In early 2021, Parlangi, a cooperative enterprise offering a social learning platform connecting people who want to learn a language with native-speaking mentors, mostly the elderly, got coached by AAL2Business on how to present its business value proposition in a clear and effective. We asked Ad Geudens, Managing Director of Parlangi, to share his Go-to-Market Launchpad experience.
What was the added value provided by the Launchpad?
What we got from AAL2Business helped us to focus on the things that really matter when you talk to investors, especially to the impact investors our target to pitch our story. Thanks to AAL2Business, we received very effective one-on-one coaching. It helped us understand what we need, what to focus on, what is our path to success and who our main stakeholders are. The coach gave us the advice we needed to bring our beautiful story and mission to the investors we were looking for.
Parlangi, recently, got the interest of a donor and managed to get funded to further implement its solution. How did the Go-to-Market Launchpad contribute to this important achievement?
Thanks to the AAL Go-to-Market Launchpad, we started preparing for a jury of impact investors (we hadn’t found any investors so far). It was an iterative process, we changed our story to incorporate the feedback received from investors and thanks to our coach we were able – by the end of 2021 – to present our story to the Integration Department of the Flemish Government. We were successful and got a grant for two important ongoing developments: an Android and iOS application and a project dashboard for municipalities or organizations willing to help newcomers who speak a foreign language, can connect with us, and manage a project.
What will be next? How will you follow up on AAL2Business?
Older people seek social contact and have a lot of knowledge; we will help the municipalities of Flanders to connect their foreign newcomers who want to learn Dutch with elderly native speakers. Currently, there are many refugees escaping from wars whom we can help to learn Dutch in this wonderful way. We just established in Flanders, and we plan to further grow in Belgium and other European countries. Our ultimate dream? Building an ’intergalactic’ social learning network. This is the goal that we’re trying to achieve.
Can you pitch all of us your solution?
What we do with Parlangi is build bridges, bridges between language learners, people who want to learn a language and native-speaking mentors, mostly the elderly. We solve two main problems: firstly, many newcomers who speak a foreign language want to learn the language of the country they visit or the country they live in. Secondly, many people are looking for social contact or want to contribute something. We have provided them with an easy and safe way to do so. We created a social learning platform where people can look for an interlocutor with whom they have video calls in a safe and easy-to-use application.
