Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Spaced Repetition on App Engine

Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by briansmith on Monday April 13, 2009 @11:58PM (#560969)

There's so many competitors entering the market, it will be hard for anybody to charge much more than $5. Plus, almost everybody is using the same set of language data, so it is difficult to differentiate. There are already tons of completely free hobbyist- and university- created tools available if you know where to look. Plus, textbook publishers generally provide a suite of (sometimes free) apps to complement their textbooks.

Luckily, I don't think there is any place for ad-financed products (ads are too distracting when you are trying to memorize stuff like this), so there won't be many free commercial systems.

I am building something very similar to this. I have to say I am very impressed with what Skritter has done so far.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by patio11 on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @12:13AM (#560988)

There's so many competitors entering the market, it will be hard for anybody to charge much more than $5

Are you acquainted with Rosetta Stone? They sell language learning software in the "couple of hundred dollars" range. And they're pretty freaking big.

it is difficult to differentiate

People always tell me that about my product. It isn't true for me, and my product is substantially more boring and smaller in scope than learning the key to accessing the history/culture/economic potential of China. A short list of points to differentiate on would be who you sell to, what level of learners you target, what focus of learners you target, visual design, etc etc.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by briansmith on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @01:25AM (#561046)

You were actually part of the inspiration for me getting into this market; I even have "bingo card creator" in my notebook.

There are definitely many interesting aspects of this market. I don't think it is impossible to differentiate or I wouldn't be in it. But, I really do think that prices for formal educational books, materials, and software are all heading towards $0 fast.

Rosetta Stone really has executed brilliantly in its segment of the market. It sales and marketing effort has been top-notch. It is also interesting to see how they are attempting to cross over from do-it-yourself language learners to traditional language learners. I would love to know what they are charging schools for their software.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by nwinter on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @03:52AM (#561163)

A lot, I think. Some of the libraries we called had switched to Mango because Rosetta Stone had become too expensive.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by lacker on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @01:30AM (#561051)

You've probably already thought about this, but the corporate market is pretty large for language learning. I work for a big company with offices in many countries so they strongly encourage learning other languages. And the corporate expense department won't blink an eye at spending a few hundred dollars for language learning software. If you get a reputation for being the best product in your space, it is worth quite a lot more than $5 per customer.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by briansmith on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @01:50AM (#561071)

There is definitely a great difference in the price that customers are willing to pay in different segments of the market--especially K-12 vs. college vs. non-traditional learners.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by nwinter on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:27AM (#561183)

Ah, yes, you're right. Perhaps I'll also say that there aren't a lot of effective competitors, especially for Chinese writing.

We are making our own set of language data, which is a lot of work but which does help differentiate because students can see we have their textbook.

I always wonder how similar "very similar" is. Of course I'm curious. We haven't seen anything that (we think) is similar yet.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by briansmith on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @11:44AM (#561654)

Right now, my product is notably different than your product. But, I think the natural evolution of my product, combined with the natural evolution of your product, means they will end up being very similar. There's lots of SLA software for years, but also I noticed a lot of new SLA software that is pretty slick. I think there's going to be a lot of "effective" competition soon.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by dbul on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @02:20PM (#561955)

Yep, including one of the startups I'm working on. Good luck to you. がんばって。

edit: p.s. our idea was rejected by yc, so maybe it is a terrible idea. we still think it is great which is why we are working on it.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by nwinter on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @08:10PM (#562636)

Ours did too. Well, it's probably more fair to say that it was us and not the idea. We didn't have a lot going for us on paper.

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Re:Ask HN: Feedback on Skritter, Learning Chinese with Space... by dbul on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @02:34PM (#563921)

"And in actual fact it is very rare to hear a good idea from a group we don't want to fund." -- pg

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=548299

My co-founder noted that the rejection email contradicted this, but I'm sure there is some there is an explanation such as we are bad at selecting successful startups. It is tough to really know for sure, because while some of the groups selected fail, some of the ones who ought to have been selected will never succeed on their own when they may have with some guidance. So don't blame yourself, there are two parties involved and neither are God, just human.

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