Duolingo

Toucan: Duolingo as a Chrome plugin via contextual learning

Toucan is a Chrome extension that swaps a handful of words on every article you read into the language you want to learn, so you absorb a language while browsing instead of opening a separate app.

“It's called Toucan and it's basically the really dumbed down version is it's like Duolingo, which is a language learning website, but it's a Chrome plugin and it changes a handful of words of every article that you're reading into the language that you wanna learn. So it's contextual learning.”

Steal thisRemove the 'open a separate app' step — embed the learning into something the user already does all day.

Kill the 'separate activity' to beat user friction

Shaan argues the real barrier to habits like learning a language isn't difficulty — it's the friction of starting a separate activity. Toucan wins by shifting a few words on pages you're already browsing, so learning happens passively without a dedicated session.

“And the biggest friction is not that it's that hard to learn a language. It's hard to make the time to like sit down, open the book or download the app, open the app and focus and just do Duolingo for 30 minutes a day. Um, it doesn't sound that hard, but in practice it's like, it's a separate thing to do. What I think is super smart about what Toucan is doing is you don't have to make it a separate thing.”

Steal thisEmbed the desired behavior into an existing habit instead of asking users to start a new one.

Luis von Ahn: invented reCAPTCHA, then founded Duolingo on the same trick

Sam and Shaan marvel that Luis von Ahn invented CAPTCHA/reCAPTCHA — monetizing human verification as free labor — and then built Duolingo on the same idea, where learners translate paid third-party content while studying. 'This guy's a genius.'

“He did both. And that guy started Duolingo.”