Eija - translator and workspace entrepreneur

Eija - translator and workspace entrepreneur

Transcription in English

I am Eija, a translator and a partner in a company providing open workspace, meaning that people from any industry can work here. Right now, many of the people working here are communications experts, which is nice because we can better understand each other’s work, and we all do the same kind of silent work.

It’s very nice to be able to work with other people. Even if I and four other people are just sitting around a table, we’re all just quietly focusing on our work and no one may say anything for a long time, we still know that if something comes up, if you want to ask something or just take a break and chat with someone, you can just open your mouth. You don’t need to text someone first or anything.

In a solution like this, the space is really important, that it’s not just one big space but there are several separate rooms and the space is distinctive in a way, it has a characteristic atmosphere. That is to say, the space needs to be inspiring and modifiable.

At first, we had rules. We had a separate, completely quiet room, but it turned out that everyone sought each other’s company and respected their right to work in peace anyway, so we didn’t need any strict rules after all.

Most people working here are entrepreneurs, quite many are self-employed, but we also have people from bigger companies and elsewhere. I have heard that, in other similar spaces, there have been problems with people talking too loud, for example, while doing sales work.

My own company and this workspace company are limited companies. We didn’t even consider a cooperative since we wanted to make it clear from the beginning that this is a full-scale company, that our goal is to make profit besides producing all the other good stuff. All of us were entrepreneurs already, so it was easy in that sense.

I used to operate as a private trader, but I changed my company form to a limited company already five years ago. Actually, I’ve never done salaried work – well, summer jobs and such, sure, but I’ve done all my “real work” as an entrepreneur. It was self-evident when I started because my mum was a long-time entrepreneur and I have entrepreneurs in my family. It’s contagious. I always wanted to work independently like this.

I really don’t need to do any marketing. I have more work coming in than I can handle, and I pass onto my subcontractors what I don’t have time for myself. Somehow, it has worked out on its own. Every time I meet people, they go, “Oh, you’re a translator. We could use this and that.” I also do copywriting and anything that has to do with communication. In the translation industry, people don’t compete against each other that much but rather recommend each other.

A bookkeeping company takes care of my company’s bookkeeping. I’ve had a bookkeeper since my private trader days. It helps so much. In the very beginning, I translated audiovisual texts for a main customer who I had an agreement with. They’re still my customer, but, along the years, others have come along. It was significant because I knew that I was going to have enough work to venture into entrepreneurship – and they actually required that I had to be an entrepreneur. It wasn’t a problem for me. So, I wasn’t forced into entrepreneurship.

These days, I can easily price my work so that I consider pensions, insurances and vacation time expenses. But it was hard in the beginning. I had to look stuff up online, check recommended prices and seek some kind of an average price. I also monitored my working hours: how long each task took me, how much my hourly rate was at that work pace and how much I was supposed to make for myself.

These days, my biggest problem is to try and get myself to take some time off. Financially, there’s no problem about it. It’s a balancing act because I just like this work so much. Previously, I have put a lot of stress on myself, but now I try to stick to taking days off.

You shouldn’t worry about becoming an entrepreneur in the translation business. The start-up investments are quite small. But you should remember two important things. The first one is networking. I know that many people cringe at hearing the word. But it doesn’t need to be awkward, like wearing a suit and going to an entrepreneurs’ conference and selling so much something to everyone there. You can just drop by as yourself and talk to people like you normally would. For example, I’ve noticed that I talk very much about dogs, and, at some point, the topic turns to what I do for a living. “Oh, a translator”, and there it starts. It’s perfectly natural, not stiff at all. There are many kinds of events where you can meet other entrepreneurs, and, online, there’s LinkedIn. If you’re thinking about how to approach a company, think about it this way: you’re not approaching a company but a person working there. However, it’s also important to network with people in your industry.

The other important thing to remember is your well-being. Make sure that you have some free time. Even if you have no hobbies, just lie on the couch and watch Netflix. Just do something other than work. Especially, if you work from home, it’s easy to just work from morning till night, and your work becomes omnipresent. At that point, you have to hold yourself in check somehow and remember that, if you lose your health, it’s pretty hard to get it back.