Launch HN: Poliglota (YC W21) – The Language School for Latam
In Latam, English is the #1 thing a person can do to increase their income, and despite so many efforts people, companies and governments are making, only 2% of the total population in Latam is really able to speak English fluently (B1 level according to the CEFR). We discovered that apps and traditional learning models weren't working as people think, and the only way to achieve fluency without leaving your country is to have a great service, focused in social practice with others.
We lived this ourselves. Having been raised in Chile in different backgrounds and cities, we experienced ourselves how poorly build is the whole language industry in our country.
Later we realized that this is a reality of many countries, affecting millions of people worldwide.
So what we did is to hack the system: Instead of big classrooms where a teacher speaks, or lonely apps that gives you a some content without real improvement, we studied and implemented the perfect mixture between personalization and interaction:
We designed an online learning experience, by gathering people in small groups of 6 people through video conference, led by an instructor that we call "language coaches", with skill-based progress. You can learn everything you need to speak a new language (grammar, speaking, listening, writing) but everything is done through interaction. With powerful exercises that allow people to push forward their own learning possibilities.
To join, people just choose a plan (4, 6 or 12 months) and then join a group of people of their same level, and will stay with them for 8 sessions. The coach will provide a number of activities, games and exercises to push the learning experience, facilitating the development of specific language skills in each session.
Every skill being developed can be tracked in the student dashboard, so students and teacher can both get a better perception of their progress in real time.
More than 12,000 students have learnt English, French, Italian, German or Portuguese using Poliglota, and every month we conduct over 4,200 live classes. We are having a monthly revenue of $300K and going up. We are expecting to reach $5M in sales in 2021.
We'd love to hear the feedback from the HN community! (For now, our service is only available for Spanish-speaking users)