For the joint project of Digital Business and Astana Hub, “100 Startup Stories of Central Asia,” Alidar spoke about how the idea for Aleem emerged, why the platform became so popular in its very first days, and where the young co-founders are seeking funding. We also discussed the project’s monetization strategy and the personality of the app’s character—the cat Alim.
“At 17, I Launched My First Startup and Raised $150,000”
— What were you doing before launching Aleem?
— I’ve been living in the U.S. for the past eight years. I didn’t finish high school—I dropped out after 10th grade. Since 2019, I’ve been involved in entrepreneurship. I launched various online and offline projects and tried myself in several areas, including Web3.
I wanted to gain hands-on experience—in operations, business development, and marketing. I even tried coding: took courses in C++ and frontend development. I can build an MVP, but I realized that full-time development isn’t for me.
At 17, I launched my first project—it used blockchain and NFTs to make charity fully transparent, allowing all donations to be tracked. We raised $150,000 from angel investors. That was my first real experience building a startup.
— How did the idea of creating a language-learning app come about?
— In 2023, Assylzhan and I were working on GetEnglish, an English-learning course project. I joined as CEO and handled operations and business development. We brought the company to a certain level and decided that he would continue developing it independently, while I would focus on other directions.
Later, GetEnglish became one of the largest self-study English schools in Central Asia, with more than 4,000 students from 35 countries. A year later, when Assylzhan moved to Boston, we met again in the U.S. and started thinking about what we could build next. That’s how the idea for Aleem—a language-learning app—was born.
— What made it different?
— From the start, we knew we didn’t want to create yet another “learn words with flashcards” app. The key feature of Aleem is fully personalized learning. We decided to use artificial intelligence to adapt the course to a person’s interests, level, favorite topics, and even communication style.
— How did you start working on it?
— In the summer of 2025, we decided to test our first hypotheses. We launched an MVP—a mini app on Telegram. In one month, we gained 40,000 users and made $10,000 in pre-sales. At that stage, it became clear that the product really resonated with users.
Once we saw the hypothesis working, we decided to build a mobile app. From September on, we worked on the project almost full-time.
There was a moment when we considered continuing to refine the prototype and delaying the launch. But in the end, we decided: that’s it, it’s time. We needed to release the product and test it with real users. To be honest, the app currently implements only about 1% of what we have planned. Everything is quite raw—like most startups at the beginning.
“About 40–50 Thousand People Open the App Every Day”
— What happened after the launch?
— The first week was very emotional. We had three hypothetical scenarios: best case, average, and worst case. But seeing the most optimistic scenario play out in the very first days was unexpected. Instead of 100,000 installs by the end of the month, we reached that number in two days, and 150,000 in three days.
The team was sleeping just 3–4 hours a night. It was physically and mentally exhausting—because at the same time we were fixing bugs, providing customer support, making improvements, and talking to the media.
We didn’t expect such strong support from Kazakhstanis around the world. Although we were fairly criticized for the lack of the Kazakh language in the app, the number of positive reviews outweighed the negative ones by far. By the way, we’ve already added the native language—we simply didn’t have enough resources before the release. Our team is very small, and so far we’re operating without investments.
— How many users do you have now?
— More than 300,000. Around 40–50 thousand people open the app daily. We didn’t develop an Android version because we knew we wouldn’t be able to handle such an influx of users. I think in that case we would already have over a million users.
In terms of metrics, our retention—the rate at which people return to Aleem—is already twice the market average for the early days. And that’s despite the fact that we have no retention mechanisms at all: no notifications, no gamification. We simply didn’t have time to add them.
That’s why I’m confident that once we introduce full retention mechanics, we’ll at least maintain our current numbers—and most likely improve them.
— What do you think drove such rapid growth?
— Most often, we hear the same feedback: learning languages with Aleem is convenient. In one place, you can practice speaking, writing, complete drilling tasks (repetition and reinforcement), and work with flashcards.
You don’t need to simultaneously use Anki or Quizlet for cards, Duolingo for drilling tasks, and a separate service for conversation practice.
“We Want Language Learning to Naturally Integrate Into Real Life”
— At one point, the app overtook Duolingo in the App Store rankings, and Aleem is often compared to it. How are you different?
— We always say honestly: Duolingo is the best platform for beginners. They are incredibly strong at teaching newcomers. Usually, the “ceiling” there is around B1—a lower-intermediate level, when you can communicate but still lack enough practice and confidence to speak fluently.
We aim to bridge that gap. Our goal is to help users move from A2/B1 to Advanced—true, confident language proficiency.
