Speakly

Speakly is a Tallinn, Estonia-based language-learning company operating a web and mobile application. Its method sequences vocabulary by statistical relevance, teaching the 4,000 most-used words of a target language in the order in which learners are most likely to encounter them in everyday life, and combining this with writing and speaking exercises, grammar material, listening exercises and simulated real-life situations. Spaced repetition is used to move newly learned material into long-term memory, and the program adjusts to each learner's pace.

The product is built on the "LIVE-methodology", an original language-learning method published in 2012 by co-founder Ott Ojamets after five years of research, teaching, translating and language learning. The company describes the underlying technology — statistical relevance word lists and mathematical algorithms — as developed over several years by language experts from four countries. Courses are offered in Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese (BR), Russian, Spanish and Swedish, with English also taught; lifetime plans reference access to 11 language courses.

Founding story

Co-founder Ott Ojamets began researching how to learn languages faster more than eleven years before the company's about-page account, and in 2012 published the "LIVE-methodology" after five years of researching, teaching, learning and translating foreign languages. In 2016 Ingel Keskpaik joined him to build an international team to test and research the methodology, and the company was founded in 2018 by the two founders, who each speak seven languages. Ojamets serves as CEO and Keskpaik as COO.

Business model

Consumer subscription software. Speakly sells access to its self-study courses through paid plans following a seven-day free trial, with payments processed via Stripe and PayPal and invoicing available on request. Alongside recurring packages, the company offers one-time-payment Lifetime and Family Lifetime products (the latter covering up to four individual accounts) that include all 11 language courses, web and mobile apps, unlimited feature access and ongoing content updates, subject to a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Paid consumer plans: recurring subscription packages and one-time-payment Lifetime/Family Lifetime licences, all entered through a 7-day free trial.

Traction

At the time of the 2020 seed round lessons were available in eight languages; the company subsequently offers 11 language courses. Speakly states its platform has been used by thousands of learners, and that some of the angel investors in its seed round were users of the platform. The team numbers more than 30 people from over eight countries.

Latest developments

Speakly markets Lifetime and Family Lifetime one-time-payment plans covering all 11 language courses on web and mobile, and promotes a Speakly Community feature offering practice functionality that requires individual eligibility, 18+ confirmation and phone verification.