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of two tents of one I'm Charlie. That's a Bloomberg business flash. This is taking stock with Pim Fox and Kathleen Hayes on Bloomberg Radio to entrepreneurs who met at the Wharton Business School and went on to start a company. An innovative smartphone app that connects travelers with live translators all over the globe. Verbalize It has some big news today and we're very happy to welcome to the show now.
Ryan Frankel, the CEO of Verbalize It, to tell us about their new relationship with Smartling, ran great to have you, great to be here, Thanks for welcoming back. Well, so, first of all, tell people a little bit more about where you are. I think it's fascinating that you've got a deal on shark Tank back in that didn't pan out, but some advice you've got on shark Tank really helped you focus the company in ultimate raise the funding you
needed to grow this company. We did the experience that allowed us to pivot from a purely consumer application play into more and more lucrative and more powerful business internationalization experience UM short of It, which allowed us to help companies of all shapes and sizes translate all of their content over any medium of communication in order to facilitate
international expansion. Hey, Ryan, I was just looking at the report from the U. S. Bureau of Statistics that says that the translation industry is expected to grow by forty two It's the time frame they use is twenty twenty. And I'm wondering if you could describe some of the applications some of the customer uses for verbalize it. Sure, so, Pam,
you hit the nail on the head. This is quickly approaching, actually at forty billion dollars a year industry for outsourced language translation, and the types of expenditures are really being driven by companies across the spectrum, So your traditional large enterprise organizations all the way down to today's startups and
everyone in between. And the types of use case is really ranged from you know, a company might want to start translating their marketing documents to evaluate demand overseas, and then all of a sudden, a matter of weeks or months later, they might need to completely localize their website, translate their mobile apps, even subtitle and caption their videos. So it really is that it's an exciting time to
be in that industry. And I just and I just want to make offer you the chance to make it clear that we're not talking about some kind of machine translation algorithm. You're talking about connecting people. It's people to people. We really believe that the best quality translations, both in terms of the accuracy of the translation itself but also the actual context, really does come from from other humans.
And so the platform that is today smartling um that we are now part of, is really a technology platform that connects those in need of language translation with a vetted community of translators all over the group. So how much do you charge for your service? How how where is the business now in terms of revenues, a number of people using it? And how big do you expect to get? Well, the Smartling company of which we are now a part is just around a hundred fifty employees
and growing by leaps and bounds. And while we can't to school with the actual revenue metrics, I can tell you that there are hundreds of businesses of all shapes and sizes utilizing the platform for a wide range of translation needs, ranging from your one off single document translation to a full on, you know, daily email translation, video subsideally translation, Ryan, Why sell the company to Smartling? Why become part of them? Why not grow the company and
go public? That's a great question, paim we Um. We found the per a partner and acquir in smartling, and it really enables us to, you know, achieve our longstanding vision of breaking down language barriers to make the world a more connected place. And the combination of our businesses really does bring together what I like to call you to best in class technology platforms and two rock solid teams that will allow us to truly make a dent
in the language translation industry. But ultimate really creates the ultimate platform for helping businesses go global. So how big is this industry now compared to where it was ten or twenty years ago? And I'm just curious, is Chinese? Is that one of the main growth areas. Chinese has been big? Japanese is huge, Korean, even Brazilian Portuguese, you know obviously, which has been a big We have got some upcoming with the Olympics and some strong international development there.
So we're seeing a lot of the same languages being requested that we're ten years ago. Control also seeing a really nice uptick in demand for these other languages as well. Ryan in using a new technology to bring these language skills to maybe even small and mid sized businesses. What about incorporating them into actual applications that would run on a smartphone. How do you see that playing out? It's
a it's a very interesting question of them. We're seeing a lot of companies today actually looking to translate and localize their apps. Um. And so we'll see with with the smart Wing platform is the ability for app developers and app first companies to literally link into a PI which is essentially a plug in into the platform that is Smartling, enabling them to constantly push updates to their apps and seeing that they receive back translation in any
given language. Finally, any advice to would be entrepreneurs, no matter what business, no matter what industry they're in. UM, I truly believe one of the best piece of advice I ever got was, you know, entrepreneurs, especially those in New York City, we have a habit for spending a lot of our time behind the computer screen and touring
away at allow us to night. But some of the best things and truly comes from face to face interaction and being a New York City entrepreneur and ending in such close proximity to other entrepreneurs and world class leaders. My advice is to get out their network, meet these people face to face. It's how we first connected with the with the leadership team with Jack Welby, a smart Ling and it's a it's a great example of how we got to where we are today. Thanks very much.
Ryan Franklin is the chief executive and the co founder of Verbalize It now being acquired by Smartling International Translation Services. If you're listening to taking Stock and this is Bloomberg Radio coming up, Bloomberg Law brought to you by Deutch Jakins PC. If you feel you've been unlawfully terminated, you owe it to yourself to call the law firm of Deutch Jakins now for a free phone consultation called eight hundred four nine eight Z