Starting a translations company

jaOT

Hi all,
Having been hit, like many many others, with the impact of the Coranavirus, my wife and I have decided to take the plunge and start a business. My wife is already a translator and quite successful being fluent in 7 languages! And so it would seem to make sense to see if we can expand on that and create our own company, I.e. where we have freelance translators on tap and work with clients to translate needed documents. So it's the business end I need help with. 

We know how to get potential freelancers to work for us, its other aspects, particularly the promotion and marketing side, we are unsure of. In addition is there any government grant we maybe entitled to that could help us get going (but perhaps not so applicable as I dont want to throw loads of money at the business in its early stages). Any assistance or advice or anything else to actually get the business side up and running is so greatly appreciated!

J

Sandtree

For most businesses how you generate sales is one of the biggest puzzles to need to solve before seriously starting any company. Many that fail are because they took a "build it and they will come approach".

Is your wife an employee doing translation as a job or a freelancer herself, if the later then where is she sourcing her contracts from? If the former you also need to check there is no conflict of interests or restrictive covenants etc to stop her setting up such a business

theoretica

Start with the problem - how are clients finding out about/choosing your wife to do their translation at the moment and what are the disadvantages of that for the clients?

Thrugelmir

jaOT said:

 I dont want to throw loads of money at the business in its early stages

Then you need to put in the hours yourselves. Money won't build a business. Hard work is the key. 

MalMonroe

As someone preparing to set up my own similar business this year, I'm designing and setting up my own website. You don't have to spend lots of money on it, it doesn't have to be fancy, just professional-looking and it needs to be something that immediately pops up when people google 'translators in uk' or similar.  Get yourself on the first page, as it were. 

You can google if you want to find out about grants, for example there's a link here - https://www.startuploans.co.uk/business-advice/get-small-business-government-grant/

Don't forget that you will have to keep meticulous business records and also register with HMRC for tax purposes. 

There's some helpful info in this link -  https://www.gov.uk/set-up-business

Rather than getting freelancers to work for you at the outset, you need to think about finding potential customers. As you say your wife already works as a translator she probably has quite a few contacts already. You need to build up your business before you even think about employing anyone else. You will also be responsible for their reliability, the quality of their work and their wages and when you're an employer it can be a big headache as there's a lot of employment law to read up about.  I will just be working for myself because I don't want to be responsible for others.

My advice would be to stay small until you're confident that your business will succeed if you employ others. If they aren't good at the work they do in your name, your business will fail and your name will be mud.

Running your own business is hard work, especially at the outset. 

Mistral001

Unless your wife is getting a salary as a translator, she presently has a business as a translator, so I would start from there.  The little I know about translators is that there is a vast range going from just slightly better than Google Translate to translators of novels and  commercial contracts etc. so I would imagine your wife will be key in assessing the freelance translators competence for certain types of work.   

With all freelance agencies, it is all down to reputation.  Your reputation will only be as good as the work your freelancers produce.   Also the legal side could be very important in this type of agency,  as  freelance sites often have problems with devising legal safeguards preventing clients cutting the agency, as the middle man,  out and going straight to the freelancer. You might also look into whether you can get professional indemnity insurance.   A good professional indemnity insurance broker can often be very useful in setting up a successful professional business.

jaOT

Hi guys, 

Thank you very much for all of these great replies, They are all very useful. There are some useful tips here and I do not think either of us are under any impression that this will be a walk in the park. However with my wife's know-how and her very good admin head and my background in direct sales (no good at social media though so any tips on that is greatly appreciated) I think we can make this win. We have a very good accountant on board and Indemnity insurance is a very good point that I did not think of, so thanks for that! And yes hard work and lots and lots of good business/private contact is the key. Any further advice is truly welcome and very useful and will be used in our venture. 

Thanks again
J