Most organizations and companies operating in today’s world aim to reach international audiences due to globalization permeating many spheres of our private and professional lives. Foundations and community organizations want to reach the broadest possible audience of volunteers and those in need, according to their mission. Companies, on the other hand, are seeking to scale their operations to foreign markets, expanding their pool of potential customers. The challenge faced by the aforementioned entities is primarily a language barrier and culturally tailored content with elements of social personalization. The Czech startup Localazy, which combines AI-backed technology, experienced translators, and market experts to offer localization-based translation, has answered their challenges.
FoundersToday:
1. Over 5 billion people have access to the internet, yet more than half of its available content is in English, which is the native language for only 380 million people. What do you think is the reason for the persistence of this problem?
Václav Hodek: English may be a native language for just a relatively small portion of people online, but many more people know it to some extent, allowing them to read the content. Still, only about 25% of the online population has English as their first or second language. Nonetheless, the economic position of the given population is stronger, and that’s one of the reasons why we see this bias towards English.
Also, we are in a kind of spiral now. With more content available in English, it’s become the most widely-learned language, leading to the production of even more content.
However, it’s also important to note that even though half of the Internet content is in English, it’s not always the preferred choice for the end users. Research shows that people are more likely to complete a purchase if a product is available in their native language, and they are sometimes willing to spend more on properly localized products.
Of course, there’s also the question of who your target audience is. There are many niches in which the native experience is mandatory. Also, some markets are pretty hard to enter without proper localization; Japan is an example.
So, while more content is available in English than in other languages, this doesn’t mean that it’s accessible to all users.
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FoundersToday:
2. Your goal, as Localazy, is to reduce inequalities in the access to information and resources resulting from the disparity of languages in which content is offered on the internet.
How did you come up with the idea for such a startup?
Václav Hodek: Before Localazy, we sold mobile applications worldwide and saw two interconnected trends.
Firstly, the feedback we received suggested that many users struggled with using our apps because they were a bit specific and had a steep learning curve. They needed to put a bit of effort in to fully benefit from them, and the unavailability of a localized version multiplied the effort needed.
This, of course, led us to start localizing our apps. Whenever we introduced support for new languages, we received very positive feedback and could observe the second trend — faster growth in the markets where we spoke their native language.
The trend became clear when Japan, which is notoriously known for being very hard to enter, became our second-largest market after the US.
Our users no longer struggled with using our apps, but we struggled with localizing them. The issue wasn’t translating a few words — it was managing this ongoing process for content localization, updating it, and even being open to implementing suggestions from the community. All of this in 35 languages.
We tried many of the available tools on the market but didn’t find the right one to fully address our pain points. That’s when we decided to come up with our own solution.
FoundersToday:
3. Initially, it was a side project for you. At what point did you realize that the market needed such a solution and decided to fully commit to the project?
Václav Hodek: We worked on the first version in “side project” mode while we juggled other projects. But we believed in our vision and approach from day one. It just took a bit of time to finish previous projects that were mostly custom-made work.
When we released the first version of Localazy, we went full-time since, from the very beginning, it was obvious that users loved our service. However, at the same time, we lacked too many features to really solve the localization pain. People gave us their love, and it was our turn to start working even harder. 🙂
FoundersToday:
4. Localazy combines AI-supported technology, experienced translators, and market experts. Tell us, how does your solution work in practice?
VH: Localazy is a platform offering all the options – from integrated AI and machine translation to professional human translation services, as well as an intuitive interface for your own translators to work on.
You can decide what is the best way to get your content translated. It’s common practice to have key languages translated by professional human translators, either those provided by Localazy or your own, but you can also invite your community of volunteers to help throughout the process. Another option is simply employing machine translation engines or AI to test new markets, or quickly providing a first translated version of your content that can be later checked by humans.
Localazy will not stand in your way – it’ll help you with whatever your preferred approach is. To achieve this openness, we integrate machine translation and AI, work hard on the translation interface for humans, and maintain our own network of vetted professionals. Since this flexible approach is deeply in our DNA, we also don’t limit seats in our plans to allow your community to participate unrestrictedly.
