Greater than 4 minutes, my friend!
The Win-Win Project A New Translation Market Is Possible
Translators play an essential role in the globalized world we live in. That should be quite obvious to anyone who thinks about it, and certainly is for those who read The Open Mic posts. However, their work could have a much greater impact in a number of different, relevant contexts where it does not nowadays for purely economic constraints.
There is an amazing amount of knowledge and information available on the Internet in articles, blog posts, news, reports, forums. As Ryan Sweeney discusses here, in recent years the web has seen a boom in quality content production. Much of that content would certainly be of interest to people from different countries and cultures, so it would be great if professional translators were working to make such interesting texts available in different languages, but they are not. And that is due to a very mundane but essential reason: there is no one to pay for such work.
Many people might want to have a scientific article that is important for their studies translated into their language, for example, but they can’t afford to pay for quality, professional translations, and are therefore only left with “alternatives” like machine or amateur translations. Meanwhile, professional translators are busy translating manuals, contracts and other such materials for clients who can pay for their work, because they have to pay their bills, and meanwhile having to struggle to keep their rates at a reasonable level, trying to negotiate deadlines that allow them to deliver a good job, receiving more and more frequent offers to post-edit machine translation…
Just imagine, for a moment, how much bigger the translation market could be and how much more positive impact our work could have if we were paid to help spread knowledge and information across languages by translating relevant, interesting texts that are published all the time on the Internet. But the question remains: who could pay for that?
The search for answers to this question is what inspired the Win-Win Project. It is based on a simple observation: people who want such content translated cannot afford professional translations individually, but together they can. The aim of Win-Win is to be a system to enable people to easily join together to pay for it — a crowdfunding platform specifically for translations. This way, people who need a translation would not have to spend much, as each of them would pay just a fraction of its price, and at the same time translators would be well paid for their work.
The way it would work and how it would be beneficial to everyone involved is explained in this short video (less than three minutes) and, in more details, here. I have also published texts about it here, focusing on my motivations as a translator to start the project, and here, focusing on the idea of applying the innovative power of crowdfunding to the translation industry. So here at The Open Mic I want to concentrate on the benefits of such a system for the translation community and what we need to make it real.
First, the advantages for the translators who become part of the Win-Win directory:
– They will be well paid for their job. In fact, they will be able to define how much they want to be paid, by selecting projects that have already raised a satisfactory amount in funding or by indicating the amount that must be reached for them to take on the translation. There will be no “reverse auction”, no competition based on the lowest bid: once a translator indicates an amount, his/her offer will be valid for a period during which no other translator will be allowed to propose a lower price;
– They will have the freedom to select projects of their interest, taking into account their own availability, specialties, and the subjects that they like to translate; moreover, they will be free to define how they want to work: deadlines, which tools to use, etc.
– They will not run any financial risks: when they start a translation, the amount to pay for it will already have been raised, so once the job is finished, they will not have to wait for 30, 60 or 90 days to be paid;
– Since their translations will be published on the Win-Win website, clearly identifying them as the translators, they will gradually build a public portfolio to present to (or be found by) potential new clients.
Furthermore, there will be benefits for the translation community in general as well, since the importance and value of professional translators will become more visible, because people who previously could only resort to machine or amateur translation will now gain access to their service.
However, at this point, Win-Win is just a project. In order to get it up and running, we need to raise the funds to pay for system development, website design and other related costs. The way we are trying to achieve that has a lot to do with the concept behind the project itself: crowdfunding. This way, if we can raise the amount needed through contributions from a large number of people willing to make it real, Win-Win will not have to resort to — and later serve the interests of — some big individual investor.
Our crowdfunding campaign, however, is now getting close to its end (the deadline is 30 December) and is still far from reaching its goal, maybe because in Brazil, where the project started, the crowdfunding model is not very popular yet. But a turnaround is not impossible — there are cases in which a larger amount was raised in fewer days — and that is why we are still struggling to spread the word about it and will do so until the very last day.
