First language learning apps campaign checklist

A first language learning apps campaign at founder scale. Numbered so you can stop lying to yourself about which step you skipped.

Confirm a live listing whose first screenshot is a spoken prompt, not a cartoon league actually closes. Creators cannot fix packaging.
Write the avatar in a sentence: US English, 20-32, already bounced off Duolingo streaks and a dusty Anki deck, watches ‘I studied Spanish for four years and cannot order food’ and immersion-shame videos on the commute.
Write the problem in their mouth: I can match the pictures. I cannot say the sentence when a person is waiting.
Write what they already quit: Duolingo, Anki they abandoned after 800 cards, and a community college night class they ghosted.
Write what they watch: Duolingo hate, immersion vlogs, ‘I froze at the counter’, comprehensible input arguments.
Write the reject: the polyglot with a wall of flags who is selling a $199 method.
Write adjacent so the phone does not smear: travel shame, subtitle arguments, not kids’ alphabet songs.
Put that sentence into the brief
Scroll as them on a fresh Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube account. Example to look for: someone screenshotting a 1200-day Duolingo streak and then failing a simple greeting. Signal: the same ‘four years and cannot order food’ face on two commutes.
Keep a 50k average-view floor. Below that, $700 a post for 1k views is a money sink.
Skip #languagelearning as a roster method.
Email. The contact is usually in a Linktree under a $199 method; say you are buying one app demo, not a bundle. Name a real video. Ask for the phone number.
If they won’t give a number, move on. Method-sellers quote course prices because that is their real product.
On the call, Minimum View Guarantee. Example: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Talent extra.
Send the contract while the yes is still warm. Scout $1,500 / Outreach $2,500 / Dealmaker $5,000.
A working lesson they can finish in four minutes.
Tell them what to film: open the drill, speak the counter sentence, close it. Subtitles off. Do not ask them to film a 30-day fluency challenge. Ask them to fail a sentence, then pass it in the app.
Give each creator their own code. Unique App Store codes, not ‘me too’ comments under a Duolingo rant.
Do not run a launch day on the same morning if you wanted isolation.
Two follow-ups, then stop. If you do this right, ie at scale, you will have many other creators to choose from.

Doing the scroll by hand is kind of soul-crushing. One like on a polyglot flags video and the phone will serve courses for a month. No demo. No download guarantee. You approve every creator and every rate.

The anti-Duolingo rant is already a genre; an app that drills the sentence they actually need can ride that rant without becoming another owl.

First language learning apps campaign checklist

Related