We have two key differentiators: deep personalization for each user and AI models that adapt learning to progress and context. Under the hood, we use Gemini, GPT, and a number of other models that aren’t widely known to the mass market. We also tested Grok by X (Elon Musk). We constantly evaluate which model is optimal at any given moment and can switch between them.
— How does personalization help with language learning?
— During onboarding, users select their interests. Two different users will have completely different learning paths: you answer in your own way, and the system guides you along one route; your friend answers differently and gets a different set of tasks.
The main problem in the market is that people don’t have time to learn languages. It’s boring, difficult, and expensive. You study things you don’t use in practice, and the brain struggles to stay motivated without immediate value.
We want language learning to integrate naturally into real life. You watch YouTube, TV shows, TikTok, read news and books—and all of that becomes part of the learning process.
You watched a video—we know which one. Let’s discuss it, write a comment. You read a book—let’s write a short review. You spoke with someone online—we’ll give you detailed feedback: where your vocabulary gaps are, which grammar structures were incorrect. And right away, we’ll suggest turning weak points into flashcards or exercises.
— What about privacy? Users may be afraid to share so much data with a third party.
— We will comply with the strictest security and privacy standards—European, American, all required levels of protection.
In reality, many users already share this information with Google, YouTube, social networks, and ChatGPT. The difference is that they turn their time into scrolling, while we turn it into learning.
At the same time, users will have full control. For example, they can create a separate YouTube playlist specifically for English learning and share only that, not their entire viewing history.
— Will your character—the cat—have a personality? Similar to Duolingo’s owl, which is known for being “toxic.”
— We’re already working on that. Moreover, we want the cat character to adapt to different personality types. Some people like tough motivation, others prefer gentle support. So along with determining language level, we’ll also determine the user’s personality type.
“We Want to Be Evaluated as a Silicon Valley Startup”
— How much of your own money have you invested?
— So far, there haven’t been significant investments. The biggest expenses aren’t even related to development, but simply to living in the U.S. It’s insanely expensive, especially when you’re just building a startup.
Each team member had their own income sources: I had previous projects, Assylzhan had GetEnglish, and other team members had their own businesses.
For example, our CTO studies at NYU on a full scholarship that covers housing, food, and provides a monthly stipend. Our COO owns one of the largest SAT and IELTS prep schools in Kazakhstan—it generates around $47,000 per month. So we’re all comfortable working without salaries for some time.
If urgent expenses arose, we covered them ourselves. A simple example: a four-month accelerator program, AlchemistX (implemented with the support of Astana Hub and IT Park Uzbekistan), which we completed in Silicon Valley. Each of us spent about $5,000 on housing.
— Are you planning to raise investment?
— Yes, we’re currently in talks with both local U.S. investors and people from the post-Soviet space.
It’s important for us to receive support specifically from American funds. There’s more capital here, better terms, and it allows us to develop the product faster, improve quality, and scale growth. We want to be evaluated as a Silicon Valley startup—not as a project limited to Kazakhstan or the post-Soviet market.
— To succeed in the U.S., you need a product Americans will use. What’s the plan?
— We plan to add Spanish and localize the app for Spanish-speaking users. This is a massive market—many immigrants in the U.S. don’t speak English.
We’ve already entered the top 50 of the App Store in the “Education” category in the U.S., with only about 10,000 American users—mostly Russian speakers. In New York alone, there are over one million Russian speakers, and about half of them don’t speak English. The same applies to Chinese, Arabic, and Indian communities—huge audiences that would gladly use our product.
— The app is currently free. What monetization strategies are you planning?
— Technically, we could turn on subscriptions tomorrow or add ads—companies are already reaching out and want to advertise. But we understand that if we truly want to compete globally and aim for the No. 1 position—essentially Duolingo’s position—we need to act differently.
If we introduce paid access now, users won’t like it, and there will be massive churn.
If local funds, investors, and angels from Central Asia support us, we can remain completely free until we capture the market. Only after that would we introduce monetization—at least subscriptions.
Even at the seed or Series A stage, we can launch a B2B direction: corporate language training, team education. This generates strong revenue and could become one of the first stable income streams.
— What is your main focus for the next year?
— Blitzscaling in the post-Soviet market. Our goal is to reach 10–15 million users, as well as expand into Western countries, primarily the U.S.
Within a year, we aim to successfully raise a seed round. This will allow us to accelerate growth, expand the team, launch new languages, and build a truly world-class product.
