It’s a well-known fact that Indians look at speaking in English as a major accomplishment. It will fetch you better job offers, earn you greater respect in society and even help you secure better marriage prospects.
There are a lot of undeniable advantages to speaking in English. This is the reach of English learning apps between July 2016 and April 2017.
Remarkably, few apps apart from culture alley’s Hello English have taken advantage of the proliferation of smartphones in India to teach English to the growing number of Internet users. If the next 100 million people who enter the Internet ecosystem don’t speak English, they will soon want to. Let’s face it — the English Internet is far more compelling the Hindi Internet.
Turns out though, that Indians don’t want to just learn English. They want to go beyond. Apps like Memrise and Duolingo are growing in India. That they even show up on our radar was a surprise to me. These apps focus majorly on the learning of international languages
I’ve tried to use Memrise (to learn Spanish) and it’s pretty good. I now know how to say ‘where is the bus station’ and rather ironically ‘I don’t understand too much spanish’.
Had I not been lazy and stuck with it, I know the results would have been better. Another friend of mine learnt Italian using Duo Lingo. Enough to get by living there.
Intuitively, I would have said that we are the exceptions. But for whatever reason — to teach their kids a new language, for immigration purposes or to help with their jobs — clearly, there are a lot of people like us — keen on learning new languages.
Of course, we’ve discussed this subject before. Why do I keep coming back to this topic? Because there are so many lessons in there (no pun intended). As investors and entrepreneurs, we tend to look for the next big frontier. Much of this is simply the result of how venture capital works. You need to hit it out of the park to stay in the game.
But the result of this single minded pursuit of greatness is that more often than not, entrepreneurs lose out. Since language learning isn’t sexy for investors/ it’s been there, done that — you won’t get into it. Per me, this theme has barely been explored. As more people gain access to the Internet & smartphones (which they will); they will need better tools to navigate the new world around them. The ability to speak in English will be one such tool.
Similarly, globally, the need to learn languages like German, Spanish & Italian etc. is an established paradigm. There is no reason why an Indian company cannot hope to cater to this audience. After all, if Chinese & German companies can acquire customers in India, why can’t we turn the tables? For the CAC we are paying today, may as well get customers with a higher propensity to pay.
The one thing we have established beyond doubt is that investors here are willing to hand out the cash. It’s up to entrepreneurs to go to them with superior business models and show them the value.
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
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You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
