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Hey Man, just my thoughts on this. Looks like a great product. I may use it later this year as I'm learning Spanish. However, your business model is weak, bec

Hey Man, just my thoughts on this. Looks like a great product. I may use it later this year as I'm learning Spanish. However, your business model is weak, because people are fickle and don't stick with language learning (I should know; I've been learning Spanish for 6 years on and off). Plus, the more you use your product, the less you need it. However, there is a much better target market: businesses. I know a whole bunch of foreign nationals in the UK who have earned money working on rather basic translation tasks for web businesses. I can imagine a tool like this would be hugely useful for those businesses. Sure, I can go use Google translate, but having a polished user experience in-browser looks a lot nicer and more professional if a customer is watching me use it. So, I say this year focus on selling to SMEs. If you get just a few major business contracts, it will dwarf your income from regular users. You're looking for companies that work a lot on the web and interact with organisations overseas, possibly speak a little of the relevant foreign language but can't afford to pay for bilingual speakers. Random thoughts: - the travel industry - travel agents, companies that organise tours, tourist visitor centres, accommodation agents, etc. Anyone who might want to quickly check a foreign website. - government, particularly anything interacting abroad or with non-native speakers. - SME exporters - journalists - researchers Final point - I'm not so keen on your branding. Learning a language is an exciting, potentially life-changing experience! It can increase your employability and open your eyes to entire new cultures. This is an amazing thing. "Readlang" does not say that to me. However, it's a good name for a business interacting with the corporate market I suggested above, so it may not need changing... Good luck, I think what you're doing is awesome and you should definitely stick with it!

tinco 11y ago
Small addition: Maybe focus on languages that most people want to learn, Dutch should not be in such a short list especially where mega languages like Mandarin or Arabic are missing. As I write this I realize there's actually fugitives trying to learn Dutch, but that's a harsh market to try and profit from unless you target the government.
- steveridout 11y ago
  Chinese and Arabic are both there, within the admittedly long and difficult to navigate language selector! They are both in "beta" and hence further down the list. The reason Chinese is in beta is because it doesn't have word boundary detection, pinyin transliteration, or word frequency lists. Arabic is in "beta" because there were some issues with "right to left" text. I think this is working pretty well now though, haven't had complaints in a while, so I can think about bringing that out of beta soon.
  - tinco 11y ago
    Ohh I checked again and now I see them. I don't know what I did but I got a window with a small amount of European flags and thought that was your entire offering. Great work on supporting so many languages!
steveridout 11y ago
You may be correct. But I'm not ready to focus on businesses right now because: 1. Businesses would want features that individuals don't care about. More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about. I made Readlang to serve my own needs as a self motivated learner. I feel like I have a reasonable barometer for what's useful and what will appeal to individuals. Creating something for business would be more difficult and less fun for me personally. 2. There's still a hell of a lot of room to grow with individual language learners. 3. Even if the profit is lower, I can probably reach a larger user base with a freemium consumer product. I think that the quantity of feedback and data that this provides helps me create a better product. (On the other hand - I'm sure the revenue that may come from a B2B product would also help!) 4. I can always try selling to businesses later. And with a proven, popular consumer product this should be an easier sell. Regarding the name & branding. I'm sure it's not optimal but I'm not an expert in this and it was the best I came up with. I'm going to run with it in the short term at least. Thanks for the advice and encouragement!
- charlesdm 11y ago
  The guy who you're reply to is right. Selling to businesses will make you more money. Selling only 10 units at $99 a month will generate you $12k a year. Either that, or you need to raise prices significantly for consumers.
- haggy 11y ago
  > More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about. > I feel like I have a reasonable barometer for what's useful Those two statements right there are holding you back. 1) You should ALWAYS be considering features that users want if you're trying to become profitable. If this was a charity app then sure, do whatever you want. BUT this is not, according to your blog. Put the user's needs before your own. 2) You may have a decent feel of what it takes to learn a language but I bet you a day of true market research would open your eyes to features/enhancements that you would have never even considered. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I think the app is really cool!
  - steveridout 11y ago
doweig 11y ago
I agree on the branding. The landing page looks like a side project, the message is neither strong or clear. You might want to look at this https://www.goodui.org/ https://www.goodui.org/
- jng 11y ago
  Awesome site you linked to, thanks.
- welfare 11y ago
  That was more than incredible! Simply amazing, especially for someone like me working in digital but not so much on the UX part.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
>> I know a whole bunch of foreign nationals in the UK who have earned money working on rather basic translation tasks for web businesses. One of my best friends worked with me at a large corporation. He's from Bulgaria and knows seven languages - by his account his very fluent in 3-4. Got tired of all the corporate BS so he started his own translation company. They have a web app and provide translation services to businesses. Within a year, he had more business than he could handle. There is a definite pent up demand for translation services as he clearly found out.
- true_religion 11y ago
  What is their web app? Something like that would be extremely useful for me.

