Creating Lockdown Language Exchange — From Crisis, to Concept, to Creation

2 weeks ago I had an idea for a way to help those out of work due to COVID-19 earn some income while waiting for things to get back to normal. Lockdown Language Exchange connects native speakers who are out of work due to the crisis with language learners who want conversational practice and are stuck at home on lockdown. Last week I took the concept from idea to reality launching with a live functional website in production, a non-profit entity formed, and our first in-need users listing their services on our site. This is the story of that journey, with the hope that it will encourage more people who have an idea that can help others to take the leap of putting the idea into action.

Part 1: Why LLX — Narrowing in on an Idea

Nearly 3 years ago, I moved to London with my then girlfriend, now wife, Meredith to get an exciting taste of what living abroad and working in an international setting could be. In early January, after three amazing years at InVision helping to build and grow their international business across EMEA & APAC, my wife and I decided it was time to move back home and that we should enjoy some travel abroad while we had the opportunity.

With the wheels in motion, my last day at InVision was near the end of February. My wife still working, I used my days to explore different neighborhoods I’d never been too (Peckham, Fulham, Wapping, Homerton), discovering London’s extraordinary history, and when possible working my way through the Evening Standard’s Top 50 pubs of London list. I’d break out my laptop and start jotting down ideas for my next venture, having recovered from my first bout of entrepreneurship a few years prior.

Meanwhile, the new Coronavirus raged abroad, spreading quickly and with it speculation of what might happen. What started as an East-Asian problem winning occasional news cycles, moved closer and closer to home as Italy, Spain, and France soon grappled with the spread. Gradually but quickly our plans shifted. The Paris Marathon cancelled. A wedding in Cairo of a beloved InVision coworker postponed. My wife’s plans to walk the Camino de Santiago (fortunately) left unbooked. Going with my dad to his 50th college reunion in May scrapped.

This is a familiar story, and while one of frustration, it’s really one of privilege, too. For the most part, my wife and I are extraordinarily lucky. We are both healthy and not in at-risk categories. We don’t have children to care for, educate, and entertain. And equally importantly, despite my leaving my job, we still have a reliable income through her work, which can easily be done remotely and is as relevant as ever.

At some point in late March, right around the time Boris Johnson was moving from a hands-off approach to locking down the UK, I really got thinking about the financial effects that Coronavirus would have on the world. Northern Italy had already been shut down for weeks. My movements around London had already been significantly curtailed for 7–10 days. No longer was I supposed to pop into a pub and open my laptop. It was clear that main street businesses (High Street businesses as they’re called here) would have to close for what would likely be months alongside the entire travel/hospitality industry, events, and really anything that could not be done fully remotely. That’s an incredibly bleak and given the global nature of the virus, completely unprecedented situation.

My first response was “oh no, how do I save my favorite local restaurant, coffeeshop, and pub” and I started to work on a pre-paid voucher idea. Fortunately, I quickly learned others were on the job and linked up with some bright folks who were way ahead of me, with an idea for the CoronaCareCard. Other similar ideas have already been launched by others looking after local business, with Kabbage, Toast, and Gannett launching ideas just to name a few.

But then my mind quickly shifted to the employees. While selling gift cards to loyal customers could potentially help a business weather the storm alongside government aid, it wasn’t going to take care of the workers. And lo and behold, in the last two weeks, the US has reported 10 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits. My employment-attorney-father tells me that’s more than 10x the highest number ever reported for a two week period and that he’s never seen anything remotely comparable in his 45 year career.

I started to think about how we as the fortunate many who still have an income and are now sequestered to our homes might be able to help those who have been less fortunate than us. These are people whom we normally rely on every day for their work and services, and for whom providing for financially may actually help save the economy, and thus a deep recession / depression if we can help keep them afloat until we can start opening businesses again.

This is when I landed on online, video education. Those who are employed and have means, now actually have a lot of time on our hands where we are stuck at home unable to do many things in our lives we might have done in the outside world. Those out of work also have time at home, and many skills to share with the world. So the idea for Lockdown Language Exchange started more as a Skillshare for those affected by the crisis. Out of work bartenders could teach you guitar, flight attendants could teach you a language, baristas could help you learn to crochet, you get the idea.

As I started talking to my wife and some friends, including a former coworker named Megan, about this idea, we started to get hung up on the idea that if the expectation was for a lesson in the true sense of the word, that would be a high barrier to entry for those that might have experience doing a skill, but not so much experience teaching it, preparing lesson plans, etc. Every week more people were losing their jobs, and we needed to help NOW.

So we started iterating on the idea, and quickly came to the conclusion that helping someone practicing speaking a language is something that literally anyone out of work can start doing immediately from home without learning anything and without prep. Similarly, the person practicing can show up with whatever level of that secondary language they want to practice. Even better, improving a language skill through conversation, is not only proven to be the best way to accelerate learning of that language, but it’s also fun and social, helping those of us fight a bit of the loneliness of self-isolation.

It’s probably no coincidence that this hits home for me personally. I studied Spanish for 8 years in middle school and high school, and then despite excellent proficiency at age 18, I never took it further. I have talked about taking immersive courses or going to live abroad in a Spanish speaking country for a period of time, but having never acted on that instinct, and thus my command of the language has gradually ebbed over the years (use it or lose it, as they say). So I’ve now used LLX myself to book my first session to practice Spanish with Sonia from an out of work teacher from Barcelona. I’m excited to dive in, struggle to express myself, and come out the other end a better speaker and having helped a fellow human who could use it right now.

So why all the backstory here. Well actually, it’s all to say that the way we come up with ideas is rarely a straight line and can happen over the course of years of thinking about a problem, or in a lightning strike of crises. We’re seeing a lot of the latter right now from all sorts of folks who want to help.

In Part 2, I dive into the details of how I went from taking my idea and putting it live into production in under 10 days, as someone without any coding experience, design education, or legal background, all while stuck at home…. for under $1000.