In this monologue, the speaker argues that entrepreneurs face two distinct types of clients, analogized to language learners. The first group—"committed learners"—are serious about transformation and are willing to invest time and money for real change. The second group—"Duolingo learners"—seek only the feeling of progress, buying courses, tools, and mentorship as a pain‑killer without committing to genuine change. The speaker warns that pouring emotional energy into the latter leads to frustration, resentment, and wasted resources. He advises entrepreneurs to pre‑judge (pre‑judgment) clients, segment them, and align product offerings accordingly: high‑touch, high‑price services for the committed minority, and low‑touch, scalable products (information, chatbots, courses) for the abundant Duolingo majority. By doing so, founders protect their energy, maximize revenue, and avoid disappointment while still serving the larger market with products that require minimal personal involvement. The talk concludes with a call to join the speaker’s newsletter for ongoing advice.
Chapters
You're gonna get two kinds of clients. Putting your energy into the wrong one is gonna cost you a lot of money, it's gonna cost you a lot of energy, and you have the risk of running really resentful and bitter towards, well, the client. And so I believe there's two kinds of clients, and these are illustrated by language learning. So let's say there's two ways to learn a language. The first one is you get a teacher, but then like an actual teacher, Or maybe you do some immersion, you go to a country and you learn things. In both of these situations, you are serious about it, you actually want to learn. And so there's another kind of language learner, which is the Duolingo learner. Let's say they did Spanish and they've done it for years. When was the last time you learned that they can do anything other than saying, "Mi abuela es muy bonita"? And so they're gonna keep doing it, they're gonna keep on Duolingo, but it's not like progress is being made. It's not like actual transformation is occurring. And people will buy from you for both of those situations. One, they actually want to change, they actually want to do something about their lives. And two, is they're a Duolingo kind of person in which what they want is not the result. What they want is the feeling of moving towards the result. And they may seem like the same thing. I'm just language learning, but it's your job as an entrepreneur to think, to go beyond that and understand why are they doing this? Do they want to feel better because they've purchased something? Or do they want to purchase something so that they can change what is going on in their lives? You're going to get both of them. It is your job and it is your task, emotional resilience task, to understand that the vast minority of them are language learners that actually want to make a change. The vast majority of them are more Duolingo kind of people. They just want to feel like they're making some progress. And so if you open up their desktop, you know the main apps you're going to find? You're going to find Notion. Yeah, basically Notion. It's because they like making these elaborate dashboards and making them look beautiful instead of building a beautiful business. And a beautiful business is one that makes money. These are the shelf owners. It's the ones that buy courses after courses after courses and mentorship after mentorship after mentorship. That's kind of hard to say, but you understand what I'm trying to say. It's they keep buying things so that they will feel like something is happening, but they lack and they refuse to commit. They refuse to commit to something that will actually do them good. And so they keep learning and learning and learning, but nothing changes because one thing contradicts the other. And in business, that will happen a lot. It is the mark of somebody intelligent that can entertain both thoughts that may contradict each other in their mind and see both of them as true. An example: if you have a price right now, and if you raise that price, you might make more money. And if you lower that, you might also make more money. So it's both contradicting, yet both are true. And a lot of people cannot comprehend that. And when they find this discrepancy of this one says A and this one says minus A, they go and buy something else in hope that they'll find B. And they'll find might as be. And so they'll keep tripping. They'll keep finding other ways in which I gotta learn just a little bit more. And these are Duolingo types. They were never serious about it. They never really wanted to make a change. The reason why they bought anything was because they saw the thing that they were buying as if it were Tylenol. It was just a painkiller because they could not bear, God forbid they bear, the fact that they already have clarity and they actually have no excuses to actually make a change. They say they want clarity. They say that they want to do something, but they actually do not want it. They say they want clarity, but when clarity arrives, they get scared because now they cannot fall into the safe haven that they've had in the past 10 years of, let me just learn a little bit more. Let me just refine it a little bit more. "Let me try and maybe I'll buy another course and this one will be for real because it really resonates." It doesn't happen. They keep doing this for 10 years