When I was 17 years old, I wrote a little Applesoft BASIC program to help myself memorize vocabulary for my Spanish class. When I went to college, I wrote a new version for the Mac, adding special features for Japanese. Senior year I wrote two new versions – one for my senior project, another for a class in which we were supposed to learn the basics of five ancient languages (I adored the professor, but he was a little meshuggah). Another version when I started studying French. It became a bit of a joke – every time I started studying a new language, I’d first spend a lot of time rewriting my vocabulary drill software – if I’d only spent that time on the languages themselves!
And so, a decade ago, when I left the video game industry and had some time on my hands (thank you, San Diego real estate market!), I used this project to teach myself web development. Every version up until then had been for an audience of one – fine for my purposes, but completely unusable by anyone else. So I set out to build the version for the masses, the final version – the version that would allow me to stop writing and rewriting the damn thing.
I didn’t mean to make it into a company, it just kind of happened. Well, OK, I incorporated three weeks after quitting my job, but it wasn’t what I was planning originally. I really just wanted to get it out of my system. And so, all of the learnings from the prior decade and a half, poured into a product that no one would ever pay for. Who (other than me) would pay for a flashcard system? Sure, there are a couple of them out there (God love ’em), but not anywhere near enough even to get ramen profitable. So I went back to the drawing board, and went after a market I thought would be interested.
Teachers. They could get it for free and have their students pay – everyone wins! The teachers set up homework, the students learned vocabulary, and I got paid. Somehow, though, the teachers didn’t find me on their own, so I ended up doing a lot of cold calls. 100 calls to talk to 10 people to get 1 in-person demo, frequently in another state. I got in the car, put on the suit, and did the demos. I put together some signage, set up a booth at ACTFL, IALLT, and military linguist conventions. My parents saw a lot of me (they live near a lot of colleges), I stayed in a lot of cheap motels, and slowly, I built a list of customers. Not a lot, never enough. Harvard, Yale, Brown, and other top schools were among my customers, but I never made the “big score” – the state school with tens of thousands of students.
I integrated with PayPal and Authorize.net. I spent a huge amount of time doing data entry – I promised the teachers I’d enter all of their vocabulary lists into the system, and record audio for all of their words, before that critical first fall semester – and there’s an entire summer of my life that’s missing, lost time. Princeton Spanish reneged at the last minute, which taught me the value of communicating progress along the way. The rest followed through, and became some of my best customers, but with one or two exceptions, I wasn’t able to leverage one language department to get an entire school.
It was growing, but too slowly. I was down to the bottom of my life savings. I stopped dating. I ate a lot of canned soup and peanut butter sandwiches. I borrowed money from my parents. I lost weight. I had insomnia for a month and a half.
In 2006 I started talking with a potential acquirer. But there was a blizzard, and we missed a crucial meeting, and in the meantime I got in contact with an old boss who was interested in getting involved. So I followed one path instead of another.
We got some angel funding, brought on some additional people, and tried to make a run for it. I won’t go into the details, other than to say that we made huge mistakes, and didn’t get lucky. After two and a half more years of trying, the money ran out, and the world economy suddenly collapsed. And so I went out and got a job.
I kept the site running – what was I going to do, shut it down? It was making some money – not much, but it was paying for itself – and though I was married, we didn’t have kids, so there was time to do stuff after work. And then we did. And still I kept it going. The teachers who depended on it were friends – I’d known them for years now, they were real people, not just users. And there wasn’t anything remotely like it out there, so what would they do? I felt like a TV executive pulling the plug on a great series that couldn’t make the numbers – how do you face the fans? How do you respond to their emails?
And then my father passed away. This was a wakeup call that took a long time to ring. I decided to shut down the site, but had to give people enough warning. The date was set for the end of the year. I put up the notification. I desperately tried to ignore the pleading emails. And at the last minute I blinked. Maybe it could still work out. Maybe if it just made more money? I raised the price on students, and started charging teachers (which I had always balked at, before). Maybe I could still make this make some kind of economic sense? The teachers were relieved, and happy to have their school districts pay. Strangely, though, this caused more trouble. The combination of checks, credit cards, purchase orders, temporary enabling of accounts while waiting for checks to arrive, etc., took more and more of my time. And then I had a second child.
