You don’t have to be a people person to run a successful business. László Kovács, the general manager of TEK Localizations, has been running a Hungarian translation company for over 20 years. He’s an outsider.
László is also a funny guy as you’ll see in this interview. We discussed the following topics:
- Why are women better at project management
- 1 thing you need before starting a translation company
- How a mechanical engineer ended up in localization
- Losing 100% of your revenue in one day
- The decision to stay SLV
- TEK Localizations company culture
- Meeting clients on… roller skates?!
This is episode #23 of my speaking / social interaction practice, also known as The Localization Podcast 🙂 #localization and #translation insight delivered to you by the power of voice.
Andrej Zito
Finally, after a little break, I have a new guest. And this time it’s László Kovács. So we are still sticking to Hungarian territory after Végh my first guest so László, welcome to the podcast.
László Kovács
Hello. I’m happy you pronounce my name correctly.
Andrej Zito
You mean both parts? Or Which part?
László Kovács
Both bats? Typically Kovács is the problematic part because? Yes, because usually it’s pronounced Kovacs. Oh, yeah. You did it perfect.
Andrej Zito
Yeah. Because a Kovács is, is a very kind of like a common name also in Slovakia. One of our president what’s called Kovács. So yeah, yeah. So that’s why it’s not so different. Anyway, I’m going to start off with the same question as I did with Végh. Can you maybe explain to our listeners how we know each other?
László Kovács
Yes. We met in Reno for the first time. And for the last time, as far as I know. You’ve heard at scream on ik. And I wanted to become a vendor of screven. x. So that’s where we met. And then we started working together or with this company. And then you move to alpha, I believe.
Andrej Zito
Yes. Correct. Was Ilike the first project manager that you work with? with chronic? Or were you already part of the pool when I just somehow
László Kovács
We started to work for Skrivanek with you, actually. So that was the first meeting.
Andrej Zito
Okay.
László Kovács
Yeah. Yeah. So so. I think that was the start of the cooperation. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember that. You didn’t like Macintosh systems? Is it still the same?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, not not not much change. Okay, so surprised that you remember these little details? Yeah.
László Kovács
Yeah, I remember that. Because I’ll, I asked you, if you work on Mac OS localisations. And your answer was that we work with operating systems only.
Andrej Zito
Oh, okay. Yeah, but since then, I think I changed my relationship with EPO a little bit, it improved, but yeah, I still remember. It was actually my first computer. You know, like, for a long time, I used to just go visit my friends, you know, and go play games at their place. But then when I finally like, convinced my mom, you know, to buy me a PC, sorry to buy me a computer, we actually ended up in an apple store, and she paid like a shit ton of money for it, you know, because it came with all the software. And then when I finally brought a game on a floppy disk from my friends, I couldn’t play it, you know, because I didn’t know that those gains won’t work on on Mac. So
László Kovács
I think we have a lot in common. I’m a bit older. So I did the same way the Commodore 64 everyone played on that. And my father came home with an enterprise. It was a spectrum clone basically, with a little more memory, like Vonda 28 kilobytes, which is technically double of the van in in the Commodore but I couldn’t play games. So I started to hate enterprise because of that.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that that’s the story. Okay. So we wanted to do this interview, I think one or two weeks ago, one of the reasons was that you had a, your daughter had a birthday party. How was the party?
László Kovács
Oh, it wasn’t. Yeah, my son had a summer birthday. But he is a senior, and I don’t know much about it, because most of the party was outside the house. Of course, like a proper birthday party should at this age. Oh, but still, you know, we had to buy the cakes and the presence and everything. So it was just fine. I would say yeah, it was okay.
Andrej Zito
Is this something that you do? Like every time like you, like, try to make it special for your kids? Do you have just how many kids do you have?
László Kovács
Two. A son. Boy, at the age of 18, and a girl, two years younger.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so teenagers.
László Kovács
Yeah. So it’s, it’s starting to get fine in in some ways. Because they spend some time outside the house. And I’m happy about it.
Andrej Zito
But they’re, they’re probably going to leave the nest soon, right? At least, the older one is going to study somewhere.
László Kovács
I’m trying to motivate him to go to a university, which is near the sea. So not in Hungary. But I’m not very successful in that. So you know, I’m very much afraid because I’m just like, everywhere in the word I believe in hungry boys tend to stay at their parents house. And I and I don’t want that are one of the neighbors to the left. She She has a 25 year old kid. Still at home. That’s that’s still okay. But on the other side, there is a lady which is living with his son, who is 55 years old. And that’s very, very frightening, you know, life together on my side. That’s not normal. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
I thought the situation was like only like in Spain. I know. Like when I used to live in Spain, like many people said that, like the young people, they don’t need a job because they have like such a low monthly calls because they still live with their parents. But it is also like in our parts of Europe, I think I’ll give you an advice. based on my personal experience, one of the way how to get your kids out of your home is to treat them poorly, you know, so they have a motivation to get out of the house and stand up on their own feet.
László Kovács
Yeah, I’m trying to but you know, we need food for ourselves. So food is not something I can I can keep to ourselves because all he also has access to the fridge. Yeah. The same way the electricity and internet. I have very, very good results with the internet. By the way. Once I I made the bandwidth limit to certain parts. Can I can I mention games? Or productor? You can Yeah, about anything. So he’s into League of Legends, League of Legends, just like many others, and it has certain ports used for communication. And I have put a bandwidth limit to his computer, especially to the ports he was by the game. And it’s not so much fun. He was so angry. And I just I could just say look on this computer, it works fine. It must be something with your computer. Try to repair it. But it was just a few days. So then I I told the story to him. Okay, and he was kinda angry but but I think I’m forgiven by
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I thought that you were going to talk about like the the bandwidth for porn, but
László Kovács
There is no limit on that. Why
Andrej Zito
It’s greatto look like I’m only talking about porn with the Hungarian people. So
László Kovács
Okay, okay.