Read more on Digitalbusiness.kz
For the joint project of Digital Business and Astana Hub, “100 Startup Stories of Central Asia,” Alidar spoke about how the idea for Aleem emerged, why the platform became so popular in its very first days, and where the young co-founders are seeking funding. We also discussed the project’s monetization strategy and the personality of the app’s character—the cat Alim.
“At 17, I Launched My First Startup and Raised $150,000”
— What were you doing before launching Aleem?
— I’ve been living in the U.S. for the past eight years. I didn’t finish high school—I dropped out after 10th grade. Since 2019, I’ve been involved in entrepreneurship. I launched various online and offline projects and tried myself in several areas, including Web3.
I wanted to gain hands-on experience—in operations, business development, and marketing. I even tried coding: took courses in C++ and frontend development. I can build an MVP, but I realized that full-time development isn’t for me.
At 17, I launched my first project—it used blockchain and NFTs to make charity fully transparent, allowing all donations to be tracked. We raised $150,000 from angel investors. That was my first real experience building a startup.
— How did the idea of creating a language-learning app come about?
— In 2023, Assylzhan and I were working on GetEnglish, an English-learning course project. I joined as CEO and handled operations and business development. We brought the company to a certain level and decided that he would continue developing it independently, while I would focus on other directions.
Later, GetEnglish became one of the largest self-study English schools in Central Asia, with more than 4,000 students from 35 countries. A year later, when Assylzhan moved to Boston, we met again in the U.S. and started thinking about what we could build next. That’s how the idea for Aleem—a language-learning app—was born.
— What made it different?
— From the start, we knew we didn’t want to create yet another “learn words with flashcards” app. The key feature of Aleem is fully personalized learning. We decided to use artificial intelligence to adapt the course to a person’s interests, level, favorite topics, and even communication style.
— How did you start working on it?
— In the summer of 2025, we decided to test our first hypotheses. We launched an MVP—a mini app on Telegram. In one month, we gained 40,000 users and made $10,000 in pre-sales. At that stage, it became clear that the product really resonated with users.
Once we saw the hypothesis working, we decided to build a mobile app. From September on, we worked on the project almost full-time.
There was a moment when we considered continuing to refine the prototype and delaying the launch. But in the end, we decided: that’s it, it’s time. We needed to release the product and test it with real users. To be honest, the app currently implements only about 1% of what we have planned. Everything is quite raw—like most startups at the beginning.
“About 40–50 Thousand People Open the App Every Day”
— What happened after the launch?
— The first week was very emotional. We had three hypothetical scenarios: best case, average, and worst case. But seeing the most optimistic scenario play out in the very first days was unexpected. Instead of 100,000 installs by the end of the month, we reached that number in two days, and 150,000 in three days.
The team was sleeping just 3–4 hours a night. It was physically and mentally exhausting—because at the same time we were fixing bugs, providing customer support, making improvements, and talking to the media.
We didn’t expect such strong support from Kazakhstanis around the world. Although we were fairly criticized for the lack of the Kazakh language in the app, the number of positive reviews outweighed the negative ones by far. By the way, we’ve already added the native language—we simply didn’t have enough resources before the release. Our team is very small, and so far we’re operating without investments.
— How many users do you have now?
— More than 300,000. Around 40–50 thousand people open the app daily. We didn’t develop an Android version because we knew we wouldn’t be able to handle such an influx of users. I think in that case we would already have over a million users.
In terms of metrics, our retention—the rate at which people return to Aleem—is already twice the market average for the early days. And that’s despite the fact that we have no retention mechanisms at all: no notifications, no gamification. We simply didn’t have time to add them.
That’s why I’m confident that once we introduce full retention mechanics, we’ll at least maintain our current numbers—and most likely improve them.
— What do you think drove such rapid growth?
— Most often, we hear the same feedback: learning languages with Aleem is convenient. In one place, you can practice speaking, writing, complete drilling tasks (repetition and reinforcement), and work with flashcards.
You don’t need to simultaneously use Anki or Quizlet for cards, Duolingo for drilling tasks, and a separate service for conversation practice.
“We Want Language Learning to Naturally Integrate Into Real Life”
— At one point, the app overtook Duolingo in the App Store rankings, and Aleem is often compared to it. How are you different?
— We always say honestly: Duolingo is the best platform for beginners. They are incredibly strong at teaching newcomers. Usually, the “ceiling” there is around B1—a lower-intermediate level, when you can communicate but still lack enough practice and confidence to speak fluently.
We aim to bridge that gap. Our goal is to help users move from A2/B1 to Advanced—true, confident language proficiency.