So if you also believe that we should build a new, fairer and more stimulating translation market, you can help make it real by:
– becoming a backer: you can contribute from anywhere through PayPal, and the amount you choose to contribute will be charged to your account only if the campaign ends up successful;
– telling everybody about it and inviting more people to contribute, letting them know that the system will benefit not only translators, but also people who need translations and, in fact, anyone who wants to see more knowledge and information spread in different languages through the Internet.
I have been chewing on this idea for some years now, so there is much more I would like to say about it, but then this post would become too long. So I’ll stop here, but I’d be very glad to answer any questions in the comments below and discuss the project further. See you there!
Ronnie J Rigdon 
Anastasia Giagopoulou 
Nixie Adams 
Hey Reginaldo!
Thank you so much for sharing your idea with The Open Mic community and welcome to our little family!
I admire your passion and dedication. I think the idea behind this project is coming from the right place. The only thing I don’t understand is: why crowdfunding? This is a huge amount of money I’ve see other attempts to crowdfund similar project fail that’s why I’m not sure if this the right way to go.
Have you tried finding private investors or even fund the project with your own money?
Hi Dmitry,
Many thanks for your kind words and your questions!
We have chosen to try crowdfunding first because it has more to do with the “spirit” of the Win-Win Project: we wanted it to be born from a community of supporters, composed of translators, students, researchers — i.e., from people who will benefit from its creation, so that we can remain committed only with their interests. We haven’t discarded the possibility of seeking a private investor, but only if we really can’t succeed through crowdfunding.
As for funding it with our own money, we would love to do it, but we do not have that sum. It’s really a large amount in BRL, although not that much in USD: around 16,000 USD nowadays.
Hey Reginaldo!
That’s a very good intention, but from what I’ve leaned it’s really hard to raise funds when you don’t have an actual working prototype. That’s why I never raised funds to build The Open Mic and started learning web design when I had a chance. The Open Mic isn’t perfect, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in all departments, but at least it’s working and we’re making progress every single day.
It’s really hard to rally the troops when you don’t have an actual product and even though the community of freelance translators is awesome, we’re very cautious about everything new.
I would recommend building everything yourself and with your own money, even if it means sleepless nights, no vacation or saying no to simple pleasure (like watching TV shows or playing video games).
Build a working prototype and invite people to test it so they could become early adopters and help you promote Win Win. I’d recommend you to try WordPress. You can build pretty much anything with it and you don’t have to be a genius to learn it.
A simple Google search of “Crowdfunding WordPress Plugin” has returned a plenty of great and affordable solutions that you could use as a base for your project. All you need is to learn how to build stuff with WordPress 🙂
Hi Dmitry,
Many thanks for your suggestions.
I see your point, and you’re really doing a fantastic job with The Open Mic, but in our case we preferred the pay-professionals-to-do-it instead of a learn-to-do-it-yourself approach for two main reasons:
– Win-Win system will have to deal with user’s data and money, so it may be too risky not having professional developers to take care of all needed security measures. By now we can’t afford Win-Win development, but, more than that, we won’t be able to afford the problems that may arise if something goes wrong in that regard;
– By paying professionals to develop it we could have it working much sooner than by learning everything from scratch and trying to create it in our spare time, between a translation project and the next, which in my case I fear could take years.
Anyway, it’s one more thing to think about if the crowdfunding fails. Before trying any other approach, however, I’ll need some time to recover from this campaign, including financially. In addition to sleepless nights, no vacation, no TV, no video games and the like, the time I dedicated to Win-Win lately also meant doing much less paid work, which is too bad for a freelancer. I’ll have to deal with the consequences of that before making any other attempt regarding Win-Win.
I feel you, Reginaldo. Sleep deprivation is the direct result of you choosing to lead by example. Welcome to my world, hehe 🙂
I see your point about handling payments and data, that’s why invested into SSL certificate to make The Open Mic secure (link to theopenmic.co), but I completely agree that sometimes hiring a professional is a better and a safer way to go.
What I was trying to say is: don’t underestimate your powers or abilities. Everything is possible, even if your fundraising campaign fails. Keep pushing forward and never give up!
Oh and don’t pay the attention to nay-sayers – they’re a minority and they don’t represent the real picture.
Thanks, Dmitry. I won’t discard that possibility.