Andrej Zito
Anyway, Yeah, so how do you remember your own birthday parties? When you were younger? Did you have any parties?
László Kovács
No, actually. My mother told me it’s it’s quite a mess. And it’s a lot of kids and you don’t need that. So I didn’t really have the parties. Yeah, that’s it. There’s a story and my personal tragedy is that I was born in the International Women’s Day. And who knows? Maybe you are in the elementary school. It’s not so funny. Now. Okay, but wow.
Andrej Zito
Cuz like, was it because like, the the girdle center, women were more celebrated than you on your birthday?
László Kovács
Oh, I made the deal. I don’t celebrate them. And they don’t celebrate me. Very much, very fine.
Andrej Zito
Maybe I should start with the question. What do you think about the women in localization? You know, there’s like this organization spreading?
László Kovács
Yeah. Or, you know, I think that localization is already dominated by women. On on project management level? Absolutely. I don’t I don’t know was the case with executives, I think, V men, we still have some strong positions on that. But you know, I, I feel it a little bit too much. So if I look at my company TEK, our women have much, much, much better skills for being a PM.
Andrej Zito
Why do you think so?
László Kovács
Because they are more precise. They are better with the with the hard to say that in and I say, monotonous. Jobs. routine tasks. task? Yeah, that’s much better. That’s not so demotivating. Ah, and they are they are also better with people. By the guys have some, some better tech skills. But that’s not so much needed nine localization. So there’s not not too many things you have to invent on the fly. Our technologies basically work. So it’s more about being precise, being good with the deadlines, being good with with the people. And actually, our women are much better in that. I would say. So, I feel like a dinosaur in this industry.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, before we get to, to TEK, your company. Let me just ask you like so we talked about like your birthday parties, which didn’t happen a lot. But do you remember like, what kind of a kid you were? And what are you think that like, your personality changed as you like, entered the real world of adults and you’re working in paying bills, or if you kind of like cap your passion or like what drove you when you were a child?
László Kovács
I believe I was an outsider, as a kid. That would be the main The first thing I would say about myself. And in a way it stayed the life. When I went to the capital, capital latter life I still feel sometimes that I’m an outsider.
Andrej Zito
Why do you think that like, why do you think like other people are different? Because like, I can relate to that. Like, recently, I was told like, I’m an like, asshole for some people.
László Kovács
That’s That’s a nice word for outsider. Yeah,
Andrej Zito
Yeah. But I mean, why do you think it like do you think like, you’re different or you just don’t fit in with people or you? You’re or they’re boring for you or something? What is your definition of an outsider?
László Kovács
Oh, I think I think a little bit differently than other people. Everybody thinks that by the way. But so nearby? Actually, I am thinking on that. So I’ll but very, very hard with other people is that sometimes I cannot explain the things I want to explain. And even if I think it’s, it’s obvious and it’s simple or whatever, it turns out that it’s not so obvious for other people for it. Yeah. I don’t want to say that I am much smarter than others, because it sounds like that. This is this is not the case, actually. But I often has this feeling that I cannot explain things properly. And other people should already understand what I am trying to tell them. And it doesn’t happen.
Andrej Zito
Well, that’s the that must be a bit of a challenge. Right? If you run the company?
László Kovács
Ah, yeah, it is. It is. Absolutely. Oh, but but I think it’s the case everywhere. Because if you run a company are then you live in a in a different world. So you have other problems than the rest of the company? Like how to pay the salaries next month? Or whatever. And also some legal stuff out. And it’s, it’s very, very hard to, to understand what problems they have, or they might have.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, but yeah, they’re dealing with the day to day things, right. And you see a big complex picture. And exactly like, I have exactly the same thing, because like, like, once you see like, the bigger picture, like the things that are like very default, or like common to you, because you are like in that environment exposed to many different things. They’re, like, obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to others. And yeah, I definitely run into the same things. And also like some, some of my colleagues said the same things that you know, like, like, my explaining skills are like, not very good.
László Kovács
Yeah, that’s it. So that even though the feeling exactly,
Andrej Zito
I do know, but I have like, like an advice, I’m not sure if it applies to your position, but I’m pretty sure that like in your life, you must have come across people that simply get you likez, right away. Has that happened? Or?
László Kovács
Could you repeat,
Andrej Zito
So in your life, you know, like, even as the outsider or like person who like yes, hard times explaining things to the ordinary people, you must have come across someone who gets you like, who understands it? Like I Yeah, no.
László Kovács
Oh, it happens many times. So fortunately, it is not about people. So it doesn’t mean that I don’t understand a person, or he or she doesn’t understand me, it’s always a temporary thing. So I wouldn’t say I, that everybody hates me and I don’t have friends and whatever. It’s just sometimes are very hard to explain things. And sometimes I feel I’m an outsider because of that. That’s it.
Andrej Zito
Yeah. I think Yeah, like what I’ve recently discovered for myself is good if you have someone who can kind of like, connect you to other people, like who can kind of like interpret or translate for you. Like when you share your thoughts. They kind of like get it, but they’re also able to explain it to the let’s say masses.
László Kovács
I don’t have such a big company. I don’t have a company-
Andrej Zito
It’s just like one of my colleagues. She’s like, she’s like the perfect fit, you know, like she understands me, but she can also speak to the people who like don’t get me right away, you know, she can like rephrase the things. I think that sometimes helps.
László Kovács
It also also me rephrase the things are. Sometimes it turns out that what I what I told them was simply stupid. So I do that with my people in the company and it works quite well. Or still, sometimes I have this outsider feeling, maybe it’s childhood trauma or something.
