The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman.
If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.
Show Notes
Tap timecodes to jump
Cem Kansu is the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, where he leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Since joining Duolingo, Cem has played a pivotal role in driving record user engagement, revenue growth, and product innovation, including the launch of Duolingo Math and the wildly successful Duolingo Music. Under his leadership, the company has consistently ranked as the #1 education app globally.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
– Cem's Origin Story: From Google Ads to Saving Duolingo's Business
– "Mini CEO" Myth: Why PMs Need to Ditch the Ego
– The Truth About Design Speed and Pixel Perfection
– The INSANE Story Behind Duolingo's Viral Chess Launch
– Why Smaller Teams Are the Future of Product
– Duolingo's AI Playbook: How They're Building 10x Faster
– Will Engineers Even Exist in 5 Years? Cem Gets Real
– Do AI Tools Have ANY Defensibility? Cem Doesn't Hold Back
– Why Duolingo Took So Long to Monetize (And What They Learned)
– Cem on Killing Ads, Tasteful Monetization, and Investor Doubt
– The Secret to Duolingo's Paywall Strategy (And What Not to Do)
– Cem's Weirdest Retention Hack? A Single Emoji…
– The Crazy Science Behind Push Notifications at Duolingo
– In-App Purchases Done Right: GEMS, Freeze, and the Psychology of Value
– Why Cem Thinks Daily Retention Is the King Metric
– The ONE Product Feature That Changed Duolingo Forever
– Will Duolingo Become the Disney of Gen Z?
– Dating on Duolingo?! Cem Reacts to Harry's Craziest Product Ideas
– Cem's Biggest Product Mistakes — And What He'd Kill Tomorrow
– The One Thing Every PM Must Do to Survive the AI Wave
– Duolingo in 20 Years: Cem's Wildest Vision Yet
Transcript not yet processed.
Sign in to unlock (1 credit)
Free to start
Full transcripts, AI insights,
Full transcripts, AI insights,
episode chat — free.
Sign up with Google in one click. 10 unlock credits included. No card needed.
Google sign-in · No credit card · Cancel anytime