How I'd grow Topics

Topics is a mobile app that aims to be like Duolingo but for people who already know the basics of a language and want to go a step further.

The app is new so they decided to start with only Spanish. I think limiting the scope to a single language is a good idea to refine the product and iterate based on customer feedback. When they think they've reached product/market fit that will be the moment to add other languages and scale.

The idea behind the app is to create language lessons around topics people are interested in to make learning fun.

What I think should be their first goal would be to try to understand who exactly their ideal customers are.

There are two options, each with pros and cons.

They could stay broad, try to drive as much traffic as they can, analyze the data on who resonated the most, and refine their messaging later.

Or they could go after a well-defined niche from day one if they know the market well enough and are confident in their analysis.

A radically different idea to consider might be to go from B2C to B2B and instead of targeting consumers sell to language schools.

I think it might be an option worth exploring in parallel with a different dedicated landing page because marketing it would be very different and would require doing some sales and cold outreach.

Assuming they want to stay the current course and be broad their messaging needs to be revisited.

In the hero section you first tell people what they're going to achieve, then explain how you do it, and finally reinforce it with a demo or visual that crystallizes it.

If you're a visitor with no context you wouldn't get it at first glance.

You wouldn't understand that the app takes content from the web and uses AI to turn it into a lesson tailored to your specific level.

And you're probably not invested enough yet to spend a few minutes watching a video or keep scrolling down the page to understand it.

The language learning app market is a really competitive niche so there isn't a realistic chance to turn up in the search results when someone looks for commercial terms like "Spanish learning app" or similar keywords.

But that doesn't mean that Topics should ignore search. I believe with the right content strategy over the long term it could become one of their best acquisition channels.

I would think of it like a matrix: keywords related to the product (advanced Spanish topics) + keywords related to the users (pass exams or expat life in Spain/Mexico, etc. - depending on who they choose as their ideal customer profile).

Since the Topics website is just starting out they need to begin with really long-tail keywords to have a chance to get on the first page.

I think programmatic SEO might work well for them. I'd start with a combination of "advanced Spanish for” + profession: lawyer, real estate agent, etc.

The result would be hundreds of pages with almost zero search volume each but incredibly targeted, easy to rank for, and with high conversion potential.

Search is a great long term play but Topics needs customers today. That means being visible to people in the market for something similar right now.

The best way to do that is to leverage someone else's audience. I'd start by collaborating with people teaching Spanish online to promote the app to their followers.

The key is to select the right ones who teach more advanced stuff and not only beginners.

To find them I'd search for relevant keywords on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and analyze their profiles to find the right fit.

YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are also the social media platforms where I think Topics needs to be active.

Short-form videos but with a different spin and not only a talking head in front of a camera like they're doing at the moment.

A style of videos I noticed have a good chance of getting views on all these platforms are the ones that start with a hook that relates to their customer pain point.

A good example might be a person in a situation where they need to speak Spanish but just stutter some basic words.

Once you catch their attention in the first crucial 3 seconds, the video can then shift to introduce the product.

Once Topics finds a winning video they should start putting some ad budget behind it.

When you turn an organic piece of content that has proven to get engagement into an ad this will usually get a lot of reactions too, and because of how advertising platforms work this will mean getting low CPM and potentially leading to acquiring new customers cheaply.

Over time they should start rotating videos to prevent ad fatigue which might cause costs to rise.

A channel Topics shouldn't ignore is relevant communities and they should periodically be active on them.

While the startup and founders ones are plagued with self-promotion, outside these niches this is pretty uncommon so rules are usually less strict.

But there are good practices to follow to make sure a post gets attention, and one of them is to frame it like a personal story.

A proven template that tends to do well in communities while talking about your offer is "I struggled with (common pain point a lot of community members relate to) + so I built a product to (solution to the problem)."

‍