anymore, that actually had a
relevant change in terms of conversion ratebecause people feel like they're part of
something.
And I wanna get into what you're doing withLatitude today.
Now you're working with startup founders inLatin America.
What's the story behind the company and and whyyou decide to build it?

(46:07):
So I joined this program called OnDeck, here inthe US.
And, it it was created by Eric Torrenberg.
He was a product product hunt before.
He's super cool.
And I was trying to figure out what startup.
I wanted to build a startup, but I wasn't surewhat, and this was a great place to meet other
people and learn about startups and kind ofjust feel like I had, like, a a fancy thing

(46:27):
that I could tell people that I was doing whileI really just didn't know what I was doing and
trying to come up with ideas, which is afellowship.
Like, that's just like, that's a fancy word.
And in this fellowship, I decided to buildsomething that is not latitude at all, but I
met my cofounder.
And my cofounder His name is Brian Recworth.
He sold his last company for $600,000,000.
He's quite impressive.

(46:48):
I didn't know anything about him because I'vebeen living in the US for 20 years, so I, like,
kinda ghosted him and then also not superghost, but, like, didn't respond very quickly.
And then when he's like, I would love to meetwith you, I was like, yeah, I'm busy.
How about a month from now?
Which, like, I joke about this sometimes, withfriends.
Another lesson I've learned as as an adult isthat in dating and in in work both.

(47:10):
Like, making yourself unavailable is the mostexciting thing for people.
Like, they want what's not available.
So, like, I think that really peaked Brian'sinterest because I was just, not available to
him, and he was so used to everyone being like,Brian Records.
Like, I'll talk to you.
I was like, Brian, who?
You built what?
Like, I've never heard of this.
You know?
But, of course, he's he's super impressive andhas accomplished quite a bit.

(47:30):
And in terms of what we're building now, it'slike something that he was thinking about
already.
It really resonates with me because I come fromBrazil.
Well, technically, I come from Poland, butthat's a whole other thing.
But I was born and raised in Brazil.
And most people in Brazil and Latin America andother emerging markets don't have access to

(47:51):
most of the things I had access to in my life.
First because I was super lucky and I was borninto a family that could afford the American
school, then because I was able to get into,like, college with the with the scholarship
that I wanted, in the US, and then I got it.
I was able to work with, like, top techcompanies in Silicon Valley.
Most people don't get those opportunities, butI am sure a 100%.
Like, I know as a fact that there are 100 ofthousands of people who are who have more

(48:15):
talents than me, who are more intelligent thanme, who want to accomplish more than me in
Latin America.
They're just not gonna have a ever.
And so if I could bring a lot of thoseresources and knowledge down, so to speak,
South to Latin America and to other emergingmarkets, I think that, like, my role in the
world is one that is worthy because I'm able togive that to people who are gonna be able to
accomplish great things and employ thousands ofpeople and solve problem solve problems for

(48:39):
millions of people, and there are a lot ofproblems to be solved in Latin America.
It's not easy living there.
So we decided to to build something that wouldmake it a lot easier for you to become a tech
founder and to have a a much higher chance ofsuccess if you are a tech founder in Latin
America because being a tech founder, youalready are probably gonna fail here in the US
but then an emerging market that's like 10 x ora 100 x harder because like political

(49:02):
instability, economic instability, and justlike Bureaucracy, the fact that there isn't as
much developed talent that you don't have theuniversities you have here that you don't have
the tech companies that have you know, grown uphere, the ecosystem is still nascent, that kind
of thing.
And what are some of the startup founders or orstartups in general that that you've seen in
Latin America that you think more people bepaying attention to?

(49:24):
I'll highlight 22 sort of like once, type ofcompany than one one company in particular
because I'm closest with them.
But the type of company that I'll highlight islike the super boring B2B SaaS type companies,
like companies that make software for othercompanies to be able to do things better.
The first sort of type of company that we'reexcited about is just kind of that.