Andrej Zito
I think everything comes from our childhood. But that’s maybe for for a different discussion. Anyway, so you already mentioned that you have your own company, TEK. So this is what I wanted to first clarify with you. Because when I was doing a little bit of research for this interview, like your LinkedIn profile just says, gm of TEK, and maybe for the non European people, just to confirm General Manager is kind of like a CEO, right?
László Kovács
Yeah, yes, something like that.
Andrej Zito
So if this is if this is your only experience, does it mean that you also started the company? Do you own the company? Are there more people involved?
László Kovács
Oh, yeah. This company was started as a university project. A project means So the aim of the project was to get money for Apple and for living. So it was so easy. There was an opportunity to translate Autodesk products. And we started that as students, and there was no company back then there were just projects, we translated the the software engineering, the testing, some DDP, and we received money for it. Back then, I was a mechanical engineer student. Maybe that’s why they found us as translators because Autodesk produces engineering software. And then we graduated from the university, it turned out that we could run this thing as a company as well. So we founded the company for that. Court tech, which has no relation with the Spanish company codes, that translations before it went bankrupt. It simply are from the names of the founders don’t either and kovatch I think we spent about a week or two, finding a good name for the company became a fit. You know, it’s not a creative company.
Andrej Zito
Well, translations is getting more and more creative. Recently, you know, with all the translation.
László Kovács
I hope so. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
Um, so you. Okay, I have two questions. I’m trying to figure out which one to ask first. So okay, you mentioned it’s the names of the three people. So what do the other guys do? Are they still involved with the company or
László Kovács
No. One of the guys he was a programmer. So we went on writing a search engine, just because just Google before Google and before the.com crisis, so basically, that company went down. But even after that, all he he stated other projects and and other programming stuff. Why the other founder of the company to become a mechanical engineer, I mean, a real one who designs things. And he manages projects now, I mean, engineering projects, and I’ve been if he enjoys it very much. So finally, I stayed in the company alone and started managing it.
Andrej Zito
Do you do you fully own the company or are they still share?
László Kovács
I fully own the company by now. It wasn’t an easy task. But yes, so I bought out both of them.
Andrej Zito
Now, the second thing that I had in mind and this I think is like okay, let’s get very practical. So you’re a student How did the opportunity with Autodesk and as you know, this, that’s We also work on Autodesk projects and later On I got to work with Autodesk directly in the Singapore offices. So how did the opportunity come to you? So you’re like a student of mechanical engineering, right? You do some studies, you drink a lot, you go to parties, and then what like, did they find you through to school? How did their whole thing happened?
László Kovács
Actually, I don’t know. It was T who, who had relations to the Hungarian Autodesk office. And at that time, the Hungarian office organized the translation. So it was done locally, fully locally. And they asked him if he wanted to manage Hungarian localizations. And he found me and the other guy to run the company together, because our prefer that alone, it would be too much for him. So so that’s the that’s a short story. And I think for five or six years, we had only one client Autodesk. And after that, we started to find other clients, and finally work as a company, as a normal company with sales and marketing and, and more than one client. So we stayed out of the scope for quite a long time, actually, we still work on Autodesk prior projects, but not directly.
Andrej Zito
So Whose idea was it to start a company? Was it T’s? Was it yours?
László Kovács
Ah, I think it was it was T’s idea. But Joseph, let’s call him Joseph, because his proper name is Joseph toasts. It was his idea. But I think it was a common idea. Because before that, if you don’t have a company, getting your money is not very easy. I mean, legally. So if you have a good nice client, and then the nice project to work on, with some predictable income, then you should start a company for yourself. Before that, we were through another company, graphic design company. But you know, it was quite a nice, separate project. So they started the company for that. I think that’s, that’s quite normal. So they also have a spin off company from TEK. Which was founded because we had a nice project, which was, which was very much separated. From the other parts of the company, it was a testing project with the, with a separate team, with a separate client with a separate office. So we started a separate company for that. I think that’s quite the case it with, with TEK as well. So we had a reason to found the company. So we did it.
Andrej Zito
Was it a time like, I don’t know, like, after revolution, like where everybody was starting companies, or was this later?
László Kovács
It was much, much later. Yeah, it was just before the Millennium in 1999.
Andrej Zito
How do you remember the early days of the company? Like were you like working like from your college dorm? Before you properly started, or did you like rent offices right away?
László Kovács
Oh, we rented an office right away, or it was quite as more than like, some 5555 square meters or so. Basically, two rooms and and the kitchen and a toilet. That’s, that’s quite a must have. Oh, so we started the company on and we also are employed students as freelancers, translators, video reviews and engineering are with very, very much for about three or four months a year. And for the rest, they were quite Free did basically nothing. That’s because of he had only one client. He had some release dates and some products in a yearly cycle. So it was a, it was a project company. And I must say that they were quite happy with that.
Andrej Zito
But I’m surprised because like, Did you say just like four months? Because I know that like when I was working on Otto’s projects, like he was still annual releases back then before they switch into the quarterly releases, and more agile approach. But even then, like, I remember, like the project’s lasted for like six months minimum, and then they had like, the service pack wants respect to
László Kovács
Oh, yeah, but we will university students remember our we are deadline driven. The night just before the deadline, just like you would you would work or study before the exam or later for a few days.
Andrej Zito
Okay, how did you how did you learn everything about localization? Since you were studying mechanical engineering?
László Kovács
Oh, well, we had to, we had no choice. There was a point in time our Let me tell you the first translation memory system we had our It was called laoshi. Hungarian name. And, like
Andrej Zito
Lajos, Right.