and they cannot go beyond "mi abuela es muy bonita." That's just the kind of people they are. And so there's this few minority of, well, minority of people who actually want to change. And if you put your emotional energy and effort into the Duolingo people, then you will be mighty disappointed of what you will encounter in your business. Whereas if you put it in the actual language learners, you will be very pleased. And it is your job at that point as the entrepreneur to enact prejudice. Prejudice has a terrible connotation. It means, oh, you're just like, why are you enacting prejudice on this person? Well, if I'm in a dark alleyway and this person comes with a knife, Yeah, maybe they're a cook, but of course I'm going to enact prejudice so that I will not get stabbed in the face. And so it's your job as the entrepreneur to kind of mature in your perception of people and enact prejudice of if there's smoke, there's probably fire. If something is going on with this person, well, maybe I should trust my gut. If these people are talking in a certain language, maybe I shouldn't sell to them. And it's not language as in Spanish, English, German, whatever. It's language as in the words that they use. It's, well, I'm going to make an investment. I'm going to pay for this. Like people with money, they don't really say these kinds of things. They're like, I'm excited to work together. That's how they talk. They don't talk of, well, what does the package include? Like you're going to understand that there's a lot of Duolinguists. Duolinguists is the language of the Duolingo kind of people. The people who are unwilling to commit to things and change. Now, what do you do about these two? Now that you've known and you're aware that there is a difference between people who are wanting to learn a language or buy from you, it's not everybody wants the same thing. Not everybody wants to learn the language. Some people actually just want to feel some progress towards the language, Duolingo kind of people. So what do you do? Do you only focus on selling Duolingo solutions? You could. Do you only focus on selling to language learners? You could, and you could build a beautiful business off it. However, I believe the wiser thing you should do is think more in 3D. Sell to both of them. However, to the Duolingo people, sell something that will not require your energy, that will not require effort from you besides creating the thing that you are selling them. To the other ones, Give the world, deliver, hop on calls with them, talk to them, actually be there for them because, well, they actually want to learn. And you will find that the energy that you give them actually gets challenged, but in a good way. Like if you give them something, they're going to enact on it and they're going to tell you, I did this, what's next? And that's going to challenge you to improve. And that is a wonderful thing. That is a positive thing. However, the Duolingo people, they're just not going to enact on it. You're going to get on calls with them. You're going to give them everything they need. And they're either never going to move or they're going to give up on the journey. And then they will buy another one because they never bought from you because of what you could offer them in terms of you're going to get to a destination. They bought from you because it felt good at the moment, because they wanted to cope with that pain. You are not a transformation to them. You're not a surgery. You're a Tylenol. To them at least. And if you keep selling to those people, you're going to be extremely disappointed. And here's a caveat: if you give them the energy on the things that you're selling them, your energy, your time, your effort, and your spiritual juice, you're going to be extremely disappointed. But if you give them something that doesn't require your energy, you're going to find that yes, even though language learners, they tend to pay more, the majority, which are the Duolingo people, It's a big majority. It's like a market 100 times bigger. There's more quitters than winners in the world. That's just how it is. And so it would be foolish from you not to sell them something, to find something that may not require your energy. It might be just information. It might be GPT, a chatbot. Maybe you sell them that because they are much more abundant. And so understand what kind of business you're in. Few people will represent a big chunk of your money. However, you're also in a weird situation in which you have a much larger market that may not commit, and it is your fault if you give them energy and dedication and spirituality energy, you know what I mean? It is your fault if you give them that because they are not going to correspond. However, you can still sell them something. So be smart, enact prejudice. Prejudice comes from two words, it's pre-judgment. So have some pre-judgment on people. I believe in this, I believe in prejudice, I believe it is a wonderful thing. If somebody comes with certain energy, it's rare that they change that. And so sell them something else. And if you don't have those things, well then that's on you because you should have those things to sell them. To find what are the things you can actually sell them that are not going to kill you in terms of they're going to be very hard to create, newsflash, you actually already have them. So join the newsletter. This is what I talk about every day. Enjoy. See ya.