(49:45):
Like, the ones that, like, are are most likelygoing to solve problems for very large number
of especially small and medium businesses thatwouldn't have otherwise been able to survive,
but that can now thrive.
And from like a social perspective, thatexcites me too because you give a lot of people
the opportunity to to to make money and tosucceed.
I'll highlight a completely different company Iguess I'll I'll highlight too because one of

(50:11):
them, the founder lives in New York.
Okay.
And the company's called Micah.
And she is building a procurement.
It's like this is a b to b sass withprocurement service based starting with dentist
offices.
So, basically, like, there's a whole thing,like, you never imagined this and it's so not
exciting to me, but, like, the opportunity isexciting, which is dentists, like, need to buy,

(50:34):
tools and things for their offices and, like,they're actually not that easy to buy.
You have to go somewhere to, like, to to getthem in the center of the city sometimes.
And then things like might expire, so theywanna get rid of them before they expire, but
they can't.
It's just like very specific but actuallydentist offices is like a very large market,
and then you expand that extrapolate that to,like, medical offices, and you can probably

(50:54):
find a a very large TAM So and this founder isfantastic.
She's like, she she was studying business, andthen this after business school decided that
she wanted to be an engineer and just learn howto code by herself and than did, and this is
her 2nd company.
That's one of them falls into the category Ijust mentioned.
Super non boring, like, super not excitingthings, but there are huge part of
opportunities.
The other one is called be confident, and theseare 4 guys who grew up in a in a quite a,

(51:20):
disadvantage area of Sao Paulo.
I would say, like, they did not grow up withmoney at all.
And they for engineers who decided to build alanguage learning platform, and you'd be like,
okay, dueling already exists.
Right?
But when we built dueling or, you know, whendueling was built, solutions already existed
for language learning, but what they did isthey started leveraging WhatsApp and they made

(51:42):
it so that it made it super easy for people tojust interact with WhatsApp and and sort of
like interact with the chatbot.
And then as soon as, like, open AI came out,they were, like, using that to generate, like,
talking experiences, which is kind of like,started out as a wrapper kind of opportunity.
So when I say wrapper, I mean, some peopletake, like, chat to PT, and then they make
things out of like, oh, now there's a bot.

(52:02):
And you can talk about anything.
Like, they didn't build AI, but they used AI ina specific context.
It's not super hard to do, but then theystarted working on their prompt engineering and
making this, like, just very, very easy to useand easy to practice English with on a regular
basis.
And then because they were first to market,they also started collecting a lot of data from
these users who are now telling their this,like, what's up whatever, like, persona, what

(52:29):
they're doing today, like, whether they'remarried, whether they're not married, like,
what what, I don't know, what they wanna dowhen they travel to the United States, And now
this data can be used to create even morepersonalized conversations, which makes English
learning a lot more interesting for someonebecause just saying like the book is on the
table and, like, the woman is tall.
Like, those are boring things, but if I'mactually talking about things that matter to

(52:50):
me, then that makes a difference.
But more importantly, like, they bootstrap thisand were able to get to $500,000 in ARR, just
by themselves.
And, like, then they, like, stopped me for ayear, and I wasn't I I wasn't really taking
them seriously because they didn't have theobvious signifiers and, you know, investors are
dumb like that.
We're we're lazy and we make shortcuts.
And then they literally I we do with this eventin in in Brazil as part of Latitude.

(53:14):
And last year, we had four thousand people, andthey accosted me at the event.
Like, and I was a little worried.
They were like, Gina, and I was like, yes.
They were like, we are be confident that itwas, like, against the wall.
You know?
And I was like, oh, yeah.
I didn't respond to your last WhatsApp message.
You know?
But I realized that they were quite impressiveand they recently came in.
They won, an award at at MIT at a at a, at a,was it m, or was it at Harvard?

(53:37):
1 of the 2.
One of those.
One of those.
Yeah.
They did something, but it's, like, quiteimpressive, you know, and and another building
on top of that.
And you've accomplished so much throughout yourcareer.
We're gonna close it off with a couple ofclosing questions.
One is what's the best piece of advice you'veever received?
But I'll tell you first the worst advice I'veI've ever received, which is just take whatever

(54:02):
they'll give you, like, in terms of salary.
When I first when I got my first job, my dadwas like, this is a great salary.
You should just accept it.
And I was like, no.
I'm gonna negotiate, but, like, I had I'malways like 24 or whatever.
He's like, no.
Like, you should accept this.
This is a very good salary, but I negotiated itvery poorly at the time, but When someone makes
you a job offer, they want you.

