March 29, 2010 at 18:38English online with LinguaLeo.ru: born in the jungle of Thailand!
At the end of August 2009, we made the final decision on where to develop the web service: Koh Chang Island, Thailand. The team was assembled in 1.5 months from different parts of our vast country: Moscow, Kirov, Perm. The only purpose of the trip to this wonderful country was set: by joint efforts to create the most convenient and popular online service for learning and practicing foreign languages.
The startup team included five people: two PHP developers, a usability designer, a young and talented marketing specialist, and the founder of the project. On October 17, 2009, the entire team had already arrived on the island with the firm intention to implement the project.
We found ourselves in exceptional conditions: the sea, the sun, +35 degrees of heat, all the affairs and concerns of the usual city life were far behind.
In the living room of a large Thai house at the foot of the jungle of Koh Chang Island, they equipped a full-fledged office for team work: they hung a large white board, a flipchart, cork boards for stickers, surfed the Internet, bought a coffee maker, a lot of coffee, markers, chairs and tables. Then, life was established: they bought dishes, rented motorbikes for freedom of movement, agreed with suppliers of drinking water and established contacts with local sellers of fresh vegetables and fruits.
After that, we spent more than two weeks in a series of brainstorming, as a result of which a conceptual model of a web service for learning foreign languages was created (this is probably the topic for a separate post, which we will publish if you are interested in details).
The vision of Ainur, the founder of the project, was based on a three-year “preparation” for the project, an analysis of the needs of language learners, language schools, a thorough study of the market and its global players. Among them: LiveMocha, RosettaStone, Busuu and others. Two years of work on the development of the offline project “Club of Speakers of Language” gave a deep understanding of the true needs of students of foreign languages. Success stories of people who have successfully mastered a foreign language made it clear that it is equally interesting and effective to master a living language, listen to the speech of native speakers, communicate in the language being studied.
People are tired of dry training aids! They want to watch foreign films, follow the world's best media, read original literature in a foreign language, listen to music and do it here and now, choosing what they like. YouTube, Vimeo, DotSub, LibriVox, and, after all, Google provide an excellent opportunity to find interesting content in, say, English. However, there is one “but”: all these web services are only suitable for those who are fluent in English. Their use does not provide sufficient opportunity to learn the language.
Firstly, to find content worthy of mastering without knowing the language at least at an intermediate level is practically impossible. Secondly, these resources will show a lot of links, among which it is difficult to choose the right material for the format and topic due to the abundance of random and "garbage" offers. There is the so-called effect of intoxication. Thirdly, without additional tools, such as, say, a convenient context dictionary, translator and an interface that is understandable for a Russian person, it will be difficult to choose what is needed. Fourth, there is so far little structured multimedia content on the Internet in the format of “video with text” and “audio with text”. And finally, fifthly, these sources are not designed for the specific needs of foreign language learners. That is why it was decided to create a special product in which it is possible to implement an interesting and effective approach to learning languages via the Internet.
It took 4 long, but at the same time, short months of team development in Thailand. And on March 1, 2010, a beta version of the LinguaLeo.ru web service was launched. Now the LinguaLeo.ru service is actively developing, among other things, after a few days, voicing of words and phrases will appear, in the near future the project will begin to monetize according to the freemium model. And we are still on the island of Koh Chang and continue to work! Here is a story of our beginning!
In this blog we will talk about the development of the project, answer questions and discuss the prospects for its development.
Try what is now , express your ideas, wishes and comments!
The startup team included five people: two PHP developers, a usability designer, a young and talented marketing specialist, and the founder of the project. On October 17, 2009, the entire team had already arrived on the island with the firm intention to implement the project.
We found ourselves in exceptional conditions: the sea, the sun, +35 degrees of heat, all the affairs and concerns of the usual city life were far behind.
In the living room of a large Thai house at the foot of the jungle of Koh Chang Island, they equipped a full-fledged office for team work: they hung a large white board, a flipchart, cork boards for stickers, surfed the Internet, bought a coffee maker, a lot of coffee, markers, chairs and tables. Then, life was established: they bought dishes, rented motorbikes for freedom of movement, agreed with suppliers of drinking water and established contacts with local sellers of fresh vegetables and fruits.
After that, we spent more than two weeks in a series of brainstorming, as a result of which a conceptual model of a web service for learning foreign languages was created (this is probably the topic for a separate post, which we will publish if you are interested in details).
The vision of Ainur, the founder of the project, was based on a three-year “preparation” for the project, an analysis of the needs of language learners, language schools, a thorough study of the market and its global players. Among them: LiveMocha, RosettaStone, Busuu and others. Two years of work on the development of the offline project “Club of Speakers of Language” gave a deep understanding of the true needs of students of foreign languages. Success stories of people who have successfully mastered a foreign language made it clear that it is equally interesting and effective to master a living language, listen to the speech of native speakers, communicate in the language being studied.
People are tired of dry training aids! They want to watch foreign films, follow the world's best media, read original literature in a foreign language, listen to music and do it here and now, choosing what they like. YouTube, Vimeo, DotSub, LibriVox, and, after all, Google provide an excellent opportunity to find interesting content in, say, English. However, there is one “but”: all these web services are only suitable for those who are fluent in English. Their use does not provide sufficient opportunity to learn the language.
Firstly, to find content worthy of mastering without knowing the language at least at an intermediate level is practically impossible. Secondly, these resources will show a lot of links, among which it is difficult to choose the right material for the format and topic due to the abundance of random and "garbage" offers. There is the so-called effect of intoxication. Thirdly, without additional tools, such as, say, a convenient context dictionary, translator and an interface that is understandable for a Russian person, it will be difficult to choose what is needed. Fourth, there is so far little structured multimedia content on the Internet in the format of “video with text” and “audio with text”. And finally, fifthly, these sources are not designed for the specific needs of foreign language learners. That is why it was decided to create a special product in which it is possible to implement an interesting and effective approach to learning languages via the Internet.
It took 4 long, but at the same time, short months of team development in Thailand. And on March 1, 2010, a beta version of the LinguaLeo.ru web service was launched. Now the LinguaLeo.ru service is actively developing, among other things, after a few days, voicing of words and phrases will appear, in the near future the project will begin to monetize according to the freemium model. And we are still on the island of Koh Chang and continue to work! Here is a story of our beginning!
In this blog we will talk about the development of the project, answer questions and discuss the prospects for its development.
Try what is now , express your ideas, wishes and comments!