Dear backers,
Today we’re going to announce a big change to the Lily project.
We’ve been working on the Lily speaker since mid-2017. Back then, we were developing this speaker in partnership with a listed Chinese company and I was leading a team of 40 engineers. Our partner left the project in 2018 because the hardware development was too cash-intensive and the competition was too strong (Alibaba, Xiaomi). But we kept going and launched Lily on Indiegogo, with the same hardware and a team of less than 10 people. After the campaign, we kept developing that speaker — you know the story. We also bought the raw materials for the 1st batch including 1000 loudspeakers (Lily’s most expensive component). We’ve spent so much resources to develop Lily’s hardware. But each time you think it’s the end of the tunnel, it’s not.
We won’t be able to sustain the Lily project if we keep spending so much resources on Lily’s hardware. It’s also the main cause of our delays. And you backed our project because you wanted a better way to learn Chinese, not because you wanted a bluetooth speaker.
This is why we’ve decided to pause our hardware efforts and pivot to a mobile app:
- The app will have the same voice experience than the smart speaker. Lily was never a hardware, Lily has always been an AI voice assistant for Chinese learning. Once you’ll start a lesson on our app, you won’t be allowed to touch the screen of your phone and the interactions with Lily will be 100% voice-controlled (the screen will update accordingly to what you say).
- You will get Lily faster. We were planning to ship 100 units now but we still have some hardware problems. 100 units is only 1% of our backers, 99% backers would need to wait much longer to get their speakers, including the lead time to get raw materials and the time to set smooth mass production processes that can produce > 1000 units/month with no defect. Overall it might take more than 6 months and there would be lots of uncertainties. On the other hand, with an app, 100% of our backers would get Lily in approximately 3 months. We plan to release the iOS app on November 1st and the Android app on November 21st, with a small beta testing in October.
- It will be better for children. Lily as a smart speaker was designed for voice interactions first. However children are often very visual, they need to see things to learn better, especially when it comes to concepts like colors, directions, animals, etc… Through a mobile app, that can also work on tablet, Lily’s language teaching will be much more visual and it will help you and your children learn Chinese faster.
- It will be better to practice Chinese reading. With a smart speaker, when we design the product, our goal is to minimize your interactions with a screen. Because of that, we weren’t planning to push Chinese reading that far since you need a screen to display characters. Now with an app, we can fully develop Chinese reading features. It’s very important for more advanced learners who can’t go above HSK 3–4 without good Chinese reading capabilities. Lily will be able to assist you with Chinese reading in real time by telling you characters you don’t know and correcting you when you say a character wrong. No more back-and-forth with the dictionary that cuts the flow of your reading.
- You can practice Chinese wherever. With a mobile app, you’ll be able to practice Chinese on the go. Some of our backers are often on mission, sometimes for 10 days or more. Having the convenience to practice anywhere is more freedom.
The downside of this decision is that you won’t get your speaker very soon. We plan to ship the speaker eventually, when we have more resources. However all our backers will be able to use the app subscription-free from HSK 1 to HSK 6.
I understand that some of you will be upset because you wanted a smart speaker, not a mobile app. But Lily is the work of our startup and we need to stay alive to be able to deliver a product. When you worry about delays, we worry about surviving and 15 people losing their job.
Covid-19 also makes the situation more complicated because economy’s hurting and it’s harder to get investment. We have the choice between adapting our product, lower our costs and sustain the company or chasing investor money that might never come.
As the CEO of the company, my job is to sustain the team and build a future for the Lily project. I tried very hard but I failed to bring the Lily smart speaker to you on time and today this hardware product is already a bit outdated. I’m really sorry for the wait and disappointment I’ve generated.
Some thoughts about the future.
Lily’s future won’t be a smart speaker. But Lily as an AI language teacher will live on. Lily will also expand to other mediums, we’re talking to some TV manufacturers. Through an AI software, we’ll be able to reach to more people, faster, and fulfill part of our mission to make language education cheaper and more accessible.
The Lily mobile app that you’ll get in 3 months will deliver on the features that we announced in our campaign. It will be very different from language learning apps like Duolingo or Memrise. I can’t say much for now but I can promise you that it will be the closest thing you’ll ever see to a virtual language teacher.
You’ve been following us for 18 months now and you know who we are. We don’t quit. We still believe that very soon we’ll be able to help you learn Chinese and more languages. We owe it to you to keep fighting to finish Lily — even if it’s hard sometimes — and we will.
Jie and the Maybe team.
