Founder Profile: Creating An Immersive Language Learning Experience

While working on her PhD dissertation, Dr. Linda studied the efficacy of learning in a virtual classroom v. the physical classroom. The results were quite surprising in that the students that took a course in a 3D online virtual classroom built by us, had higher learning outcomes than those who took the same course, from the same professor in the traditional classroom. We then decided that LANGUAGE TRAINING would be the best way to show the power of virtual immersion.  

I have been fortunate to have previously run 2 of America’s 50 fastest growing Technology companies. When I saw the astonishing results students were getting from FluentWorlds, I decided this would be #3.

First, no one has a virtual immersion method utilizing gaming technologies and 3D that FluentWorlds has. All previously created Apps and language methods focus on memorization and flashcard type technologies. We give people an opportunity to learn experientially and in context in 55 different virtual environments like an airport, a hotel, a grocery store, doctor’s office – even Virtual Las Vegas.

Second, The Father of the Amazon Echo helped build our speech recognition system – it gives the user the world’s most advanced real-time feedback at the sound or phoneme level.

Third, we have the highest rated language training App in the world. DuoLingo has spent $100 Million and yet Fluentworlds has a HIGHER RATING ON ITUNES. Apple gives us 5 Stars and a 4.85 rating.

Fourth, we not only have our DIY Apps, but we have created a LIVE online learning platform -the FluentWorlds live online Academy – combining the best of Google Hangouts, Slack, and Virtual Reality with 3d characters in a series of virtual worlds.

Fifth, the team – a number of previous exits, the world’s most talented young hyperpolyglot, Tim Doner, Jeff Adams of Amazon Echo fame, Dr. Linda Bradford with her ground-altering work in 3d environment- and I have won Utah’s CEO of the year and been given 2 of the State’s most prestigious Life-time achievement awards.

Ask the Millions of kids that are addicted to video games.  Video games are a dominant form of entertainment today because they are immersive, exciting, motivating, and often collaborative.

Now – imagine a classroom or an App where instead of having video games interfering with learning, video game technology is at the core of the instructional paradigm. Enter FluentWorlds – the provider of the world’s most sophisticated 3D/VR game platform for language learning.

16-35 year old’s have been our best market. Young professionals. Essentially – it is anyone that wants to  learn English to improve their careers. Further, anyone who has ever used ANY language training system from Berlitz to Rosetta Stone to DuoLingo. They love our unique virtual immersion system.

Right now, we only teach English. We started there because it is the language of the internet and the lingua franca of business. 2/3rds of all monies spent annually on language training are just to learn English. We plan to flip the app to teach Spanish and Mandarin during this year.

We charge 10 bucks a month. Users get to play the first 2 of 55 virtual adventures for Free. We have 90% retention so we know our users are getting value.

We really don’t know how much they charge. Our language training is so differentiated that it kind of does not matter what they charge.

We first  localized our Apps for use by native Spanish speakers who want to learn English. We had over half-million downloads and over 6000 paying subscribers from Spanish speakers living in the USA alone.

We have now added 17 source languages like Mandarin, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Vietnamese, etc. We have not even begun marketing to these latter markets. There are 1.7 Billion people studying English on the planet. ALL OF THEM SHOULD BE FLUENTWORLDS CUSTOMERS. We will use digital and social media around the globe to scale.

Our Cost for acquiring a Paying subscriber ranges between $20 and $35 Dollars. Because we have 90% retention, our LTV is about 9 to 10 months which equates to about  $90 or $100 dollars of LTV.

The key to running any business is to create a great, cash flowing business. Then all options become available. We certainly have the technology to be a standalone language training business but if one of the large ed Tech companies like Pearson or itutor Group in China come calling with a big check, we would consider that.

50% marketing and paid advertising on Social sites to drive App Sales – we have found a profitable revenue model. 20%  for creation a version of FluentWorlds to teach Spanish and Mandarin. 20% for salaries, and hiring sales talent and programmers. 5% for Creation of Videos and other marketing content. 5% Patents and IP protection.