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20 Comments

After many failed attempts, I bootstrapped a document translation service to $10K MRR in 6 months, AMA!

  1. 3

    This is not a real AMA post. Guy just dropped a link and has no intention interacting with the forum.

    At the bottom of the landing page it says "Founded in 2011 and US based, Translation Cloud is a leading enabler of global communication."

    These kind of posts are not welcomed here.

    1. 1

      Hi, sorry about the confusion. I wanted to do the AMA, but was away from the forum during the weekend! So the questions backed up and now I am back at replying.
      Confused about 2011 date? Don't be. The company is formed by that time, but the new product DocTranslator was formed only during the summer of 2021 and it is still a new concept.

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 months ago.

      1. 1

        Yep. Reported this post.

        Hope this guy will find a genuine way to promote their stuff.

  2. 1

    Congrats! I have needed something like this before. Translating a pdf can be tricky.

    A few questions

    Is it complicated to build these translation services from a dev perspective? I'm including ConveyThis too.

    Would you be willing to share the tech stack?

    Are you a developer yourself?

    1. 2

      Hi, great questions!
      Yes, it is insanely hard to build something like ConveyThis. Even when you know where exactly you want to go, it is just hard to put everything together. There are simply too many dependencies you need to work with: WP plugin, Shopify plugin, Wix, BigCommerce, Weebly just to name a few. You need to keep up with listings, descriptions, pricing update, user support and complaints. It's a huge commitment.
      However, I think you should start hacking using public API solutions: Google Translate, Amazon Translate, Bing Translate - don't re-invent the wheel.

  3. 1

    What make you different from https://www.onlinedoctranslator.com/en/ (free) ?
    Cool website btw :)

    1. 1

      Thanks!
      We are different in a very important way.

      1. We can process much larger PDF files.
      2. We can process image recognition, they can't.
      1. 1

        Oh nice.
        I remembered years ago i wanted to process pdf files and update content in it, but it was really hard to read and update content of a pdf without destroying the layout.
        How do you do this ?

        1. 1

          The layout of PDF is the most difficult thing to do.
          Unfortunately, I can't tell how we do it. It's our business secret))

  4. 1

    Hi Alex Congratulations. I have a question, what are the distribution channels that work for you? Thank you

    1. 1

      Hi, thanks for chipping in!
      The best distribution channels are organic and paid SEO.

  5. 1

    Whats the difference why people use paid services we have google translate

    1. 1
      1. They can't receive the translation back in the same format.
      2. They can't process image recognition.
      3. They can't process large files.
  6. 1

    I have a few questions

    • How big is the translation market?

    • What kind of customers is paying recurring fees to translate PDF, docs, etc?

    • What marketing channels are working for you? You seem to be growing super fast with all of your translation platforms; Gglot, Conveythis, Doctranslator, and maybe more.

    • How many languages do you speak?

    1. 1

      Hi, great questions Emeka!

      The online translation market is very small, extremely competitive and highly fragmented. I estimate the total dollar volume in this field to be only 100 Million.

      As to the recurring fees, I think the best customers are freelance translators and small translation agencies how look for ways to speed up their process.

      Yes, we are pretty good with organic and paid SEO. We research the target keywords we want to ranked for and then create landing pages for it. The similar approach has worked really well for VEED IO too.

      I speak only two languages. What about you?

      1. 1

        I see. Is that why there's no billion dollar companies in the translation space?

        Do you mean ~100m USD for the whole translation space including website translation?

        I only speak English, lol. I was thinking you would have mastered dozens of languages, hahahahaha.

        1. 1

          Ah hah, those who have mastered multiple languages didn't become good at business. I don't know a single translator who's become decently rich, just okay job.
          Yes, I believe so. 100m USD is a cap for a total English speaking online translation market. I haven't seen a single successful language translation company thanks to free Google Translate who essentially killed all communications.

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