Fluent French and Italian speaker Christian, 26, put his skills to good use by setting up an on-line translation service

Sunday Mail - 13th February, 2005

The idea: I was a languages student at Oxford University during the dotc.com boom in 1999 and it occurred to me that nobody was doing anything in the translation industry. So I thought I’d set up a website and offer a service with my multi-lingual friends.

How I did it: I didn’t have money to pay a web designer so I got a friend to do it for me in early 2000. It was quite horrific in burgundy and gold but we got enough jobs out of it for beer money. When I graduated I set up Lingo24 from my parents’ house in Aberdeen. We translate technical manuals, marketing and language material for business around the world. Lingo have a staff of 20 and we have 500 translators we can call on around the world who speak around 200 languages. Most of our work is in 10 languages. Some of the most obscure translations we’ve had are African languages I had never heard of such as Ndebele and Shona.

It cost less than £1,000 to set up initially but last year’s turnover was £750,000.

Perks: The freedom it gives you to develop the business at your own pace. I like it because it’s fast-moving.

Five-year plan: We are hoping to get turnover about £1million this year. We are going to invest a lot in branding because you need to have trust in a translation company.

We set up an operation in New Zealand last year so we can be round-the-clock. We also have a base in China and are about to open in Romania.

Tips: If you have an idea for a business you should go and see the Business Gateway because they have a lot of good advice and the Now Business network is a good place to sound out ideas.

It’s a global marketplace. Set up your site in English and come to us to have it translated!

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