The Grammarly Story: How Alex Shevchaenko And Max Lytvyn Made Billions By Correcting People's Grammar
Grammarly is currently the 10th most valuable U.S. startup. The editing software developer Grammarly is now valued at $13 billion after its latest funding round. Although they seem to be among the most successful companies today, they did not get where they are right now without talent and hard work. The app finds and fixes writing errors that eventually became much better than the traditional proofreading and grammar checker. It does help a lot of writers worldwide since it provides some insights into the reasons for the mistakes and even suggests fixes. It has become a top tool for writers. One might wonder how the company started; take a look at how they began and grew their services.
3 How Grammarly Was Born
Grammarly is a cloud-based typing assistant that reviews the users’ spelling, punctuation, grammar, engagement, clarity, and delivery mistakes. The free writing app helps its users write clearly and effectively. The app was founded by Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider in July 2009. In 2009, the three friends decided to start an English writing assistance company. They have envisioned Grammarly to be something that defines a new technological space. Although they knew it would be a long road, they have been set on this mission right from the start. They wanted to improve the lives of their users by technically improving their communication skills in written form.
The three friends are the same people behind the file hosting service, MyDropbox. They have decided to build Grammarly to help the students have plagiarism-free papers. They believe that people plagiarize because of their fear that their communication would not be as excellent, and that’s where Grammarly comes in. They first launched Grammarly as a paid subscription product. Upon their launch, they quickly had a positive cash flow. As soon as they launched the service, they focused primarily on correcting the grammatical errors of its users. The company believes that helping the students with the basic building blocks of the English language would give the users more confidence in their work.
2 Grammarly’s Growth And Expansion
After two years of its launch, Brad Hoover decided to join the team as the company CEO in 2011. Since the company is growing, they believe that Hoover would help them take care of formally distilling their values into the company’s framework. In addition, they wanted Grammarly to be driven by ethical, gritty, and empathetic people behind the company. Finally, as the company grew, the three friends learned that they could improve and expand their services.
Many users give feedback that informs Shevchenko, Lytvyn, and Lider that Grammarly is being used for all different types of communication. From a personal email to a simple student essay and even used in high-stakes professional writing. They eventually developed a Chrome extension and a free model for everyone to enjoy their services. The free service basically picks up on the grammatical mistakes, unnecessary words and misspellings while the paid version offers some additional recommendations and even detects plagiarism.
Since there are about 30 million people using their service every day for the last 12 years, they constantly improved their services. The company wanted everyone to have access to an English writing assistant. This new business model has opened numerous new opportunities for the company. They further developed Grammarly extension for different browsers such as Safari, Firefox, and Edge to support everyone who is writing. The company did not get to where they are today without hard work and constant improvement. In 2017, the company allocated a $110 million fund to improve their platform’s flexibility which has helped their company move forward.
1 Becoming An Essential Work Tool
The company dreamt of becoming a much bigger assistant to writers worldwide. As they expand and grow the company, they have sharpened their support on their sites and added it as an add-on for Microsoft Office on Windows and Mac. They have also revamped their editor online and released a desktop application so that people can just work away without the distracting tabs. They have also released a Grammarly Keyboard for iPhone devices and Android devices so that people would have an easier time writing and correction would be instant. They have also created an integrated editor and keyboard for iPad users to cater to everyone.
The company has grown so much today because they have recognized the importance of its service to the users. They have made sure to keep up with the latest technology today and have kept improving all their services. They do not only cater to individuals, they have released the Grammarly Business which helps the people within organizations to collaborate constructively as well as connect to the customers with a consistent, effective, and branded message. At the moment, Grammarly is worth $13 billion in latest funding round according to the CNBC report. The company became a huge deal today because they have recognized the needs and problems people face today and gave them a solution for it.
Sources: CNBC, Grammarly, Forbes
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