About LearnVai
It started with Spanish 1 homework.
My son was taking Spanish 1 and it was not going well. The language apps taught a curriculum nobody had assigned him. A tutor helped, and cost more than we could keep up — when we could find an hour that fit around school and practice at all. LearnVai is the thing we went looking for and could not find.
- Built by a parent, for parents
- Started in a real Spanish 1 class
- Parent holds the account
- Still small, still listening
Why it exists
The problem was never Spanish.
My son was in Spanish 1. He was not failing, but every quiz was a coin flip, and the studying that happened the night before was mostly reading a vocabulary list top to bottom and hoping.
So we tried the obvious things first. The big language apps are genuinely good at teaching a language — they are not built to teach his language class. They taught their own curriculum in their own order, and none of it lined up with the unit his teacher was on or the words that were going to be on Friday.
Then we hired a tutor. That worked, and I would recommend it to anyone who can swing it. It also cost real money every week, and between school, practice and games there were maybe two windows where a tutor and a fifteen-year-old were both free. One of them usually got cancelled.
What we actually needed was narrow. Something that knew what his class was covering. Something he could open for ten minutes at nine at night, because that was the time that existed.
Derrick, founder — and the parent in this story
Technical Expertise
I've spent 22 years building software. AI changed what I thought was possible.
I've spent the past 22 years in the custom software industry, helping organizations turn complicated problems into software that people can actually use.
For the past several years, a big part of my work has been focused on AI—understanding how these technologies can be used in real products, how they change the way software is built, and how to use them responsibly rather than simply adding "AI" to something because it is trendy.
Then, in 2026, I was laid off.
It was not something I had planned for, but it created an opportunity I probably would not have given myself otherwise: to step back and think about what I wanted to build next.
The answer was already sitting in my house.
I had a real problem. I had a family that was living it. And I had spent more than two decades learning how to build software, with several years of increasingly deep experience working with AI.
So I decided to put all of that together and build the thing we had been looking for.
That's how LearnVai started.
What we built
So the class became the curriculum.
LearnVai starts from the teacher’s own material — the syllabus, the vocabulary list, the packet photocopied — and treats that as the thing it teaches from. LearnVai does not drill what the class has not reached.
LearnVai does the part a tutor spends half the hour on anyway: repetition, on a schedule. Shaky words come back tomorrow, solid ones wait a week, and the plan counts backward from the next quiz date instead of piling everything onto the night before.
What we believe
Four things we are not willing to trade
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The class is the curriculum
A tutor who ignored the syllabus would not last a week. Software should be held to the same standard: if the teacher did not assign it, it does not get drilled.
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Ten minutes that happens beats forty that does not
Forty minutes on Thursday is a plan that fails quietly. Short sessions, most nights, on the words that are actually shaky — that is the version a teenager will keep doing.
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The parent holds the account
You create the account, you add the student, you can see how it is going. Nothing here was designed to route around you, and your student still gets their own login rather than borrowing yours.
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It should refuse to do the homework
A tool that writes the essay solves tonight and costs the term. Asked to produce work that gets turned in, LearnVai declines and offers practice on the same material instead.
About us
What people ask us
Who is behind LearnVai?
LearnVai started with a parent who got tired of the Thursday-night version of this—scrambling to help with homework, tests, and vocabulary—and decided to build a better alternative.
But it’s really a family project. I build LearnVai around a full workweek like everyone else, while my wife and co-parent helps shape the ideas and bring them to life. Our son first tested LearnVai in Spanish 1 and is now using it in Spanish 2, while our daughter is putting it to the test in German 1.
We’re all contributors, testers, and critics—coming up with ideas, trying things out, finding what doesn’t work, and helping make LearnVai better.
It’s being built by a family that actually uses it, because we wanted something better for our own kids.
Why did it start with Spanish?
Because that was the class in our house. Spanish 1 and 2 are what LearnVai was built and tested against first. It works from whatever materials you upload, in whatever language the class is taught.
Are you trying to replace tutors?
No. A tutor is still the best money you can spend on a student who is stuck, which is exactly why we hired one. What we could not keep paying tutor rates for was drilling — and drilling is most of what has to happen between sessions. Families who keep a tutor tend to find the hour goes further when the vocabulary is already in place.
Does my student have to be struggling for this to be worth it?
No. It started with a student who was struggling, so that is the case we know best. But the same thing that helps him — practice that comes from the actual course, spread across the week — is what a student holding an A uses to stop cramming.
What happens to what we upload?
Materials live in your family’s account and are used to teach your student. You can delete a file, or the whole account, whenever you want.
Next step
Enroll Your Student
Create a parent account, add your student, and start uploading syllabi, vocabulary lists, handouts, and other course content.