As for the nay-sayers, they are really a minority. One thing that made me very glad was that the crowdfunding campaign promotion mostly raised very positive feedback.
The other thing that comes to mind is monetization: do you have a clearly defined monetazition strategy? How will you earn money with Win-Win? This is very important for any startup.
Our monetization model will be simple, as we mentioned in the campaign text and in our website: Win-Win will take a (fixed, transparent) small percentage of the amount to be paid to translators. The value we have in mind by now is 15%. If other monetization possibilities appear in the future, we may try to use them to lower that percentage.
Hmm… 15% is a bit too much, considering the potential scale and a relatively low maintenance cost. Anyway, I’m not quite sure how the whole process works. Can you do a step-by-step explanation of how do people start a fundraising campaign, how they choose translators and how do you plan to eradicate low-bidding and underselling?
We thought of that percentage based on the ones used by some existing crowdfunding platforms. Kickante, for example, charges 12% in “all-or-nothing” campaigns and 17% in “flexible” campaigns. We’re considering 15% to be on the safe side and to be sure to cover all expenses with payment processing fees and others. If Win-Win scales up and we get a large number of users and projects, it may be possible to lower that.
The translation project step-by-step will be like this:
1- A user creates a translation project at Win-Win for a text available online, providing the website address of the page(s) where the text is and indicating the amount of his/her own contribution. Win-Win contacts the owner of the content to approve the project. Once approved, the project becomes available to receive other contributions.
2- Other people interested in having the content translated contribute to its funding. The owner of the content, the creator of the project and the contributors can promote the project on social media and other means. The owner of the content can put a link to it in the original site of the text.
3- A translator takes on the project if he/she is interested in translating it and the amount already raised in contributions is enough to compensate his/her work — note that translators select, they are not selected. If a translator is interested in a project, but thinks that the amount raised is not enough, he/she can indicate an amount that must be reached and, once it is, he/she takes on the translation.
4- Once the translation is completed, it is published on the same page where the translation project was, and the translator is paid.
For more details about each step, see the “How it works” section in our campaign at Kickante.
To discourage “reverse auction”, some rules will apply to the offers mentioned in step 3. Only one translator can make an offer at a time. That offer will be valid for a period (e.g. one week or two), during which the system will allow no other translator to make a lower bid. Only after that period, if contributions don’t reach that amount, other translators (or the same) will be free to make a lower offer if they want.
In addition to that, the system will not allow a translator to bid for too many projects at a time, so that, if he/she takes on a translation for a low price, this will make him/her lose the opportunity to take other better remunerated ones.
But, on top of all that, Win-Win will select competent, experienced translators for its directory, that is, professionals that already have their own clients outside Win-Win and know the value of their services, so they will not be interested in being underpaid for it.
Hi Reginaldo — I sure hope this project gets off the ground one way or another. I think it’s such an innovative approach to making translations accessible to the general public and giving control back to translators themselves over what they will work on and on what terms. It’s also a creative way of avoid the agencies that not only pocket so much of the money, but also erect a barrier between clients and translators. By contrast, your project promotes so much transparency among everyone — authors, translators, and even readers (who are usually treated as passive recipients of translated and published materials, rather than active participants from the very beginning, as in your project). If it works as planned, translators might be able to reclaim some of the autonomy and control they lost with the rise of the big agencies and the reverse-auction sites like Proz.
Best of luck in the final stretch!
That were some of my thoughts too, Catherine. I love transparency and just like you and Reginaldo think that we should have more control over the translation market, after all it only exists because of our skills and abilities.
This is actually one of the goals I’m trying to achieve with The Open Mic too. By creating a great environment for inspiration and creativity and building an incredibly engaged community of dedicated professionals who love what they do we can create new opportunities for ourselves. I’m sure that all of our efforts here won’t go unnoticed.
I think we need more places like this, where everyone feel safe and welcome. Places that give new meaning to everything we do and promote our profession in a new way. Our profession is ridiculously underrepresented in the media, so it’s up to us to raise the awareness and make a name for ourselves.
Hi Catherine,
You really highlighted the objectives that are at the base of Win-Win Project: making professional translation accessible, giving the control back to translators, promote transparency, get translators and final users closer. Many thanks!