Our story

Hi, fellow parents. My name is Iraklis, and I'm the founder of Oli. My wife and I are parents to an amazing, funny, curious 3-year-old.

We're an expat family living abroad — I'm Greek, my wife is Lebanese. I speak Greek to our son, she speaks Arabic — that's the idea, anyway. In practice, when you're running late for nursery and need him to put his shoes on right now, you slip into whatever works. Guilty as charged. English dominates from nursery and peers, and while he understands both Greek and Arabic — can count, knows his animals and colors — he doesn't speak them spontaneously. He replies in English.

We tried books, YouTube, cartoons. For Greek and Arabic, nothing really landed. Maybe because the content is harder to find, maybe because English was already dominant and everything around him reinforced it. Probably a bit of both.

Over the years I've built a handful of online products, so the natural reaction was — can I build something to help my son speak more Greek? I started experimenting with short stories that follow the kind of structure language teachers use, but wrapped in a story so it doesn't feel like a lesson. The tools to make this have gotten a lot better recently — narration that sounds warm and natural, sound effects, music — and the better they get, the more natural the stories feel. That said, the tools are just tools. I'm building this for my own son, so safety and quality aren't a feature — they're the whole point.

I built some stories and started playing them at home and on car rides. My son really liked them — kept asking for more. And slowly, Greek words started showing up unprompted, out of nowhere. Animal names first (he loves animals), then more words, then short sentences.

I made stories in other languages for friends and family's kids. Similar feedback.

When I shared it online, it resonated with multilingual and expat families everywhere. “My child understands but won't speak” turned out to be nearly universal.

I'm excited to keep building Oli — making it better for my son and for your family. These languages connect our kids to their heritage and their culture, and they deserve stories that are fun, engaging, and educational enough that they actually want to listen. If your family is anything like mine, I'd love for you to be part of this journey and help build something our kids love.

Iraklis