#30 Selling your startup and buying it back with Steve Ridout
In this episode, we're talking to Steve Rideout, founder of ReadLang, who turned his own struggle with learning Spanish into a successful language learning product. We dive into his journey of building ReadLang from a simple translation tool to a $10K+ MRR business, including its unexpected detour through Duolingo - where Steve not only sold his company but also helped create Duolingo Stories, before buying ReadLang back at a quarter of the original price. Other topics include how Steve achieves growth purely through word of mouth, his experience with freemium pricing from $10/year to $48/year, and how he's managing to thrive in an increasingly AI-dominated language learning space. We also talk about the challenges of being a solo founder, when to focus on product versus marketing, and the surprising observation that his best revenue months coincide with when he works the least. ___ Steve's Website: https://steveridout.com/ Steve's Twitter: https://x.com/Steve_Ridout Readlang Website: https://readlang.com/ My own website: https://icebearlabs.com You can find this podcast on: https://codeandconquer.fm Find our product here: https://www.repodcasted.com/