László Kovács
Yeah, that’s a name. And actually, our he was a guy working in a in a Hungarian hotel as a night receptionist, and he had plenty of time. So he copy pasted the materials from last year. So the advice to the new year’s worth twice? And that was it that that was a translation memory. And there was a point in time went out to the store das that they do not force implementing a translation memory. Uh huh. But by the pay by the fast discount. So, this changed the financials quite, quite extensively, I would say. So, before that, we were always paid for the for the full birth count. And after that, they just do I think, German statistics and and apply the facilities counts. And you can imagine that instantly, I think the payment was half or something like that.
Andrej Zito
So how did you deal with this situation?
László Kovács
The implement implemented the translation memory system. First, we try the Russian development basically a macro which didn’t work very well. But still, it was something and it was free. At that time, a throttles license was about 1000 US dollars. I think it’s quite the same now. But at that time, our It was so much money we couldn’t afford so we have to invent something. And after a while, we switch to a translation memory system called transit.
Andrej Zito
German one now
László Kovács
Yes, German or from Switzerland. I’m not sure. But if it’s from Switzerland, then from the German part of Switzerland so yeah, it’s ugly like how but we liked it very much. Simply because all it has a free editor for translators court satellite. Solvay could could provide some, some tools to our students, translators, who of course, were not willing to invest anything into a transmit translation memory system. So we were always outsiders, I would say in terms of technology, because our the order Use the different tools many of custom developed towards. Many of them developed my me personally. So that’s how we learned how localization but it wasn’t very easy.
Andrej Zito
I mentioned Word documents, was everything handled through Word documents back then? Even software?
László Kovács
Yes, because that good word travels as a base editor. So I’m not sure if you remember, or if you wanted to translate the framemaker, document intrados. Then they had a two quart sticker, which, which converted it to either GTX or vert bilingual work, right and bilingual word with those Augustus and matava. Yeah, and, and that’s, that’s how we’ve worked. So running a statistics on AutoCAD User Guide, I think, was about one and a half days. So it was awful. But still, it was something. So it was much better than employing lawyers or the receptionist to copy paste. So it was an improvement.
Andrej Zito
But how did they extract the software strings back then? Did they give it to you like in a different format?
László Kovács
Yes, I think they have a custom file format for that. Type-space one. And they had a terrible editor. And I think it involved quite a lot of copy pasting. I mean, we didn’t translate in that terrible editor, but translated in English, or something like that, and copy pasted the stuff back at the end. So I don’t remember the name of the tour. But I think it’s
Andrej Zito
From what I understand you also did like translations and maybe or just reviews, but how does like mechanical engineering student who is like more techie, get into translation? Like? Is it like natural? Because like you understood the topic, and you just basically had to had like a level of Hungarian? Or did you have to do like some learning in the area of translation.
László Kovács
I think your listeners would hate me for that. But being just a translate or are is not a good thing. So you should have a profession, you should have something very well at home. And I believe that the language part is is the easier, so you can learn the spelling rules. And also, you can you can improve your writing skills and translational skills, but you should have some kind of profession, like mechanical engineering for me, which helps you start off. And also if you have some background, that’d be engineering legal or whatever, then well, so then it’s much easier to jump on to other topics. But if you are just a translator, actually, you will never have to do learn valve mechanics or economics or, or subjects like that are and life and translations are basically about such topics, not about translation.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. That’s, that’s a good point. So that’s the translation part. What about the engineering and testing like, how did you learn all those things? Like I remember like, like all the all the engineers, you know, like the whole build process, like, you know, to build the localized Autodesk products and then test them like, how did you learn about this thing?
László Kovács
The hard way. During the nights by trial and error wars and reading. And, you know, back then, it wasn’t so easy to ask questions. For example, all during the first Two months, I believe our V had to die out, dial into money just to get our emails. And even after that, we had a dial up connection. So it wasn’t like, like now that you can ask a question from anybody in minutes, and you even get an answer. So there was a communication like. So we were just used to figure out ourselves, and it was very hard. But we learned quite a lot.
Andrej Zito
So Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. I didn’t even think of that doesn’t mean that you get like the files for translation, kind of like in person from the Hungarian Office of Autodesk.
László Kovács
Oh, they, they could have asked with technical things. V received all the technical stuff from the national office. They were just so we could we could ask them about Hungarian terminology. It doesn’t mean they could answer but they could give us a phone number where they could answer the questions. They were the very into the sense of hunger, you know, to this product, and very safe some very, very usable contacts from from the last Autodesk resellers who were in direct contact with the clients who actually used the software. So our V could communicate with them directly. And it was very, very useful. If you compare it with today’s situation are sometimes I have the feeling that translation agencies try to separate the client from from the translator. And from the end customers as well. And it doesn’t have communication. So at that time, in the good old days, it was a bit easier, because we could always consult someone who actually uses the software and ask, think, thinks about it. And also, we localize the full product, not just a few strings, like now you receive, let’s say, 20 words and translate it, but you shouldn’t really touch the others. Because that would mean additional testing for seven months. And that actually costs of that time, it was easier because we had a few months for a specific product. And we just finished it. I don’t know if it’s, you can relate to it. Have you ever worked on such a big localization projects that started and at one distinct point we’re finished?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, yeah, of course. And I and I think I have to also be honest, that I also prefer the long term projects more than the agile approach that we see nowadays, where you just get like I don’t know like you said, like few strings here and there just for the little updates, because it felt like like you were like working on something making notes like like you had like this big goal that you were working towards you had like a bigger teams. And you had to like plan properly. Like right now. He’s just like, I don’t know, like, you get a few little pieces of nothing and delivery next week and everybody’s like happy but okay. Yeah, like my first my first projects were Microsoft, you know, like when I started it before, before I moved to scream clinic. I started in Moravia, and Moravia was part of the Microsoft division. So I was working on Windows Vista was my biggest thing that I worked on and then the Windows Server and then I left to describe
László Kovács
That you exactly know what I’m talking about.
