William Imoh on building a Norwegian-learning app with AI

William Imoh on building a Norwegian-learning app with AI

In Lenny’s Newsletter’s episode, Hackmamba founder William Imoh shows Mural, a real-time voice app he built with Codex to learn Norwegian after moving from Dubai to Norway. The episode description gives the project a personal starting point: after 1,000 days of Duolingo, Imoh says he still could not hold a conversation in Norwegian. He had never written Swift, but used Codex and GPT-Live to build Mural natively for iOS and Android. The episode follows how a specific frustration became a product, and how voice interaction, design choices, and running costs shape that attempt at language practice. The conversation also turns from building a tool to running a company. Imoh describes using a Lord of the Rings–themed Grok Bot “fellowship” to help run a team of about 25 as a solo founder, and discusses giving agents access across open tabs while withholding one thing. The description flags a tension behind these workflows: the fear that keeps him up is “dependency,” not replacement. The episode presents AI as both a way to extend one founder’s capacity and a possible source of reliance. The available description does not establish how well Mural teaches Norwegian or what dependency means in practice.

Publication: 0193f857-b119-4913-8714-efa1bb877fd6

attribution — pass: The reading correctly identifies William Imoh, founder of Hackmamba, as the subject, and attributes the Duolingo frustration and dependency fear to him through the episode description. Calling it Lenny's Newsletter's episode matches the publisher. Naming the host, Claire Vo, and the show, How I AI, would be clearer but is not required.

William Imoh is the founder of Hackmamba, a developer marketing company, and the creator of Mural

summary — pass: The title, summary and question convey the episode's two threads: Imoh building Mural with Codex and GPT-Live without knowing Swift, and running a team of about 25 with a Grok Bot fellowship. It keeps the dependency-versus-replacement tension and notes what the description does not establish. Product names such as Codex, GPT-Live and Grok Bot could use term-library tooltips, but they do not block understanding. The question follows from the evidence.

Why the fear that keeps him up isn’t replacement—it’s dependency

date — pass: originalPublished is 2026-11-09, based on the publisher page. This matches the page's visible date and the feed entry.

Claire Vo Nov 09, 2026

support — pass: All claims match source excerpts verbatim or near-verbatim. These include Mural's purpose, the 1,000 Duolingo days, building without prior Swift experience, the team of about 25, the 15 open tabs with one exception, and the dependency fear. The framing about voice, design and costs reflects the listed episode topics. The reading avoids claiming that Mural is effective and explicitly marks that as unknown.

Why he gave his agents access to everything across 15 open tabs, except one thing

media — pass: The selected media is the verified original article page, which is the direct source of the episode description. The verified YouTube video is an alternative, but the article is an appropriate and relevant choice.