Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More

🚀 World's most advanced tutor
📖 1:1 Teaching built around your child
🎒 Reading, math & more
✨ Early access to Ello 2.0 is open, join now

[Elizabeth Adams @ElizAdamsPhD]

When I went through YC, I was 6 months pregnant with my second kid.

I didn’t have the option of “not mentioning it.”

I walked in as a 40-year-old child psychologist in a sea of young engineers. A mom with a 5-year-old at home, flying DC to SF every week.

I looked (and initially felt) exactly as out of place as I was.

My clearest memory of interview day isn’t the YC partners. It’s the Halloween makeup instructions I left my husband.

For a long time I introduced myself like an apology: the Silicon Valley outsider, the clinician, the mom.

I don’t anymore. I wasn’t there in spite of being a mom and a psychologist. I was there because of it.

I had just spent twenty years with the actual user while everyone else was still trying to figure theirs out.

My daughter’s struggle learning to read is the reason Ello exists.
We didn’t start by asking what AI could do. We started by asking what kids actually needed.

Yes, the time math is brutal. But kids also answered the only question that matters: what is the time for?

Six years in, being parents is a win for the company. A lot of us at Ello have kids. We also work insanely hard.

It brings a purpose you can’t fake.

I wanted to share this for anyone reading from an unconventional background who looks at the norm, and quietly decides startups aren’t for them.

They are exactly for you.

[Catalin Voss @CatalinVoss]

Everyone's asking what AI can do for their job.

We asked if it could teach a 6-year-old.

Introducing Ello 2.0: reading, math & more for ages 4-9. Free tier for all.

If we want AI to force-multiply humanity, let's start with teaching our youngest.

[Catalin Voss @CatalinVoss]

If you want to design for kids, you have to sweat the details. For our most recent design evolution, that meant micro-optimizing the typography so that the letters make sense to parents and kids alike. Yay for “single story a!”

[Catalin Voss @CatalinVoss]

Building an adaptive, safe, and actually real-time AI tutor is an insane project. It feels a bit like what I imagine building the first iPhone felt where there are 1,000 moving pieces, but if you get it right, you set the standard for the future.

We’re excited to share more with the world about what we’re learning as we build.

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

@CatalinVoss ❤️❤️❤️

[Catalin Voss @CatalinVoss]

We got a lot of people asking about how we built Ello’s tutor to achieve sub second latency. The architecture behind this was a real technical challenge.

Our tutor steers the UX in real time and makes complex decisions on the fly, so it operates more like a coding agent. However, the standard tool-use loop doesn’t work here.

"Generate a call, execute it, feed the result back, generate again" stacks up to 3-4 seconds of dead air between turns. Fine for a coding agent. Fatal for a conversation with a first grader.

Here's a deeper look at how we actually built it.

[Ben Somers @ben_m_somers]

Ello has been the best learn-to-read software for years

It's now significantly better and expanded for more subjects

[Jayme Hoffman @jaymehoffman]

We homeschool our kids, and they’ve both loved and benefited from Ello.

Our 7yro son, who has dyslexia, is now obsessed with reading books, and our 5yro daughter uses Ello every day.

Ello 2.0 with way more AI will be a hit in our household!

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

@TheRohanVarma @CatalinVoss Thanks for the mention @TheRohanVarma 💙

[Rohan Varma @TheRohanVarma]

If you are curious to understand how AI will transform learning and education, you should follow @LearnWithEllo and try their products with your kids!

It feels like we haven't seen that transformational change in education with AI yet.

The ambition that @CatalinVoss and team have to build a general purpose AI tutor feels like the most AGI-pilled visions for AI-native learning that I've seen any startup working on.

[Sunny Patneedi @sunnypatneedi]

💯 on "If we want AI to force-multiply humanity, let's start with teaching our youngest."

[Nicole Quinn @Nik_Quinn]

Not an investor but love this product!
Trained specifically for kids and personalized to them. Ello democratizes tutors and has an amazing mission behind it.

[Greg Bybee @gregbybee]

What if AI could teach kids? We’re getting there, thanks to Ello.

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

@_malptr 👀 maybe @_malptr needs to be on the marketing team...

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

@AshwinRamaswami @_malptr And we love @_malptr !!

[Nick Haber @nickhaber]

So excited to see this out! As an advisor to @LearnWithEllo (and friend to human gems @CatalinVoss @t_sayer for years), I've had the privilege of watching Ello carefully orchestrate thoughtful design, learning sciences, and AI engineering. Psyched to see where Ello 2.0 goes.

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

Finally live!

AI teaching built around your child ❤️

Get early access: https://t.co/0i5eIcgpW5

[Catalin Voss @CatalinVoss]

Everyone's asking what AI can do for their job.

We asked if it could teach a 6-year-old.

Introducing Ello 2.0: reading, math & more for ages 4-9. Free tier for all.

If we want AI to force-multiply humanity, let's start with teaching our youngest.

[DC Public Library @dcpl]

DC Public Library is proud to team up with DC Public Library Foundation, Ello, and the Nationals to support young readers across the District. Ello provides 1:1 reading support at your neighborhood library—helping kids grow into confident readers. https://t.co/Vi3TSk3DbT

[DC Public Library @dcpl]

📚 Meet Ello! The digital reading app that helps kids fall in love with reading! Using speech recognition, Ello listens as kids read out loud, coaches them through mistakes, and cheers them on every step of the way.

Learn more: https://t.co/Vi3TSk3DbT

[Ello | Ages 4-9 | Math, Reading & More @LearnWithEllo]

@JKubiliun Thank you for the shoutout! We’re always here to help kids get through the hurdles and the tricky words ❤️