Transcription
Bryan Montpetit 00:00
Oh I can see we have with us. How are you doing?
Jan Hinrichs 00:11
Fine. Thank you, Brian. Excellent. It's a great conference really enjoying it.
Bryan Montpetit 00:16
Fantastic. Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate that. So, first and foremost founder and CEO googling linguistics. Why don't you tell us where you're based?
Jan Hinrichs 00:26
We're based in Madrid. And this is basically because it's a great city. And my wife is from Utah. That was the reason why German moved to Spain. Reason, but, yes. So that's, that's why we have product here.
Bryan Montpetit 00:46
Fantastic. So there's basically an invested interest in being in Spain. So why did you not have a choice? Absolutely. Okay. So from what I understand, I mean, you you have your company is been around for quite some time, has a wide range of, of different types of customers in, for example, security and digital for elearning, things like that. So what I mean, how are things going during during the pandemic? I mean, how are things going for you? Basically, it's bringing it down to that.
Jan Hinrichs 01:16
Exactly. So yeah, we I think, right now that we have been hearing that all day long. So it really depends where you you're working in which area you work in, we have been in digital since 2006, actually, 2004, I started in the industry. But with beluga, we started in 2006 and have never done other things than working on continuous translation since 2006. So in this sense, our clients are digital companies, their marketing their, as you say, the advertising platforms have been in in user interface localization since then, since the very beginning, and have seen also like the up and downs of the internet, but right now, I would say it was a great bet. on digital, because in general, the digital clients have have less infrastructure they have, they are completely digital, so they can move pretty fast and can adapt to the situation. And I think General digital is right now a very go to option for many people.
Bryan Montpetit 02:39
Okay, so are you saying that, for example, within the demand of the digital clients that you have, you haven't necessarily seen a decrease in business?
Jan Hinrichs 02:47
No, we have seen to two states, which is flat, or increase.
Bryan Montpetit 02:54
That's, that's fantastic. Worry. I'm, I'm very happy to hear that at least the the digital side of things is going very well. So I mean, with respect to with staff, I mean, how many staff do you have in your company?
Jan Hinrichs 03:06
We have a small in house team. And then in total operations, it's about 80 people.
Bryan Montpetit 03:14
Oh, wow. Okay, so widespread.
Jan Hinrichs 03:17
Now. So so the reason why I say a small in house team, it's like a lean organization. So we have tried to get rid of as much baggage which is not key to our operations as possible. So that means tech stuff, accounting stuff, everything, you know, everything which what is not core to our business, which is project management, client, customer management, and, and vendor relationships. All the rest is sort of not core and can be picked in a very like spot on situations or you build up a network of collaborators, like we have done, who are working with us continuously, but on, on collaboration bases, and that's great.
Bryan Montpetit 04:13
Right? Okay. So in terms of your infrastructure, then if you only had a core smaller core team, I mean, did you for example, send them home? Do you have office space that you had to, to negotiate with? Like, how did you actually handle the whole social distancing thing? I mean, and by the way, I've seen videos online of, of Madrid and people dancing on their balconies, which I find awesome. So hopefully, you're part of that. But yeah, I mean, what's what's been the, I guess, tone and the impact of having to do that and how did you navigate that?
Jan Hinrichs 04:43
Yeah. So so we have been having other situations you can imagine. So we worked. We had an office, we work from home, we have offices. We scaled back to work at home. But then I think this is this is little bit what? What the previous Don Palmer talked about is, you know, the preparation right now. So how, how are you affected? We actually started in 2015. With relaunching our company with re launching and focusing really on, on building up processes. Image, like the marketing part, the sales infrastructure. So how can you scale? How can let's say, half a million business grow to a 5 million business? So all this needful tons of preparation? And that's what we started in 2015. And since then, we haven't stopped. So one of the things is office space, you said, you said, you talked about that. We decided to go to week two, we weren't competitors spaces, actually co working space. Right. And it is, I think, still a fantastic opportunity. So we have heard, like, this morning, Julio Lian talked about that we work is loser of this situation, I don't I don't agree with him, I think we work will be a very strong model itself, because people will partly work from home will be more used to work on digital and, and on distance. But on the other hand, and that's what we have learned from our last, like working from home period, is isolation is a big, big topic for freelancers, every like freelancers know that. And getting in touch with people outside of your business outside of your work in a workspace, like co working space is just brutal. It's it's, it helps you to just think outside of the box, it brings new influence to you to your employees. And overall, it's very flexible, so I can work our office can be in all spaces around the world. So I worked in New York for some time now. So all this is possible.