Andrej Zito
Of course, yes.
László Kovács
Because I think when you go to Skrivanek, they also had those tiny, small, little, whatever’s five a day or 10 a day and it was Very hard to say that I’m working on this or working on that. Because it changes from minute to minute.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, exactly. There’s like there’s like, no, like emotional attachment to the project, because it’s just like,
László Kovács
Yeah, that’s-
Andrej Zito
Llike a production line. It’s like a production line in the factory. Yeah. Yeah, but you’re right. But it’s because like, we were like, in a different part of the whole food chain, when I was in screw on it, you know, because chronic, the reason why we still got Microsoft projects was because screven like, was a vendor of HP. And HP, kind of like has their own internal localization department also does non HP things. So like, when I when I was working in Moravia, Morocco was like a direct vendor of Microsoft. So that’s why when Maravi I got a project, we got like a big project into many languages, let’s say 12 languages. But when I was in screven, it’s HP that got the big project. And then they were just sending us a few things for translation here and there. Yeah, but that fortunately, for me changed when I moved to alpha. And that’s when I started doing like, I would say, the real project management, because those were the big projects with without risk. That lasted for a couple of months. Yeah, so that was the out of this part of TEK. And at some point, you said, like, Okay, this is going well, like, maybe we could do something else. I don’t know, Autodesk. Do you remember, like, what exactly was like the driving factor for you to start looking around? Or like, Did you tell yourself that, oh, we’re good at this, like nobody else can do this? Did you say that you want more money? Or like, what was the driving factor? Like, okay, let’s grow this company so that we’re not only depending on Autodesk?
László Kovács
Well, it was like the driving factor. It was Autodesk who decided to reorganize the localization process. Before that, when our time I would say, there were four companies for Eastern Europe, one for hungry for Czech Republic, one for Poland and one for Russia. And those companies that order products for the given country. So someone at Autodesk woke up in the morning and decided that this is not good. We need for localization localization companies. One does the general design products for over four languages, the other the mechanical engineering products or or foreign languages, and whatever. So I’ll buy I think 10am, we went out of business physically. Because Because of this decision, of course, we couldn’t, couldn’t start working on progression and jack and polish projects. So I would say that about 100% of our income was gone in a day. Not exactly 100%, because we did some press releases for Hungarian company, two or three a year. So. So actually Viva without projects. That was the driving force. And we had a meeting at the company. And we thought the people that were looking back to this moment, we might say that this was the best things to happen to us at the moment. And I’m not sure we believed that, but actually are after some fifth time, 50 years. I say that that was the best thing that could happen to us at that moment. Simply because we were very much comfortable with those Autodesk projects. We we needed no sales, we needed more no marketing. Sometimes we had to work very, very hard. But Matt for most of the time, we were just lazy. When Autodesk has gone, we had no choice but try to find clients, new clients and start operating like a accompany with says clients and everything. And I think this is the period value joy in the picture. Because are they started to work with more Avia and after Scrivener, and after some other international translation agencies and basically that’s what we are doing now. So we stayed with Hungarian language with steelwork into Hungarian only. That was a hard decision to make. We wanted to include other languages, but mother stop staff at the company didn’t really want to work on international project management. So when I say that we wanted to start working on other languages, in fact, it means that I wanted to start working with other languages. But the staff didn’t want it. And I didn’t want to do it alone. So the decision was to, to stay with Hungarian and workers on a salary company.
Andrej Zito
Why did they not want to do it?
László Kovács
Half of the companyare linguists, and they speak Hungarian? So for them, if it start translating into Czech or whatever, made no difference on the project management, but they believe that they wouldn’t have the control. Like they had to beat Hungarian because all of them are Hungarians. And it’s, it makes them safe, that they can understand what’s in the translation. So probably that’s the reason.
Andrej Zito
Okay, that’s like a topic that we could discuss for a long time because Okay, I let’s say I disagree. But I just want to go back like to the point where like out of this said goodbye to you. Do you remember, like how many people you had on your stuff back then?
László Kovács
About seven or eight?
Andrej Zito
Okay. And do you remember like how this whole thing was communicated to you? And by the way, I know you started the whole story. Like, one day somebody woke up in the morning, I might know that person who woke up in the morning and said that they’ll change this whole thing.
László Kovács
Just got a phone call from Autodesk that this is the situation sorry for that. It’s not our decision, et cetera, et cetera, which was actually true. So it’s I you know, the person who woke up in the morning, actually, but yeah, so it, it wasn’t decided on on the project management level. So I’m actually on Dave are quite correct to to communicate it to us as soon as possible. Because then we still had options. And that’s why we survived, I believe,
Andrej Zito
but there but there was no communication like, okay, like, like, let’s see, Moravia will take over all the Central European languages, and they will get in touch with you because like, you’ve been working with us so far. So we would like you to continue working
László Kovács
Oh, yeah. But it wasn’t this communication wasn’t made to us. So actually, more avea made us survive, because the contact details were passed on to to Bruno, and they, they asked us if we want to go on with Hungarian translations, as well as testing. So I saw we had a project from from the next day or from the next week, probably, we agreed with them. So that’s how we survived otherwise, we wouldn’t have survived.
Andrej Zito
I see. Okay, so then technically, like, there wasn’t like a long time where you were like desperate for projects, right? If it was just Like a week later, you just basically switch the client. Right?
