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Duolingo founder on the key to solving retention “The way we solved [retention] was just through trial and error,” Duolingo founder Luis Von Ahn explains. “By now, some of us have some intuition about what is good for gamification, but the reality is that most of it is just... show more
18,856 views • 1 month ago •via X (Twitter)
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Well one advantage is the freezes so streaks remain intact. Social networks don’t have that … yet

16k A/B tests is the part people underestimate. Most of us ship a feature and hope. The discipline of testing the tiny stuff is what actually compounds retention.

that's the truth. retention isn't a science yet, it's more like guessing until something sticks

Duolingo is a reminder that product excellence is often less about genius and more about consistency. 16,000 A/B tests. Small improvements. Repeated relentlessly. Compounding works in products just as it works in investing.

That’s exactly the experience I’ve had with first, I didn’t necessarily have a reason to come back the next day. But over time, you start noticing all these small mechanisms that make you want to return, keep your progress going, and do just a little more. There’s even a sense of self-reward: after a long day, even when you’re tired, you still open Duolingo and spend five minutes completing a lesson. And you feel good about having done it. That’s when you realize what 16,000 A/B tests can achieve: turning a few minutes of learning into a habit.

basically the same as good judgment in general. Nobody starts with the instinct, you get it from doing the reps thousands of times, not from being naturally clever
