Jake Jolis
Cofounder & CEO at Verbling
Verbling began as the Chatroulette, or a speed-dating version of language learning. At one point it was hailed as the best free software you’ve never heard of, and one of 150 brilliant new things you must try online. It competes with ventures such as Livemocha, Voxy, PlaySay, Duolingo, and Busuu. This venture continues to use video chat to connect language learners with live native speakers – basically virtual language immersion. The venture began as a site that paired people up according to language and experience level. For example, a Spanish speaker wanting to learn English will be randomly paired with an English speaker learning Spanish, and they would take turns exchanging in conversation. The venture has since expanded into live tutoring services, and classes delivered through video chat. It appears the emphasis of the site has since transitioned to selling subscriptions for the online classes and tutoring services.
Jake Jolis founded Verbling in 2011 with two fellow Stanford classmates. Cofounder Mikael Bernstein realized that his Russian improved when studying abroad and speaking it every day. Then, like many others learning a new language, finding language partners back home proved to be a struggle, which led to the idea to use the Internet to connect language learners with one another. Jolis subsequently dropped out of Stanford after his sophomore year to build Verbling when Y Combinator funded the startup. He raised his first round of funding at age 20, and his second at 22. Jolis also sits on the advisory board of GuestDo. Jolis speaks Swedish, French and Spanish.
Reflection
I think in its original form, this was a brilliant idea, and an attractive investment opportunity for a venture capitalist seeking large returns. It had the potential to get users talking and engaging enough to actually make progress with language attainment, because it was easy, spontaneous, non-threatening and fun. The new iteration, focusing on online classes and tutoring, fails to set itself apart from the myriad other virtual language learning ventures out there. In fact I was not able to locate the Chatroulette feature, which was was the unique aspect of the venture. This has apparently become an afterthought or is no longer an option.
The multi billion dollar language learning market will be disrupted by the solution that solves the problem of engagement. Educators understand the importance of engagement and immersion. I have personally tried many language learning solutions including Rosettastone software, university classes etc., but I found that the most beneficial has been one-on-one, or small group engagement with fluent speakers. I believe the venture that somehow captures this engagement problem in a fun, easy, spontaneous and unobtrusive way will gain the critical mass required to succeed and own the market.
Aaron,
Verbling is certainly an innovative twist to the chat site. I’m not sure how established they are at the moment though. Their jobs section (https://www.verbling.com/jobs) implies that they have less than ten employees (they say “The first ten team members shape the company’s culture, a culture that will mean everything as the organization scales. Therefore, we look for those with founder mentality. We want to bring on board people who take initiative, who aren’t afraid of responsibility, and who understand the inherent value in moving fast and taking risks. “). Also, the jobs on offer are key development positions for scaling up (backend engineer, frontend engineer, UI designer).
The practice groups are small – which is a good thing. There are 22 groups listed with 4-8 people per group. I guess this is the chat side of the service. You can probably get that many people together with the help of a campus student guild.
The Terms and Privacy pages are blank (at least they are when I try to bring them up).
I believe that this is extremely early days for this venture. I like their honesty in making this apparent though. Perhaps it is not really a venture, but an assignment for a course similar to this one. But it can become a real company if people sign up for the services (early adopters needed!) and they get their development team together.
It looks like they used wordpress. Great design. It sounds like they have a great idea – an awesome idea.
-ChrisW