(54:23):
And now that they want you, they've probablyhad to convince other people that, like, you're
the right person for the job and it wasannoying and they don't wanna go through this
process again.
You have leverage.
Even if it's just a little, you alwaysnegotiate always.
Of course, you can go overboard, but, you know,always negotiate.
The best advice was that most people areactually just worried about themselves, like,

(54:46):
at work.
And they're trying to do the right thing in asmuch as they know the right thing to be, and
they don't actually think about you that often.
I'm gonna say, like, it's It's all a package.
You could probably just say, like, you know,people are all always trying to do the right
thing.
I am a realist you can say pessimist, but butrealist.

(55:07):
I'm a little bit, cynical.
And so I tend I've I've in my career many timesbeen offended and been told, like, don't take
personally.
And I'm like, that's silly because I'm personand this was personal, and I don't understand
why.
I shouldn't.
But even when people are doing things that hurtyou, there is a way to try to get yourself in
their shoes to understand what their life islike and what they're thinking that helps you

(55:31):
understand why they're doing what they're doingand have empathy for them.
And that makes everything easier.
And it's also powerful.
Because if you're able to understand someone'smotivation and what it's like to be them, then
you're much more likely to make more of aneffort and you're much more likely to let
things go.
So I think that's that's one.

(55:52):
Yeah.
I think sometimes I'll I'll hear people saylike, yeah.
I understand.
I understand this, but generally, the buttdoesn't exist because if you truly understand
You didn't say butt.
And you were in the their shoes, you'd be doingthe exact same things.
Exactly.
And then I think kind of similarly like, oh,glass have full vibes.
Like, my grandfather had this thing on his deskthat said, like, in Portuguese, something like

(56:13):
life is what you make of it, but it was muchnice, more nicely worded in Portuguese.
And it's not about making it in life.
It's about, like, understanding that you canalways choose how you're gonna react to things
and how you're gonna interpret them, and it mayfeel like that's not true.
Have these conversations with friends eventoday, and they're like, and and they get
annoyed at me.
And they're like, no.
My life is actually just really hard.
You know?

(56:34):
Like, yeah, there probably is.
Like, most people's lives are hard to differentdegrees.
And but you can choose how you're gonna dealwith it.
And it's really hard, but it's one of the mostpowerful things that you can do.
I recently had an experience where I lost mysense of smell and taste permanently, and I'm a
big, like, I was a big foodie.
Like, I I traveled for food.
I cook Like, I'm really into wines.

(56:55):
I've been reading food and wine magazine sinceI was like 8.
So this is super important to me, and I feltsorry for myself and I cried for about 6 months
And then everyone kept coming to me and beinglike, is it better yet?
Is it better yet?
Did it come back?
And I was just hoping for the day that it wouldcome back?
And then one day I woke up and I realized that,like, hope can actually be bad.
And the most powerful thing is just like beinghappy with what is now and understanding that,

(57:18):
like, even though I don't have sent my sense ofsmell and taste, which I really thought were so
important.
I have I have, like, I I'm living, and I get tobe in New York City, and I get to be with my
friends and, like, And then suddenly I wouldlike I started seeing food differently and even
though I can't taste the thing I really wantedto taste, I'm like, the texture is interesting
and, like, this is actually enjoyable and
gives you a different perspective.

(57:39):
Yeah.
And it really has, like, shifted my my abilityto to deal with that even if it ends up being a
lifelong disability.
And for the last question is if I slid you overa phone and you could call your eighteen year
old self, would you call?
And if so, what would you say?
I went a 100% calm by eighteen year old self.
I was a very sad teenager.

(58:01):
I was not diagnosed with depression yet.
So I would tell them you will be diagnosed withdepression, and there drugs for that.
That's really important.
I would also say that making connections withpeople is super important.
Like, just develop that skill of going up tostrangers and, like, reaching out to people
that, you know, you're not that you don't knowand and become interested in them because those

(58:21):
compound over your lifetime.
I would say let people underestimate you andlet that fester because that's going to help
you succeed.
The last one, I guess, would just be, like, oneday at a time.
I think as an eighteen, seventeen year old,eighteen year old, I really felt like I had to

(58:44):
figure out my life.
Like, I needed to figure out what where I wasgoing to college and after that, where I was
gonna live and, like, what career I was gonnahave and you you not only most likely don't
have to, but you also can't.
A lot of people end up going on very linearcareers, and that must be really nice.
In a way, but my career was a complete zigzag,and I could have never predicted any of the
pieces.
And I I know I can't predict what I'm gonna donext.

