The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/1172840
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER The Linguist 7 @Linguist_CIOL FEATURES Thebig idea Q How would you describe Mytoori? A It's essentially an app where you can read bilingual books. So if you're learning French and want to improve your vocabulary, you can buy one of our French/English books. If you don't understand something, you can tap on the text and see a translation. Anybody who speaks two or more languages can upload a bilingual story and sell it through the platform. Q How did you come up with the idea? A I was learning French while doing an MA in Web Marketing and Project Management in France. I am the type of learner who likes trying stuff out rather than learning lots of grammar rules. I thought if I could read stories in French I could improve my vocabulary while reading a fun story. I created the iPad app and launched it on the App Store in 2012. Q What skills did you need to learn? A Although I studied web development, I then worked as a consultant for eight years, so I had to learn new technology. I didn't know about building iOS apps, so I did a free online course from Stanford. Setting up online payments also involved new technology. For the business aspects I went to sessions at the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam. They give information about what you need to do when setting up a small business. Q Tell us about the company name… A I grew up speaking Dutch and English but my origin is Surinamese and mytoori means 'my story' in the local language. I thought that was fun. Initially it was called Duolir. Q Did you hire people to help? A The icon was created by a designer and for marketing I've used experts with mixed results. I have taken some risks, for example with Google ads, but marketing is a challenge. Finding the right partner is tricky because they can charge a lot with no guarantee of success. Q Have there been other challenges? A I'm building this app in my free time because I don't want to risk taking out a loan, so time management is difficult. There are various funding opportunities but they take time to sort out, so I ask myself, do I spend time doing that or building my idea? Q How do you find authors? A It takes a lot of effort to write content and translate it at the same time, so I thought it might be difficult to find people who were willing to take that risk. I started with classics because they are out of copyright. I also did a search of language bloggers and the first person I contacted decided to give it a try. After that I started posting on translator websites and people were very enthusiastic. It's a self-publishing model so authors set the price for their books and get 50% of the sale Giwan Persaud discusses the challenges of establishing a bilingual book app while working full-time price, and I get 50% for providing the platform. A few offer their books for free. Q Why did you move Mytoori from the App Store to the website? A A lot of potential customers were not on Apple devices but I didn't have the resources to build different versions of the app. Selling through the App Store was tricky because Apple takes 30%. Q What languages do you cover? A There's no limitation: authors can create a book in any language and publish it. I wanted to cover most of the European languages because they are popular, but those languages grew quickly quite organically. Q What's next for Mytoori? A I'm improving the platform for authors and translators to log in and edit their content. Translators can now create a profile, so one person can write a story and upload it, another can translate it and they can both earn. mytoori.com