His AI Language Learning App: $9K/Month in 16 Months

Fabien Snauwaert is the founder of Gliglish, which he describes as…

a new way to learn languages by speaking with AI.

You just speak into your mic and enjoy a conversation with a language teacher. Or you can roleplay a real-life situation, like buying a croissant at the bakery.

📝 In a recent interview, Fabien revealed…

It’s been exactly 16 months and revenue is now at €8K [almost $9K per month].

But this isn’t his first rodeo…

I dropped out of college to play video games. Then I got a low-paying IT job and started working on an ebook on the side. Revenue was then between 30 and 500 bucks per month, for about 5 years.

(I’m guessing this is that ebook, found via.)

After that…

I created a few books and courses and was able to go full time. But things got really interesting once I created a webapp for people to learn English. It made over €560K in total revenue… but that’s over the course of 9 years.

€560K over 9 years = €62K / $68K per year 💰

Here’s that app: Click & Speak

Fabien’s description of it (source)…

Learn the top 5,000 words in American English, with the correct pronunciation and grammar, through meaningful sentences you will remember.

(I wonder if you could build the same app but for another language? 🤔)

Fabien has taught himself to code along the way…

I was making HTML pages when I was 16, with a bit of vanilla JavaScript. And then I just learned everything on the go. Got a question? Google it. Or now ChatGPT/Cursor it.

How he built Gliglish…

Took me two days to get a basic prototype. It didn’t really work but was enough to get a sense that it could. Then it took me 37 days to make it work…

I launched like an idiot 2 days before Christmas, because I was broke af.

I have a newsletter for French people learning English. I always use it to launch products. It’s my financial safety net.

Looks like this is his newsletter, with 49k subscribers.

Fabien has obviously been building up that audience for years and it’s like a secret weapon for him now when releasing a new product 💪

However, when he launched Gliglish…

People were enthusiastic about it, but the product didn’t work so well just yet. I was clear I was still working on it though. It made only €615 in the first 30 days, so not exactly a homerun.

He kept trying…

Got zero sale when I launched on Product Hunt. I’d been agonizing the launch, and all this effort and worry was for nothing.

We’ve featured lots of stories in this newsletter where Product Hunt worked a treat. Which goes to show that you never know what will work. You have to keep trying different things until something hits 🎯

And that’s what Fabien did…

People started talking about Gliglish once I posted on HackerNews. I was #2 on the site for a split second.

Then I started getting traffic from AI directories and people into AI on TikTok & Instagram and that’s when things started going viral.

Which has led him to $9K in monthly revenue, with plenty of room to grow 📈

Fabien’s advice for others…

Iterate more… It took me 17 years to ship 9 products, it’s a mistake. If I’d iterated faster (instead of dragging too long on/between projects) I’d have gotten to the nice results faster.

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