Speaking in a foreign tongue
Smartling is currently on riding a wave of global expansion, by helping companies quickly translate web sites and apps.
Eleven years ago in 2004 Jack Welde solemnly swore to himself never to engage in translation projects again. At that time he was the Executive Director of Run Time Technologies owned by CMS and had just completed a painful, year long project for a new client, translating the company’s platform from English to Japanese. “We said: no problem,” Welde remembers. “But it almost ended our company.”
Now not only has he returned to the translation business but he also advertises his platform as the fastest way to help clients expand their business abroad. For example, Smartling helped GoPro air online stores in six other languages and these sites were ready to go in only three weeks time.
The trick lies in the ability to ease the complex and tedious work of translating web sites, apps, and hundreds of other media. Outsourcing in the language field is a business with an annual turnover of $ 35 billion and is powered by the rapid expansion of larger and smaller businesses abroad. Welde founded this company with his former colleague from RunTime, the current Smartling CTO Andrey Akselrod. The company is developing rapidly – it already has more than 300 customers – Uber, Spotify and Tesla amongthem.
One of our clients is Pinterest which wanted to expand its pin revolution to another 30 languages. Previously this company cooperated with a large (and expensive) translation agency that received the orders then transferred the material to smaller firms, which then referred it to even smaller translation bureau until finally it reached the translator itself. Outdated technology can be an another traditional obstacle for the translation business. In the past in order to translate a website the developers had to copy each published word or phrase in English and send it to translators in a series of separated links; without seeing the context it is not clear whether if the word home means the user’s house or the main page of website. Linguistic peculiarities may complicate the translation for example in the case of Pinterest the word pin holds a sexual context in many languages.
Smartling vigorously solves these problems with the help of a translation hub. Developers no longer need to send Excel sheets back and forth; the system automatically selects new Pinterest content and forwards it to pre-booked translators all around the world (Smartling has contracted thousands of translators, but employs around 160 employees).
Never say never: Jack Welde once swore that he would never return to the business of translation.
Translators then work interactively with the content provided based on the context by using an editing system similar to the textual modification tool in client’s web site. The Home button can be immediately distinguished from the sentences such as “Apply for a Home Mortgage”.
“Traditional tools work like a personal computer from 1995 but Smartling, on the other hand,is more like Facebook or Twitter – it’s sexy,” says translator Anya Jones. Thanks to the cooperation with Smartling she also succeeded in developing her own translation bureau. Jones reveals she can now attract new freelance translators in less than half an hour.
Project managers working in the United States supervise the flow of translation work by sending content to translators and then proof readers, editors and lawyers and eventually back to the translators once again; all this happens within the Smartling system. Stylistic guidelines can be changed in a blink of an eye and problems can be detected rapidly. One can add new translators and continuously update the existing word bank of translations. The translation such as a new website in Dutch or a new application in Korean is placed in the client’s system by Smartling. Silvia Oviedo-Lopez the Localization Manager of Pinterest trusts this service which prepares a translation for each new feature in less than 48 hours in any supported language. Smartling is moving forward as fast as we do,” she admits.
Jack Welde peaked slowly. Now he is 45 years old. Welde was a militarist and studied in four different high schools. While taking the reserve officer training camp he entered the University of Pennsylvania where he studied to become a pilot meanwhile learning programming and linguistics. In between the university graduation and the compulsory service he together with two colleagues created a personal information manager that integrated calendars, contacts, tasks and notes. In 1993 Welde sold it to Apple for two million dollarswhich later was used as basis in the creation of the Claris Organizer.
Welde served in the air force for nine years he deplaned commandos at hot spots such as Kuwait and Kosovo. In 2001 just before the technological crisis he returned from service. In less than six months Welde became the executive director by working in RunTime. During this time he met with with a variety of corporate translation horror. “At that time converting computerized systems seemed to highlight all the computer challenges of the year 2000,” he remembers. “I swore to myself – never again.”
After spending some time with other technology companies Welde finally called Akselrod in 2009 and brought three start-up ideas to him over a coffee. The first two (social networks and e-payments) did not really excite Akselrod; however he was taken away by the opportunity to approach the stagnant translation industry. By using 50,000 dollars invested by Welde and 100,000 dollars invested by business associate from collage time and venture capitalist, they created a prototype, worked from home and gradually instigated Akselrod’s acquaintances from his home country Ukraine.
The first big client was SurveyMonkey who wanted to export questionnaires. Welde and Akselrod created servers to host the translated websites on around the world. Smartling still provides hosting to approximately half of its customers, generating two billion page views per month with this service. Welde believed that this process would be too burdensome for customers. Such companies in the business as Dropbox have a solid server infrastructure, but still require strong tools for workflow management. Smartling continuously improves its’ client management panels since the beginning of this service. Multinational corporations with complex necessities are among its clientele, such as the British Airways and Apple (or the “Fruit Company”, as sometimes referred to by its employees). “Every time I think: it’s impossible to be faster, we manage even more faster,” smiles Akselrod.
Company receives payment based on the number of translated words in all languages stored in the system. Doubling the volumes each year Smartling, a turnover of $ 25 million is predicted for this year. It cannot be turned into profit though. “The faster we grow the longer is the wait for the profit,” says Adi Dehejia, the new Finance Director. But the investors are not hesitant. In May Smartling was valued at 250 million dollars after a funding worth 25 million dollar by Iconiq Capital.
The near future plans are to open an office in San Francisco adding it the existing list of offices in Boston, London and Dublin, also to open two development centres in Ukraine and set up new headquarters in Broadway. For future they are planning to develop an internal networking platform where customers and translators can advertise themselves and meet one another. Welde also explores the potential of self-service for small businesses – a way that will probably allow to compete at the cheapest end of the market. These days, everybody wants to go further, and more often – abroad.
“Traditional tools work like a personal computer from 1995 but Smartling is more like Facebook or Twitter – it’s sexy.”
