The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023 - 31

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on providing a high level of
customer service or a unique,
personalized experience. Your
small team can easily set
and maintain a healthy work
culture, and you'll benefit
from strong camaraderie.
This option may sound
very attractive, but it's
not without its drawbacks.
Lifestyle businesses are
more susceptible to market
fluctuations, industry shifts,
and the general whims of
their clients. Without a large
team and without capital to
scale, lifestyle businesses
cannot always meet the needs
of the highest-paying clients.
There are always exceptions,
but the owners of boutique
agencies and lifestyle
businesses should be aware of
potential limitations.
Growth Business: A
growth business is a
company that's focused on
steadily increasing revenue
and achieving significant
growth over time. Growth
businesses typically have
a clear plan for how
they will achieve these
goals, including raising
funds, expanding service
offerings, or acquiring other
companies. TransPerfect
and Welocalize are examples
of growth businesses,
but any translator can
potentially launch a growth
business. (Remember that
TransPerfect was first
launched in a dorm room at
New York University!)
Growth businesses
often have a long-term
perspective, and they may be
willing to invest significant
resources to achieve their
goals (such as building
personalized translation
portals or investing in
3
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customized machine
translation models). They
may also be more open to
taking risks to drive growth,
and they may be willing
to pursue unconventional
or innovative strategies to
differentiate themselves
from competitors.
While growth businesses
can bring significant
financial rewards and
clout within the business
community, the cons of
starting a growth business
should also be clear. For
significant growth, you must
also take on a lot of risk. If
you accept funding from
outside investors, you'll be
beholden to them in your
decision-making. And as
the company grows, it can
be harder to maintain your
original vision (unless your
vision was simply to grow!).
So...Is Translation
Entrepreneurship
for You?
What most of these business
types have in common is
this: it will almost always
take at least a few years
of hard work before you
start to see your desired
results. If you want to be an
entrepreneur solely for the
money and the flexibility,
then, ironically, you'll need
to be prepared to have
very little of both in the
beginning. Sure, you might
not have a " boss " ...instead
you'll have 5-30 bosses.
Your clients will be your
bosses, and as the owner of
your business, you'll bear
full responsibility for the
provision of every service.
I believe that what drives
most entrepreneurs through
those first challenging years
The translation field is particularly
well-suited to making a gradual
transition from freelancer to
" solopreneur " to full-fledged growth
business owner.
is a passion for learning
and iterating. In my case,
I knew very little about
running a business when
I first launched Meridian
Linguistics. All I knew was
that I had more translation
requests than I could handle
on my own, and that I
seemed to have a knack
for finding translators and
giving them the skills and
resources they needed to do
their best work.
But as time went on, I
realized that I was deriving
immense gratification
from acquiring new
entrepreneurial skills: how to
manage large projects, how
to negotiate, how to hire,
how to fire (unfortunately),
and how to leverage all the
incredible technology that
now exists to streamline
business operations
(accounting software,
databases, automations,
application programming
interfaces, and more). And
whenever I encountered
a setback, I learned the
incredibly valuable skill of
turning setbacks into lessons.
Sometimes it was a very
expensive or painful lesson!
But a lesson, nonetheless.
Now, several years
later, I'm very lucky to
be able to enjoy some of
those elusive rewards of
entrepreneurship: control
over my work-life balance,
a flexible schedule, a
flexible location, and
passive income. Of course,
this has come after many
years of being " chained
to my desk, " working
to turn Meridian into a
sustainable business with
automated processes and
a reliable workforce. None
of it would be possible
without our incredible
team: our translators,
project managers, vendor
managers, administrative
assistants, interns, and our
finance crew.
If you choose to start a
business in the translation
industry, I wish the same
for you!
Sara Maria Hasbun is the founder of
Meridian Linguistics, a translation and data
annotation company based in Hong Kong.
She is currently based in Beijing, China.
saramaria@meridianlinguistics.com
American Translators Association 31
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The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023

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