FoundersToday:
5. The use of translators and experts in the translation process naturally requires time. How quickly can you create localization-based translations of websites or applications for your clients?
Václav Hodek: When talking about our automated approach to professional human translations, I often say that it’s automated but not instant since real humans are behind it. The typical turnaround time for a medium-sized project is about one week, so you can probably get your website translated faster than you can do the coding work.
However, many of our customers use a popular workflow in which new content is translated immediately using MT and is literally available in seconds. Then, it is reviewed by human translators to ensure the highest possible quality.
While getting translations quickly is essential in the initial phases of any localization project, the real value of Localazy lies in long-term control, solid management of all the people involved, quality checks, avoiding repetitive texts, safely coordinating multiple versions, and many other features that ultimately save you time and money.
FoundersToday:
6. Interestingly, your offer is not only directed towards businesses but also towards NGOs and non-profit organizations. Can you tell us more about this?
Václav Hodek: I strongly believe that we should give something back to the community. That’s why we try to help NGOs whenever possible. We helped many organizations when the war in Ukraine started to ensure that people in need could find help regardless of language barriers. We also support many organizations that make our planet a better place for our kids to live, such as those that care about the environment and climate.
I have a relationship with the deaf community here in the Czech Republic, so I understand how important this kind of help can be for the people who need it. It taught me how essential communication is, and while we often take it for granted, it’s a real gift for many people. While we can’t tackle communication barriers entirely, we can at least try to overcome language barriers. Any non-profit is welcome to contact us – it will be our pleasure to help them.
FoundersToday:
7. You’ve been on the market for several years now. How has your journey been so far – how do you recall the process of securing funding and how has your technology evolved?
Václav Hodek: It’s an amazing experience. It gave me the opportunity to work with the best team I have ever worked with and to establish a great relationship with investors who trust our vision.
Our technology is still evolving. We started as a small service for Android apps, but we always had a grand vision, listened to our customers, iterated on what we had, and eventually, our tool became one of the best on the market. There’s an endless list of things we want to do next and of ideas to improve Localazy for our users, so the process hasn’t finished. 🙂
What I truly appreciate in this ever-evolving kind of business is the opportunity to learn something new every single day. I must emphasize that luck is a part of success; as often said – I was lucky to meet the right people and investors at the right time, so it always clicked somehow. I don’t have any funny funding stories – we have never been in a crazy startup mode, going from one funding round to another, going out of business if we can’t raise more money. We were and could be profitable if we wanted, so from this point of view, we are a bit boring (read stable) company. 🙂
But I must also admit that there were many moments when it wasn’t just rainbows and sunshine. There were times when we were afraid of our future, but we always kept a positive outlook and worked hard to overcome it and emerge from it even stronger than before. Again, having such a fantastic team is the only way to achieve that. Also, I believe that perseverance is an essential part of success.
FoundersToday:
8. In which country or region do you currently feel the greatest demand for your solution, and what type of companies most frequently appear among your clients?
Václav Hodek: We have customers from all continents except those permanently covered by ice, with Europe and North America being the strongest ones. However, we are also noticing a growing demand in South America, Asia, and Australia.
We work with small and medium-sized companies, as well as enterprises and startups, which are also embracing localization to grow faster. While IT companies make up most of our user base, we also have many customers in finance, healthcare, industry, services, and other fields.
Everything is currently interconnected, so companies are not necessarily limited to a single country or continent. Couple that with the fact that localization is essential for conquering new markets, and that’s the driving force behind the growth of software l10n tools, machine translation, and language services.
FoundersToday:
9. I noticed that you have recently been more active in the Polish market, which was another step in your development. What challenges and goals do you have in the near future?
Václav Hodek: The Polish market is very close to us. Part of our team is located in Katowice, so we always saw Poland as the natural next step for our growth. As already pointed out, we have customers from all over the world, but proportionally, markets closer to us make up a larger part of the user base.
The challenge here is to show that we are not just a foreign company entering the Polish market but that there’s an existing relationship and that it’s our honor to be introduced in Poland. And, of course, our goal is to achieve a proportionally higher market penetration as we already did, e.g., in the Czech Republic.
This is a strategy we would love to extend to other markets, but we are happy that we are already having a fully global reach.