When you have children, you can have exactly one hobby. Anything else is an exercise in futility, self-deception, and ineffectiveness. Cooking healthy food is a hobby. Exercising is a hobby. Maintaining a website is a hobby. Writing a blog is a hobby. Bringing work home is a hobby. You have time to do exactly one thing after your kids go to sleep, if you want to do it well. The pointless waste of time had to go.
It was time. A new date was set. That date was June 30. I’m a little late, but just because I need to provide a vocabulary export tool, and I haven’t gotten around to it. This time it’s going down, and that’s that.
I suppose this is part confessional, part apology, part cautionary tale. Am I glad I did it? I’m glad I had the courage to try, and I’m grateful for the insight it gave me into what it takes to build a business. If I could go back in time would I do it again? No. Perhaps some other startup, some other time, but this took too long, and was too painful. My love for the product didn’t blind me to its failure, but it did prevent me from failing faster. It’s taken such a long time to die – I decided to start looking for another job five years ago this month – that I no longer feel more than a small ache. It’s long since passed from beloved child to albatross.
And so, shutting it down. It will stick around for another month or so (so that teachers can get their materials off of it), and then it will be gone. There are other things I dream of doing with more time, and less mental energy spent worrying about this. Getting back in shape. Translating ドグラマグラ. Writing some one-off iPhone and Android apps. But first, I need to clear my plate.
Dan Dreams of Coding 
I’m looking for a serious alternative to Wordchamp, preferably one that is as similar to it as possible. I took German I a few years ago, and I’m about to take German II. I’m not sure how I will do as well as I did in German I if I can’t find a similar site. I would appreciate some suggestions. Thank you.
Me Too!!
So wrong Dan – thanks for the effort, the passion, the obsession, the commitment! Best for the next!
I too wish I had been able to use your baby – no chance I guess. Does anyone have a replacement (I would actually pay for flash card software).
Rick
Hello,
I create and run the website Readlang (http://readlang.com) which is similar to WordChamp in some ways, key features are:
– A Web Reader for translating words and phrases within web pages
– Ability to import any plain text document for reading within a clean interface with word and phrase translations
– Flashcards generated from your translations, including context sentences
– Spaced repetition system
Please give it a try and let me know if you have feedback, it’s still in beta and evolving.
I’m really sorry for this website.I have just found out it’s shutting down.What a shame!
Yea. It seams like a really useful tool. sadly you can’t make an account, so only old members can download the program.
I’ll give my account to anyone who wants it
:D That would be really nice of you to share your personal account; though I don’t know if the owner would be happy about that. Dispite the fact that it will be closed, it is still his work and it would only be right to wait and see if he will allow it.
I accept your offer since I badly need that password. A man’s word is a man’s word.
alright
Thnx again, :) hope he replies soon.
Sorry to hear about that! Thank you for all your effort! My students and I used your site about five years ago to help with IB Spanish, and everyone loved it. Good luck in your future endeavors and with your family!
I’ve found conjuguemos.com to be helpful for Spanish. You can make vocabulary cards on it and there is a bank of other activities to work with (grammar,etc).
Is it possible to download the Wordchamp program? I saw someone above reference that. I’m looking for a way to keep using the flashcard lists I created. I downloaded them all to Excel files, and want to find a way to keep studying them. What I loved about this program was the way, when you studied flashcards and got some wrong, it got added back to the list. So, anyway to keep using the flashcards?
[That said, most importantly, thanks Dan for Wordchamp. It was the best. It is the reason I have a decent vocabulary in Spanish.]
Unfortunately, it’s a medium-sized web app, and there’s no local client available. :(
Hello,
I am still trying to think of a way to make this work. The genius is in the way it puts the words back in. But also, the conjugations. I can’t find anything on the web that allows the teacher or student to choose the verbs, subjects and tenses. I mean there seems to be nothing. I just gave my semester exams and my students did NOT do well. My students in general are not doing well. I totally attribute that to the lack of wordchamp assignments. Over the years that was almost literally all of the homework that I assigned. They had wordchamp every single night. Because of this, they were better writers as they had memorized so many words. There must be some way.