(59:06):
And it's unsettling and scary, but it's okaybecause it also means that you're open to
opportunities as they come.
Yeah.
So gotta keep that anxiety ab.
When I was a kid, I was always trying to moveso fast and do so many things at once whether
it be sport or doing a game and then trying togo to, an arcade or whatever it might be when I

(59:28):
was, like, ten or eleven years old.
And my dad would always say one thing at atime.
I was like, Oh, okay.
One thing at a time.
That's a good one.
Let's do it.
And then now I I realized when I am running acompany, it's like, no, you really have to you
really have to do that because if you don'ttake one thing at a time or day by day, then
you'll just get so caught up in everythingthat's going on that you'll just not know how

(59:49):
to to deal with that.
A 100%.
Even on your day to day, like, to do lists,like, you just have to do one thing at a time.
It's all that we're capable of doing.
One other thing I re I thought of that I'venever said before, which is a little more,
like, vulnerable, but, like, I also wasn't acool kid in school.
And I had I just felt like The popular kids,like, which just really didn't like me, and
they were me.

(01:00:09):
And I kind of, you know, I didn't like them,and I wanted to show them that I could be
better and I could do more.
And now, you know, I'm quite old.
I'm gonna be 38 soon, which is really crazy.
And I actually like those people a lot, butit's taken me decades to, like, really start
the opening up and understanding that they'rejust humans just trying to live their lives,

(01:00:31):
just trying to make the best decisions andthat, like, hardship comes in the, like, for
everyone, people lose people in their family.
People get sick.
Like, things happen to all of us, and we justslapped in the face with them.
So I would tell my eighteen year old self to tobe a little bit more patient and maybe try a
little harder to maintain the connection withpeople rather than, like, think about how

(01:00:51):
disconnected I was.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's a great way to end it.
We'll have a link, to latitude, in thedescription below.
So if you wanna check it out, if you're afounder in Latin America, Please do.
And thank you very much, Gina, for taking thetime to join the show.
It was a pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
Thank you, Seamus.
Appreciate it.

(01:01:27):
It's the early 20 tens.
Gina Godhill's visa was about to expire, andshe had to leave the US.
But right before she did, she decided to emaila few people in tech that she thought were
interesting.
It's the early 2010s.
Gina Godhill's it's the early 2010.

(01:01:49):
Gina got Hills Visa was about to expire.
And she had it's 0.20 10ths.
Gina got his visa was about to expire, and shehad to leave the US.
But right before she did, she had this Butright before she did, she decided to email a
few people in tech that she thought wereinteresting.

(01:02:11):
One of those people was Mark Coatney.
Who's on the early team over at Tumbler.
Not long after meeting, Tumbler decided thatthey were ready to expand Internationally in
Brazil.
Where Gina was residing at the time.
So so Mark reaches out to Gina.
And after a little initial hesitation, sheeventually agrees to lead growth for them.

(01:02:35):
So Mark reaches out to Gina.
And after a little initial hesitation, sheeventually agrees to lead growth for them
internationally.
She didn't know it at the time, but it was oneof the most important career decisions she has
ever made.
During that time, she learned the ins and outsof PR.
Once she joined Duil during that time, shelearned the ins and outs of PR.

(01:02:59):
So once she joined Duilingo, Gina used thatsame playbook to grow the company from 3000000
to 200000000 users.
In today's episode, Gina not only shares thatplaybook, but she reveals what but she reveals
what most people get wrong about marketing andcold emails.
This podcast is a master class in storytelling,pitching journalists, and capturing the

(01:03:23):
attention of a large audience.
But before we begin, if you are enjoying theseinterviews, Please let me know by subscribing
below the bigger the show gets, the bigger theinterviews get as well.
I'm eighteen on a mission to learn from thesmartest minds in tech and business And
hopefully, along my journey, I can help you aswell.
Thank you very much, and on to the interviewwith Gina.