About us

Last year we quit our jobs in Boston and moved to Buenos Aires with two goals. Learn Spanish, and go on a few more adventures while we're still young. That's it. There was no grand app idea, just two guys who wanted to speak Spanish, be fully immersed in the culture, meet some new friends and hopefully come back with some good stories.

While we were getting tons of conversational practice everyday we wanted something more to push us into new vocabulary and tenses that didn't come up as often. We started messing around with some of the popular language apps. Most apps either drill you on vocab or focus completely on gamification and trying to be addictive. We wanted something that pushed us, that we would find challenging and actually learn from. When we didn't find this, we started to build. A quick one month project we said…

One year later and we had something that felt alright. Each lesson starts with a short reading to teach some grammar and new vocab, then throws you into a conversation with full sentences immediately after while it's still fresh. To make it a bit more entertaining we came up with a story set in a fictional Medellín apartment building called Edificio Sol, with a cast of eccentric characters many of which are based on tropes we've seen living here in Latin America.

Here's the thing we want to be honest about: we're still learning too. Avita isn't built by people who've "figured out" Spanish. It's built by two people in the middle of the same journey you're on, which is exactly why we think it works. We are building the app we wish we had, but also still use to this date.

A quick thing about us: Ethan and I have been best friends for 15 years and traveled to more than 10 countries together. And for most of those trips, we were exactly who you're picturing. The gringos who only spoke English. You know the moment… You meet a European your age who casually switches between three languages, and you tell yourself it's not your fault, it's the system. Americans just don't grow up learning languages the way the rest of the world does. And that's true. But it's also a cop-out. The system isn't going to change for you, but what you do about it can. That's what Avita is. The thing we wish we'd had fifteen years ago, built by the two people who needed it most.

Avita isn't a replacement for traveling, for a tutor, for your Spanish-speaking abuela, or for the friend who finally tells you your accent is getting better. It's the opposite. It's a tool to hopefully become the catalyst to help to get you confident enough to go have those real conversations, and to keep going when you do. If you're a no sabo kid, if you married into it, if you just love languages, if you're moving abroad, if you're tired of Duolingo streaks that haven't taught you how to talk, come build this with us. Every user right now is shaping where Avita goes next. We're two people, one app, and a lot of Spanish still to learn. We'd love for you to come along.

Reed & Ethan