László Kovács
Yeah. But you know that that was quite a different situation, because of he agreed on rates and we agreed on, on being involved in projects. But it doesn’t mean that we get the four projects. Actually, we got them. And also our we lost quite a lot of the localization part like software engineering, testing, DDP. So it wasn’t, wasn’t so clear that we we have just switched a client. So all from a full service, Hungarian localization vendor, we were demoted to Hungarian translators. So it’s quite a change.
Andrej Zito
Did that did that collaboration with Moravia lead to like other projects, thea Autodesk?
László Kovács
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll, since then, we’ve worked with more heavier and more heavier, I think they are our largest client. Which means that they are not as large as Autodesk was. So I’m, I’m quite afraid of having a large, large, large client, but still a very significant source of income. So it was an extremely successful cooperation with Moravia. And it still is.
Andrej Zito
So you’re in the situation where your only client dropped you. And you only got parts of the previous work that you were doing before. So this is the first time I think, in your history of TEK, where like you said, you had to start looking for the clients. Do you remember like how you approach this whole situation? Like, did any of your team had like the talent to to do this? Or did you just, again, as with everything, learn it the hard way?
László Kovács
Oh, well, the approach, I could describe it with a general panic. And in this Panic of the way registered to proz.com, and started answering questions, because we had quite a lot of time, actually, to do that. And I don’t know if you know, the system on pros, but for answering others questions, you get sample those. And if you have more kudos, then you are moving towards the top of the vendor list. So I don’t know if it still works this way. But back then it will this way. And personally, I could make it, I think, to the third position in English Hungarian language pair. And we started to receive job requests. And we answer them. And we have very, very good clients from pros. And also all the staff in the world work working with companies like screven, ik, and I must say that VMs like you are the best salesperson for us. First of all, because Are you an admin paid by us. But we were always. So we try to try to make sure that PMS love us very much. Just remember your situations, situation, when you move to alpha. You told us that we will probably never meet again, because alpha has translators and whatever, whatever. And then you get in trouble with an Autodesk project. And, and Hungarian, at least told me that and it was TEK who was your first So that’s it our I think we we have made it with several VMs. So what’s very, very important as a translator, or as a translation company, that the clients pm should love you very much. And it’s not the vendor manager who needs to love you. It’s the pm always the PM.
Andrej Zito
So yeah, so you mentioned Proz, Skrivanek. So you cannot get contacted, like other mlvs? Did you try to like do something else? Like, I don’t know, like cold calling, or some of those things are like conferences, and try networking of all those fancy new things.
László Kovács
Yeah, but so we try to try to find clients locally. But, you know, working with and clients, it’s not so easy. So it’s a lot more effort. In a way I could say that we have outsourced the sales and marketing to analysts. It’s it means that we can charge less pervert, but we don’t have to teach the client that a scanned PDF is not the same as a document and etc, etc. I think you you know this story better than me.
Andrej Zito
Have any end clients like in your portfolio? Is there an exception? Or?
László Kovács
Yes, there are exceptions? Of course. There are always exceptions. But I would say that they can they contribute less than 10%.
Andrej Zito
So speaking of new clients, do you have something like a growth strategy? Like how do you want to grow per year? Do you have like Target
László Kovács
We want to stagnate.
Andrej Zito
Really?
László Kovács
Really absolutely, oh, a happy stagnation phase, about the arm for a couple of years or vivid quite a lot, it means that we always do jobs that we didn’t really want to. And the team started to burn out. So the decision was made that we don’t do not want to grow at any price. So it means that there was actually a proper voting or proper talk about it in the company. And everybody agreed that our if we stay SVR, that’s fine. We don’t don’t have to grow 10% each year of we don’t have to hire more people just because we want to grow. So we decided that we should stay as we are. And this is a growth strategy. I would say that’s a very aggressive strategy.
Andrej Zito
No, no, I like it. Because it’s like, something unexpected. You know, like, because like, oh, everything like, like, I listened to, you know, like podcasts and everything. It’s like, you know, like Star Labs, you know, scaling, and you know, 10 x and all these things. But it’s nice to see that like, that’s like your decision and your strategy to just stay where you are. And that’s what makes you happy.
László Kovács
You know, we grow a little bit older than, at the time, we started the company, so we don’t live for the company of we have children. We have other projects in life, like children, or whatever, via the house. And you have to find a balance between work and life. I think that’s quite a buzzword now. work life balance. Oh, and one of the way of finding this balance if you don’t go for growth at any price, and you can do that company level and if everyone is happy about that, then that’s okay.
Andrej Zito
You said at any price. So what would be the good price or what would be like the good benefits for you to to accept a new client and therefore had to grow?
László Kovács
We accept new clients so it doesn’t mean that whenever someone comes in with them to go away never come back. But we are accepting new clients who are who we would like to work with. So we don’t really accept problematic clients, we do not go for new clients. And valla as much as possible in the syneresis. Industry, we try to make sure that we do not have to work on weekends and during the nights and whatever. So we trying to to, to be nine to five company, like some of working in a normal industry. And that’s it.
Andrej Zito
Who do you consider problematic clients? or How would you know that somebody comes to you and approaches you use your services? How would you find out that they’re problematic?
László Kovács
They are problematic if they always and center jobs, or junk jobs, problematic jobs, like you would even say it’s a kind of a scam, like, sending, sending plain machine translation, for review and not telling that this is a post editing job. Or they sending scanned PDFs, whatever. So, you know, you have to suddenly have programmatic clients, but there should be some benefit on the other side. So for returning a good client, of course, we do send the jobs. And of course we do scans, PDFs, if they also send jobs that are profitable, and we like to work on them. Or with them.
Andrej Zito
Have you ever dropped the client?
László Kovács
Oh, yes, certainly. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
Can you share? Why like what was the case?