I completely agree. But you didn’t mention the audio: that’s what sold me on WordChamp at the start, and it’s sorely missing from conjuguemos. I’ve also been using Quizlet, but the two of them together are no substitute for WordChamp.
Agreed. :o( My students really miss this a lot.
I’m late to this conversation — hopefully late is better than never. Dan, thank you sincerely for your tireless effort to make WordChamp work. I say this “thanks” on two levels of deep appreciation for what you accomplished: I taught German at Harvard and used your site (the students loved it); and my husband was a web entrepreneur who likewise rode the highs and lows of his start-up for years of very hard and passionate work. Best of luck to you, and thank you for showing the world what an online vocabulary trainer can be.
Dan, you’ve now kept the site open for almost five months beyond the 1st September deadline that is still shown on the site. I downloaded all my lists some time back and have put most of them on http://www.cram.com, which also remembers and lets you try again on what you got wrong, but in most other respects is greatly inferior to Wordchamp. If I’d known you’d stay open so long I would have been assigning it to students for homework but, not knowing whether it will shut the next day, I’ve stuck to Cram. I understand it’s difficult for you to decide exactly when to pull the plug but can you tell us the earliest date closure might no be scheduled for so we know the minimum time you’ll stay on line?.
Hi John, I’m sorry about all the uncertainty. I certainly would prefer not to drag this out. We’re still hoping for a resolution, ideally with someone taking over the site. Everything takes longer than it should, however, and is always more painful. Ah well.
Many thanks for the quick reply, Dan, and good luck sorting things out!
Do you have anybody interested in the site yet?
We’re trying :/
Thank you so much for your hard work on this site. I have enjoyed using it so very much and shall miss that opportunity. I am glad you shared your personal story about it. I wish that you could have found a buyer for it.
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Dan, again, your site is sorely missed. My students are doing “ok” with another site but I can now see how much the listening aspect was helping their pronunciation and listening comprehension as they were practicing the written portion. I am so hoping someone will come along to buy your program. I work at a larger school corporation and we are going to Ipads (with no paper/digital text books ) next year. It seems that as the educational system becomes more digital and expects teachers to come up with our own digital resources (in all our abundant free time…) sites like yours should be more and more valuable. Yours certainly would be at the top of my out of pocket expenses. Of course our schools prefer free…but I’m sure many teachers like myself would gladly continue to pay a fee for the hours of work you saved us as well as the HUGE gains we saw in our students.
Have you thought about presenting it on the TV show “Shark Tank?” It seems like a great program and there’s nothing comparable out there, so why not give it a try?
Dan, still holding out hope. As a teacher in a big district going textless…as in nothing digital, this type of site will flourish as teachers (DESPERATELY!!) look for worthwhile resources online.
As a parent this was the only site that worked to help keep her grades up. I am sad and pained cause there is not else out there and she continues to struggle
Still hoping you bring back this website, and the app I bought!
I don’t know whether you still view comments on this post or not, but I would really like to thank you for creating your site. I loved using worchamp. I used it in 2011 to learn Chinese vocabulary and although there were other spaced repetition sites out there like anki and i also had tried some phone apps, your flashcard system helped me memorize new words in the fastest amount of time and also helped me review words in the fastest amount of time. I was in a military training program so they gave us 100+ words to memorize a day. With your program I could do a learning cycle of about 45 mins in the evening and then a review cycle the next morning of about 30 mins before class and always ace our quizzes. Though it is sorely missed, but I don’t think you should feel bad about having to shut it down. As with anything in life, those who want to learn will always find their way. You should be proud to have left behind a legacy of students who were able to learn more efficiently because of your efforts. I’m sure if they are using their target language now the legacy of worchamp lives on in their hearts, minds and mouths. On their behalf I want to thank you for creating wordchamp. I am happy to have been able to use it.
Thank you, Dana! I really appreciate hearing your story, and your kind words. -Daniel
I couldn’t agree more. Even years on with a huge variety of language apps nothing has really been as effective for me as wordchamp. Thanks again for everything. You really made my language exchanges so much more productive.
Hope everything goes well.