College wasn’t cutting it for Wichita software developer Grant Johnson.
“I jokingly say that school was getting in the way of my education,” he said. “It was really time consuming and I would be drained by the time I'd come home and I'd want to work on my projects.”
Since teaching himself how to code in high school, Johnson has started projects that combine programming, artificial intelligence, robotics and more. He logs his experiences on TikTok, where he has over 61,000 followers, including his creation of a robot called Humanoid that can impersonate historical figures using AI, and Vision Vest, a vest that helps blind individuals navigate walking without a walking stick. One of his top videos has garnered more than 9 million views.
After his first — and only — year at Wichita State University, Johnson’s projects landed him a job at Invista, a chemical manufacturing subsidiary of Koch Inc., at age 19, where he still works full-time.
Now, at 21, Johnson is starting his own business.
In March, Johnson said he started working on the concept of a language learning app called Chatterbox, which will provide users with specialized learning courses using AI.
Johnson said language-learning apps on the market provide a generalized experience for users and primarily focus on memorizing words. His app, he said, will use AI to create specific, real-life-based courses to meet each user’s motivations for learning the language.
“So you're not just memorizing these words, but you have application to it as well,” he said. “That plays into some of the motivations you have to learn, whether that be travel, a new job, a new spouse, anything related to that. You're able to effectively learn what you need to learn. Instead of having to have a general way that most people learn, it can be specialized for you.”
Johnson added that personalized features on apps in the market are also expensive, making them unaffordable for some users.
With a team of 12 employees who are language professionals and software developers mostly based in Wichita, Johnson said he is designing the coursework and developing the app. It will start with Spanish courses followed by English, French and Portuguese.
The app will have interactive features, including games like Scrabble, trivia, picture quizzes and description games in which users have to describe a word using other words they've learned in their lessons. Inspired by his humanoid project, Johnson said users will also be able to chat with an AI-generated version of historical figures who speak the language being learned. It will also have an AI assistant.
Johnson said the app will be “freemium,” which will allow users to use the app for free with ads and some limitations on features. For a yearly premium subscription, Johnson said the app will charge $10 per month.
Johnson started a business focused on software because of its ability to scale effectively compared to his other projects, which were reliant on manufacturing and hardware. It's also a “passion project,” which helps empower the world.
“Ultimately my goal is to empower others to reach their full potential, and I really see language as a big way to unlock that for a lot of people on a major scale,” he said.
Chatterbox being his first business, Johnson said the biggest challenge has been managing time schedules for himself and his employees.
"For the most part, these are all super-talented people that have other areas that they're working on," he said. "For example, one of them works at NBC, and so there was a couple week stretch where he was super busy because he was having to work extra hard on the Olympics. ... Everybody's working super hard on it, it's just been hard to manage it on the side."
Johnson hopes to launch the app in December, anticipating it will be better than its competition by then. If the app does well, he said he will likely search for a suitable candidate to run the day-to-day business instead of himself.
“I do think it's something that I'll be able to move on from and create new ideas in the future,” he said, “but also, at the same time, still managing it, making sure that it accomplishes a goal over unlocking people's ability to learn languages.”