László Kovács
Because of they had requests, we couldn’t leave it. Like, they always send very small jobs, very urgent jobs. And on the other side, they didn’t send us the, the nice part. Like, let me tell you an example of you working on translating operating instructions, let’s say for headset, TV sets, and DVD, okay. No DVD players now, but whatever. And in, in such an environment, you have large jobs, and you have very, very many more annoying jobs like, we have changed this sentence on the menu in the manual, can you please check it? And if we see that the client sends the large and profitable and nice jobs to another vendor, and we just get the smaller as the aggravates the urgence. When transfers are done, we ask them to, to change it somehow. And if not, then we drop it. I think that’s something you can understand. So, of course, we we always do the we do the bad jobs as well. Because our if you have a cup cooperation with a client, it’s not always nice. I mean, it’s not always easy. But if you just receive the bad jobs, then we drop the client.
Andrej Zito
How does the communication go? In that case? Like do you just drop them email? Do you call them?
László Kovács
They usually will do that in the email? Yeah. I mean, not just drop an email, but explain the situation properly. And if they if they say that they try to change that, of course, we get an extension. But what if not, so if nothing changes, then after a while, we have to drop the client. We have no other choice. And of course we don’t drop No. But I think that’s abuse.
Andrej Zito
Um, okay. Tell us like how TEK looks like right now? What is it that you do? What is like the majority of your focus? How many employees do you have?
László Kovács
Oh, we have some employees now. And some 30 or 40 freelancers working for us. And six out of 12. Employees are internal reviewers. So they do the very small, very urgent jobs. And of course, they review the translations done by freelancers we do in house review on all and any jobs before delivery. And we also give feedback to translators. For most of the time, I would say that for about 80% of jobs directly and delivered by freelancers, and other other six people are for project management, both internal project management and he account management or communication with the, with the clients. And that’s that, so there’s a company,
Andrej Zito
And then there’s your right? The carpenter, an electrician,
László Kovács
Yeah, something like that. Yeah. You know, we could automate most of the accounting processes. And also, sending V will be asked to translate those. So I do that alone. And I spend some, eight or 10 hours per month with that. So that’s why we don’t really have an administrative force. So and also, I am the IT guy, most of the time, that’s also quite automated. And I stopped the translation and reviews last year, because I had some other personal projects to go for. Which is I mentioned to you before the interview, it’s, it’s co working office, and V. So I spend much much time with that right now. And much less time the translation company.
Andrej Zito
I’m still interested, because you mentioned that you have six people internally to do reviews, and then you send the feedback. Do you have like some central system for collecting and tracking all these review results? Like do you measure the performance of your freelancers?
László Kovács
Yes, yes, absolutely. It’s not a very complicated system. We use memo queue as our main tool, and it has built in versioning for segments and we compiled a segment delegate by translator with the final version. And we do a comparison table and also the reviewer gives a score from one to 10 and, and some textural general feedback. And we collect that in a system and we do some statistics. What is the system it’s a custom developed AXA macro basically. So um, so the system is is customer developed, all the store data resides in our workflow management system, which is x DRF. And that’s it. So every quarter we have a meeting with the reviewers and with the PMS and we are just check the scores and also discuss the translators who should be fired? Who should be demoted who should be promoted?
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that’s- I thik it’s kind of interesting. So like, because like, majority of what you do is like Hungarian translation. So I’m wondering like, when you have like new applicants, like how do you select them, like at the early stage, like what and what are like the quantity of good translators for you?
László Kovács
We have a test translation for that. The good qualities, qualities of a good translator, well, he or she should, should have excellent Hungarian writing skills, I mean, target language, writing skills. It’s quite funny, because most of the applicants failed because of their poor Hungarian writing. Even if they are native Hungarians, they don’t know the spelling rules, they, they cannot properly construct the sentence, whatever. So that’s, that’s the basic, basic level. And also, they should, they shouldn’t be tacky, but they shouldn’t be afraid of delicate things. It simply means that if they see a tag in a text, they should interpret it and not run away in panic.
Andrej Zito
This might be an awkward question for you. But how would you describe your company culture?
László Kovács
Oh, that’s an awkward question.
Andrej Zito
I know, I warned you. Do you have something like that? Or? I don’t know. Like, how do you think about it? Like, I know that you mentioned like, like, maybe like when we’re talking about like, the growth strategy that you like, don’t want to grow because like, you don’t want to put like, I don’t know, extra stress on people, like you guarantee that it’s like a nine to five job. So that’s technically part of the company culture. Because especially I think it’s actually quite important. Like when like the GM says that, okay, we’re not growing, because I know it will put pressure on my people, I think that’s like, actually quite a huge thing. But like, if you think about like these things, like sometimes.
László Kovács
Well, so, very important part of the company culture was that we solve our clients problems. That’s that’s changed a little bit. So we do not do everything to solve our clients problems. But between nine and five, he saw soft clients problems. Well, that’s not a hard limit. So personally, I I usually stopped working at 8pm. It’s just general guidance. Another part of the company culture is being democratic. I think you were found out already. And being fair, there is a Hungarian translation company, not TEK, another one who started the factory in translation. It It means that that they treat the translators fairly. And also, they are they pay them fast. That’s quite unique. I believe in the Hungarian and the international market, that when someone sends an invoice, you pay it immediately. I mean, the next day at latest or something like that, that’s a part of our roots, because our this started with the university students. And you shouldn’t do that to a student that you pay late. So that’s also part of the company culture. And I don’t know if it can be categorized as company culture, but We like beginners very much as translators, so we are willing to train them, we are willing to give feedback to them. And we like to see as they develop. Actually, most of our stuff, including me started as a translator. I have my test translation on a floppy disk. And fortunately, there is no floppy drive. So I can’t tell anything about that. But most of us are on on that shoes in that shoes and, and we try to have them have them as much as possible.
