Think about how you learned your native language: trying out words, listening to your parents, speaking small fragments, until one day you were talking. Now, think about how you were taught languages in school – the grammar, the emphasis on writing and reading first – and it becomes clear why so few students achieve fluency in a second language.

Enter Speak. The language learning app uses conversational AI to replicate the experience of practicing a new language with a native speaker. It’s an incredibly savvy application of AI achieving remarkable results: just this past year, over 10 million people downloaded the app and took lessons.

This isn’t a fluke. On this episode of Spotlight On, Speak CEO Connor Zwick shares how an early start building apps – which all began with a chance airport encounter – and a 10-year-old thesis on the progression of intelligence inspired him to find the best application for the new technology systematically. He also shares many surprising ways he and his co-founder have chosen to build Speak, including why they launched first in Korea and how they plan to grow into the U.S.

Conversational highlights:

0:00 – Connor’s founder career begins with a serendipitous encounter at the Milwaukee airport

6:24 – How Connor and his co-founder developed a clear conviction that deep intelligence would be able to teach people a new language – in 2015

11:12 – The origins of Speak: from speech recognition to learning flywheel

16:39 – Why Connor and his co-founder decided to launch Speak in Korea first

19:12 – How to think strategically about geography when selecting a market

20:55 – Most people have good startup ideas; it’s conviction that matters

22:45 – Lessons on getting to product-market fit

27:30 – Speak’s strategy for growing into new markets of both geographies and users

32:37 – Connor on building successful consumer AI: “Productizing consumer AI is super hard.”

38:24 – How people actually learn languages vs the way we’re taught languages

41:10 – “You can’t outsource a core competency of your company.”

Speak CEO Connor Zwick on Building the Next Great Language Learning App

Spotlight On

Speak CEO Connor Zwick on Building the Next Great Language Learning App