Thank, Tell & Gift HN: From Lone Nut to Launch, the Story of TripLingo
THANK

In early 2010 I was living in Vietnam and was struck by what I thought was a brilliant idea. Based on expat dinners I hosted where the rule was to only speak Vietnamese, I realized how everyone was different, in both personality and intent (to learn a language). Everyone should have a unique set of phrases to learn! In addition, I realized the power of talking like the locals actually spoke, rather than in formal “Mr. Rogers”—y ways. And thus, the idea for TripLingo was born.

I quit my job, packed my stuff, and moved to India. I’d always wanted to go there, it was easy to get to, and I knew it’d be cheap to live. Spending ~10 days in each city and accompanied with a USB internet stick, for the next 6 months I moved around and fleshed out the plan for TripLingo, including a prototype built in Excel. (Alas, I’m not a real hacker.)

I wouldn’t say I was exactly lonely, but in many ways I was alone. In every place that I was (except Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Bombay), I didn’t really have anyone to bounce ideas off of, or people that could help me think through some of the more technical/marketing aspects of what I wanted to do.

Thus, my sincere thanks to HN. During that time, I was practically addicted to HN, and the daily (or hourly) doses of insights/thoughts/stories kept me motivated, confident (usually), and happy. More importantly, it was like I’d stuck my mouth around a firehose of ideas that were being shoved down my throat. My poor body couldn’t properly digest all of them, but over time I learned a ton (and continue to do so).

TELL

When I returned home in time for Christmas, I was a lowly business dude with a business plan. When I started to reach out to potential investors, a funny thing happened: they told me I needed a team first. But I needed money to hire a team! Wrong.

After getting told to my face that I needed a team plenty of times, I finally started to believe it. Long story short- through sheer obnoxiousness I was able to get the last spot at Startup Weekend in Atlanta with just 45 minutes to spare. My intent was just to meet potential co-founders, but instead TripLingo was one of the top 10 ideas, and all of a sudden 12 people were building it with me over a weekend! We ended up winning the event, and by the end of that week, I was able to raise $30K and had a “weapons-grade” team of 7. Two weeks later we were voted the winner out of 50 startups at Startup Riot, and two months later is today.

Now, after 3 months of toil and fun and setbacks, we’re launching our first 3 products: Spanish for Mexico, German & French. (TripLingo is a personalized phrase book that teaches you how to talk like the locals, including formal, casual, slang, and crazy versions of each phrase.)

Its hard to describe the feeling of seeing a dream become reality, but it’s a mixture of relief, happiness, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense that its just the beginning. But it’s a good feeling.

GIVE

As a small token of my thanks for HN (and our team’s- we’re all regulars), wanted to offer 20 promo codes to HN’ers to get the app for free if you’ve got an iPhone. Otherwise its $4.99 for Spanish (for Cinco de Mayo and our launch!) and $9.99 for the rest. Here’s the address to get them, clickables below!

http://www.triplingo.com/promos/blog?name=HackerNews

Cheers and gracias,
Jesse