Bryan Montpetit 07:25
Okay, the perspective of the co working because I mean, obviously, coworkers are picking up in popularity. But a lot of people have that. I guess that notion or that concern that their clients will perceive them as a real business, if they're if they're, you know, based in a co working environment. What's your opinion on that?
Jan Hinrichs 07:46
I mean, yeah, so you know, we are goal driven, driven company, okay, so we measure success by by the goal to be achieved or not. And it's not important, if you're in a T shirt at home, or in a suit in an office, you know, if this is your benchmark, then I say, you're not competitive today, because today's work is really about competitive and achievement. So you need this. It's, it doesn't matter, and it has a great infrastructure co working, you have all these non essential stuff, externalize one bill at the end of the month, great opportunity,
Bryan Montpetit 08:29
I would agree. And I often I always say that, for example, I want people for their for their special capacities, not necessarily how they look or how they dress, or you know, where they're working. So I would agree with your statement that, you know, if your goal based in a meeting was goals with your intellectual capital, that's fantastic. So that's good to hear. So you obviously haven't had any negative impacts from co working experiences and things like that, which is good. So I mean, it's,
Jan Hinrichs 08:55
it's, it's, it's different. It's even a plus because, you know, cuz new if you want to track human resource to your company, and especially Gen Zed, or, you know, or, you know, the new new generations of workers coming in, they don't want to stamp. Nobody wants that, you know. So I think for us, it is the co working space is a place of meeting, it's a meeting place for us. So it's,
Bryan Montpetit 09:31
I mean, I think that with that, and I know we're actually running a bit short on time. So I just want to make sure that I ask you some very key key important questions in terms of your technical logical infrastructure. And the decisions you made back when you started, you know, restructure your company. What What was your main focus? What was your main objective in terms on the technology side?
Jan Hinrichs 09:50
On the technology side, of course, scalability, all our opportunities, its scale, so operation on the back end project management, everything is cloud based nowadays. So So and the translation tools we are using are also cloud based. And that gives all these opportunities of free movement.
Bryan Montpetit 10:17
It's I would also agree with that. I mean, it's, I think more and more obviously, people are moving to the cloud. And people are creating environments or structures, infrastructures that are mobile, so you can actually, you know, be anywhere in the world, you can still continue doing your day, and you're less impacted by, by the, I guess, the place where you're actually conducting the work. So I'm super happy to hear that, you know, things haven't gone badly for you during the pandemic. I'm really happy, sincerely happy to hear that. Obviously, the core team, you know, if you're doing well, they're still around, you're keeping everybody everything in place, you're able to serve your customers, I think that's super positive. And I think for everyone, you know, and again, we're just shy of about 500 attendees, I think it's a positive message to say that, obviously, there's an opportunity by creating an infrastructure that allows you to be mobile, I think that you had so so words of wisdom, wisdom within your answers, whereby, you know, focusing on the business structure becoming lean, and growing, in that capacity is just a good positive message for everybody that's been listening. If you ever
Jan Hinrichs 11:24
want one last comment to this is right now, and so there was a lot of, and there is a lot of uncertainty. But it is a moment of opportunity. And, and this opportunity right now. I mean, it is hard, and not everybody has the same reality. But now, it's the black swan moment, like we have heard before. Alright, so there are people in the market that can collaborate with you, who wouldn't have been available a year ago. And so opportunities are there, plan ahead, go where you want to go. And, you know, now you have more access than ever to invest, invest in yourself or invest in your company in your infrastructure, but invest? I think that's important.
Bryan Montpetit 12:14
Words, wisdom, I think that's perfect. I think it was a great note to end our discussion on. I would encourage everybody, for example, to reach out to you. If they have questions. Should they need to words of wisdom, inspiration? asked. I forgot to mention the founder of lock alive. That's right. I apologize for not mentioning that.
Jan Hinrichs 12:38
No, no, no, no. It's about the network. So So that's great. But also there, we will see a lot of innovation coming through. Absolutely. Hopefully the new platform for lot lunch will be soon out there. We're working
Bryan Montpetit 12:50
on it. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the chat and hopefully we'll get to do it again soon.
Jan Hinrichs 12:56
Brian, thanks a lot for the opportunity. Thank you.