We have two key differentiators: deep personalization for each user and AI models that adapt learning to progress and context. Under the hood, we use Gemini, GPT, and a number of other models that aren’t widely known to the mass market. We also tested Grok by X (Elon Musk). We constantly evaluate which model is optimal at any given moment and can switch between them.
— How does personalization help with language learning?
— During onboarding, users select their interests. Two different users will have completely different learning paths: you answer in your own way, and the system guides you along one route; your friend answers differently and gets a different set of tasks.
The main problem in the market is that people don’t have time to learn languages. It’s boring, difficult, and expensive. You study things you don’t use in practice, and the brain struggles to stay motivated without immediate value.
We want language learning to integrate naturally into real life. You watch YouTube, TV shows, TikTok, read news and books—and all of that becomes part of the learning process.
You watched a video—we know which one. Let’s discuss it, write a comment. You read a book—let’s write a short review. You spoke with someone online—we’ll give you detailed feedback: where your vocabulary gaps are, which grammar structures were incorrect. And right away, we’ll suggest turning weak points into flashcards or exercises.
— What about privacy? Users may be afraid to share so much data with a third party.
— We will comply with the strictest security and privacy standards—European, American, all required levels of protection.
In reality, many users already share this information with Google, YouTube, social networks, and ChatGPT. The difference is that they turn their time into scrolling, while we turn it into learning.
At the same time, users will have full control. For example, they can create a separate YouTube playlist specifically for English learning and share only that, not their entire viewing history.
— Will your character—the cat—have a personality? Similar to Duolingo’s owl, which is known for being “toxic.”
— We’re already working on that. Moreover, we want the cat character to adapt to different personality types. Some people like tough motivation, others prefer gentle support. So along with determining language level, we’ll also determine the user’s personality type.
“We Want to Be Evaluated as a Silicon Valley Startup”
— How much of your own money have you invested?
— So far, there haven’t been significant investments. The biggest expenses aren’t even related to development, but simply to living in the U.S. It’s insanely expensive, especially when you’re just building a startup.
Each team member had their own income sources: I had previous projects, Assylzhan had GetEnglish, and other team members had their own businesses.
For example, our CTO studies at NYU on a full scholarship that covers housing, food, and provides a monthly stipend. Our COO owns one of the largest SAT and IELTS prep schools in Kazakhstan—it generates around $47,000 per month. So we’re all comfortable working without salaries for some time.
If urgent expenses arose, we covered them ourselves. A simple example: a four-month accelerator program, AlchemistX (implemented with the support of Astana Hub and IT Park Uzbekistan), which we completed in Silicon Valley. Each of us spent about $5,000 on housing.
— Are you planning to raise investment?
— Yes, we’re currently in talks with both local U.S. investors and people from the post-Soviet space.
It’s important for us to receive support specifically from American funds. There’s more capital here, better terms, and it allows us to develop the product faster, improve quality, and scale growth. We want to be evaluated as a Silicon Valley startup—not as a project limited to Kazakhstan or the post-Soviet market.
— To succeed in the U.S., you need a product Americans will use. What’s the plan?
— We plan to add Spanish and localize the app for Spanish-speaking users. This is a massive market—many immigrants in the U.S. don’t speak English.
We’ve already entered the top 50 of the App Store in the “Education” category in the U.S., with only about 10,000 American users—mostly Russian speakers. In New York alone, there are over one million Russian speakers, and about half of them don’t speak English. The same applies to Chinese, Arabic, and Indian communities—huge audiences that would gladly use our product.
— The app is currently free. What monetization strategies are you planning?
— Technically, we could turn on subscriptions tomorrow or add ads—companies are already reaching out and want to advertise. But we understand that if we truly want to compete globally and aim for the No. 1 position—essentially Duolingo’s position—we need to act differently.
If we introduce paid access now, users won’t like it, and there will be massive churn.
If local funds, investors, and angels from Central Asia support us, we can remain completely free until we capture the market. Only after that would we introduce monetization—at least subscriptions.
Even at the seed or Series A stage, we can launch a B2B direction: corporate language training, team education. This generates strong revenue and could become one of the first stable income streams.
— What is your main focus for the next year?
— Blitzscaling in the post-Soviet market. Our goal is to reach 10–15 million users, as well as expand into Western countries, primarily the U.S.
Within a year, we aim to successfully raise a seed round. This will allow us to accelerate growth, expand the team, launch new languages, and build a truly world-class product.
Read more on Digitalbusiness.kz
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