Five Years of Orientspeak: A Letter From the Founder

Just over five years ago, I sent our first invoice. It was for an Arabic-to-English translation of a 12-page commercial agreement, billed at $490. We worked from a co-working space with two laptops and a printer that jammed every third page.

I remember the client — a small import-export company — saying he had used three other translators in the past year and was about to give up on outsourcing. He said our version was the first that did not need to be re-edited internally before it could be signed.

That feedback shaped the company more than any business plan. We chose, from that first project, to build around quality rather than volume. We hired translators slowly. We turned away rush jobs we could not deliver well. We invested in review processes when we were too small to afford them.

What I underestimated

How much regulated document work would matter. In our second year, demand for apostille, sworn translation and legalisation support became one of the most stable parts of the business.

How quickly demand would diversify across regions. I expected most growth from Europe and Asia — instead, the first markets to grow were the ones I least expected — Spanish-Italian sworn translation, Korean media subtitling, and cross-Asian language pairs all opened up before our planned European push.

What I overestimated

How fast we could scale through technology. Our first attempt at a customer portal failed twice before we accepted that our work is too custom for templated workflows.

What is next

We are doubling down on what works: human translators, careful processes, deep domain specialisation. Five more years from now, I want our clients to say the same thing the importer said in 2020 — "we don't have to re-edit it."

Thank you for the trust. Here is to the next five years.