tinco 11y ago

Small addition: Maybe focus on languages that most people want to learn, Dutch should not be in such a short list especially where mega languages like Mandarin or Arabic are missing. As I write this I realize there's actually fugitives trying to learn Dutch, but that's a harsh market to try and profit from unless you target the government.

steveridout 11y ago
Chinese and Arabic are both there, within the admittedly long and difficult to navigate language selector! They are both in "beta" and hence further down the list. The reason Chinese is in beta is because it doesn't have word boundary detection, pinyin transliteration, or word frequency lists. Arabic is in "beta" because there were some issues with "right to left" text. I think this is working pretty well now though, haven't had complaints in a while, so I can think about bringing that out of beta soon.
- tinco 11y ago
  Ohh I checked again and now I see them. I don't know what I did but I got a window with a small amount of European flags and thought that was your entire offering. Great work on supporting so many languages!

steveridout 11y ago

You may be correct. But I'm not ready to focus on businesses right now because: 1. Businesses would want features that individuals don't care about. More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about. I made Readlang to serve my own needs as a self motivated learner. I feel like I have a reasonable barometer for what's useful and what will appeal to individuals. Creating something for business would be more difficult and less fun for me personally. 2. There's still a hell of a lot of room to grow with individual language learners. 3. Even if the profit is lower, I can probably reach a larger user base with a freemium consumer product. I think that the quantity of feedback and data that this provides helps me create a better product. (On the other hand - I'm sure the revenue that may come from a B2B product would also help!) 4. I can always try selling to businesses later. And with a proven, popular consumer product this should be an easier sell. Regarding the name & branding. I'm sure it's not optimal but I'm not an expert in this and it was the best I came up with. I'm going to run with it in the short term at least. Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

charlesdm 11y ago
The guy who you're reply to is right. Selling to businesses will make you more money. Selling only 10 units at $99 a month will generate you $12k a year. Either that, or you need to raise prices significantly for consumers.
haggy 11y ago
> More importantly, they would want features that I don't care about. > I feel like I have a reasonable barometer for what's useful Those two statements right there are holding you back. 1) You should ALWAYS be considering features that users want if you're trying to become profitable. If this was a charity app then sure, do whatever you want. BUT this is not, according to your blog. Put the user's needs before your own. 2) You may have a decent feel of what it takes to learn a language but I bet you a day of true market research would open your eyes to features/enhancements that you would have never even considered. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I think the app is really cool!
- steveridout 11y ago

doweig 11y ago

I agree on the branding. The landing page looks like a side project, the message is neither strong or clear. You might want to look at this https://www.goodui.org/ https://www.goodui.org/

jng 11y ago
Awesome site you linked to, thanks.
welfare 11y ago
That was more than incredible! Simply amazing, especially for someone like me working in digital but not so much on the UX part.

at-fates-hands 11y ago

>> I know a whole bunch of foreign nationals in the UK who have earned money working on rather basic translation tasks for web businesses. One of my best friends worked with me at a large corporation. He's from Bulgaria and knows seven languages - by his account his very fluent in 3-4. Got tired of all the corporate BS so he started his own translation company. They have a web app and provide translation services to businesses. Within a year, he had more business than he could handle. There is a definite pent up demand for translation services as he clearly found out.

true_religion 11y ago
What is their web app? Something like that would be extremely useful for me.