I have thoroughly enjoyed working on LinguaLeap so far. I have taken several previous classes that involved customer interviews, the business model canvas, market research analysis, etc. so I very much feel at home working on business strategy. In addition, the product direction that LinguaLeap focuses on is language learning, which is a domain that I have been passionate about for years.
To be frank, I think most of the decisions made by the previous fictitious executive team at LinguaLeap are highly questionable and if I were seriously working on a company in this space, I would try to make better-informed choices earlier on to avoid placing my company in such a precarious financial position. The problems raised by our case study document are challenging to address without additional context, but part of the fun is coming up with creative solutions to turn a crisis around, which will almost inevitably occur if you work in a real start-up environment. Forcing me to consider how to 1) differentiate in a crowded space, 2) mitigate declining user retention, 3) reverse slowing growth and increase acquisition of new clients, and 4) address the feasibility of a novel technology, are skills that are incredibly valuable in real life.
In doing our need-finding and solution drafting, our company has settled on continuing to focus on B2B partnerships with universities and drive growth via direct product refinement and pivoting a bit on the value proposition we provide. Previously, there was no clear direction for our app, but we have currently decided to focus on spoken language conversation assisted with AI-based speech analysis and ELO-based matchmaking to partner up users of similar skill levels and enhance their oral conversation skills.
I think one of the more useful things that I have practiced so far, and a core part of what helped drive us to coalesce on a direction, is refining my user interviewing skills. I thrive in 1-1 conversation—being able to hear interesting perspectives from the users that we talk to and encapsulate their thoughts into concrete pain points is one of the most rewarding parts of developing a business. I am sure we will work on validation and other core skills necessary to address our problem, but this is what has stood out to me so far.
Finally, one of my favorite parts of the class has been working with my team. We are composed of seven people total from different backgrounds but almost all of us speak at least one language other than English, so we have direct experiences in this space, and I have found that our respective personalities and strengths complement each other very well. Our conversations both in and out of class have been delightful.
Overall, I am looking forward to what the second half of this quarter brings!
