Entry 202-1 Build in Public 2 min ↩ back to the timeline

Five thousand for five percent

The year opens with the first investment they actually accept: a family investor offers $5,000 for 5%, aimed squarely at Severo, because he's paid Babbel subscriptions himself and watches Duolingo bleed disillusioned users. The plan: one million a month each in frugal salaries, a contador, marketing, and key users, while the Play Console counts down three final days.

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Source transmission · “0 to 1 Million” diary

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The offer that opens 2026 is everything the padrino’s wasn’t. A family-side investor says it plainly: he’d invest in him, because he trusts him ▸ 17:49, and puts a number down: $5,000 ▸ 18:13, nearly nineteen million pesos ▸ 18:20. He wants the focus on Severo ▸ 18:30, and his thesis is a user’s, not an uncle’s: he’s paid for Babbel-class subscriptions himself ▸ 18:40, and he’s watched the year’s Duolingo backlash, people monetized hard who feel they learned nothing, drifting off the app ▸ 18:52. Exiting users need somewhere to land; timing is the pitch. Asked what the money buys, Juan Pablo says 5%, and the answer is yes ▸ 19:25.

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The budget is founder-frugal: about a million pesos a month each, viable because they live with his parents ▸ 20:37, with the rest for the contador, real marketing, and key users who give tangible feedback ▸ 21:14. The first such user already reported in: Julia, who spent New Year’s Eve on Severo’s Italian and found it lacking tempo, the timer-and-streak pulse Sanfanson had ▸ 6:25, plus an exploit: the answer words visible below invite copying instead of effort ▸ 6:55. His synthesis is two modes, a timed game and a free-practice mode ▸ 21:37, defending the slow one with his own Greek discovery, that untimed study let him notice Greek words read like math formulas because math borrowed the letters ▸ 22:41. Three days remain on Google’s clock ▸ 7:45; for once, money is waiting on the other side of it…

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