Andrej Zito
That’s that’s kind of interesting point because, like, I’m just discussing something similar with someone from Moravia. Like, like, what is their perspective on hiring Junior people or just someone without a degree? So since you mentioned this, that you are kind of like open to it. How? How do you differentiate between the beginners? Like, if somebody doesn’t know, translation? What are the values that you’re looking for? Like, because like, I can assume that if you hire someone, as a beginner for you, it’s kind of like investment, right? Because you need to train them from scratch. So but there needs to be at least something that convinces you like, okay, like this person is worth it, or like, you know, one year or two years, like he could be the superstar at TEK, what are those things?
László Kovács
Oh, well, when you say, we hire people, it doesn’t mean that we hire it. We hire them as part time, freelancers. So that’s not such a big investment. We have a training program, maybe three or four hours for beginners. And we invest that time into them. If they pass the trust, test translation. And after that, we started cooperation, and we see if they fit. And if we are happy with each other, then it’s going to be a long, long cooperation. If not, then it won’t last too long.
Andrej Zito
I also took like a note when I was checking your website, so one thing that might also fit into the company culture is I think you mentioned something about gaming, like you encouraged gaming in your office?
László Kovács
Oh, yeah, that’s no. We have we have no problem with that. So it’s a very important point in company culture. Oh, that is that jobs should be done. So if it was, if reviewers or PMS do not have jobs to do right at the moment, because it’s Chinese New Year or Christmas is closing or whatever, then they are free to go or free to do whatever they want. So are in in these terms via not a nine to five company so I don’t stand in the front door at 900 waiting for people? I really don’t care. I mean, if they come 10 minutes late or one hour late. I’m not interested if they can, they can manage the jobs within that teams. Then that’s okay.
Andrej Zito
So the next set of questions I want to talk about more about you. We spoke about TEK quite a lot, but I’m pretty sure there will be like a huge overlap anyway. I’m gonna talk about like your mornings, like what do you do after you wake up?
László Kovács
Oh, I wake up very, very early in the morning. Usually, that means 4am or something like that. And I go to the office, and that’s the there’s a period of the day or when I have the best plans and the And everything. So if I have some software development to do, I do do that in the morning. If I have something to think about, like strategy or marketing or even a technical problem, then I do that in the morning. Simply because no one disturbs me. So early. And, and I can use that time. That’s, that’s very important for me.
Andrej Zito
When do you actually reach the office? If you wake up at 4am?
László Kovács
4:15, for that, so it’s by car, it’s 10 minutes.
Andrej Zito
Okay. You just wake up and in your pajamas, you go straight to the office?
László Kovács
Yeah, nothing like pajamas, but I usually take my coat and a pair of shoes or something.
Andrej Zito
So 4:15 Wow, that’s so early.
László Kovács
Oh, yeah, it is but that’s that’s very valuable. This is this a?
Andrej Zito
Is this something like that you discover like during your career? Well, career as a GM like the man in charge of TEK? Or were you always like this early bird?
László Kovács
Actually, I was a PhD students atthe Technical University of Budapest and my, my consultant, or the person who takes care of your PhD topics, I don’t remember what what it was called. He did it. And I learned from him. So that’s quite an odd thing from the last year.
Andrej Zito
Okay, what happens after, like, so you you have like your own time for yourself, like, let’s say until nine, right? When people started coming to the office, is that when the hell breaks loose?
László Kovács
No, actually, I go home at six, maybe 6:30. To spend some time with my wife. Sometime is an hour or half an hour or something like that, just to discuss the daily things. That’s that’s also very, very important. And then I go back to the office at around 8:30, maybe nine. And I start working on on the day, daily stuff. That’d be handling invoices, doing some some project management or, or discuss something with a client. So that that part is not so interesting, I believe.
Andrej Zito
Why do you feel the need to go to the office like before 6:30 then you come back home anyway. Have you tried working from home?
László Kovács
Yeah. And
Andrej Zito
Okay, why?
László Kovács
Because home is not for work, at least for me. So I just cannot work from home. I cannot explain it more. I just it’s it’s it’s not working.
Andrej Zito
What are you curious about right now?
László Kovács
A lot of things. I found over the industry goes I mean, what happens in 10 years, if there would still be translation companies or not? I’m sure it’s not in the form we know today. So if I look at look back at my career, are 20 years ago, everything was very, very, very much different. Even 10 years ago, it was different. And if I go back to 2009, I couldn’t have predict what’s going to happen in the next 10 years. So I’m quite interested. What happens to the this industry?
Andrej Zito
Do you have any like thoughts or like your own predictions?
László Kovács
Yes, but they kind of do so I can share them that everything would be automated as much as possible. Empty the gain ground and and i think that’s it valid You hear from everywhere. So it’s, it’s nothing new or surprising.
Andrej Zito
How is your experience with ,MT since you’re this legend of Hungarian localization, and you’ve been there from the early days?
László Kovács
Though I’m not sure. Legend, but let’s play with that. I like it? Well, you know, I think 20 years ago, when we started implementing tm, or translate or started whining about translation memory that it will take our work, it will make the quality, much, much worse. And it will end the industry, whatever whatever. And most of those arguments are actually through. So if you look at the translation, if it’s done with translation memory, then the linguistic quality is somewhat lower because you translate sentences not for text. Also, it’s to the job of translators. That’s part of the job that they didn’t really want to do, actually. So, but it didn’t end the industry at all. And I hear why the same vining with machine translation, like, it will make the translation quality lower. And it also takes our job, and it will end the industry very soon. And partially, it’s true. But last last year, I had a large project translation of articles, and newspaper articles from Hungarian into English. And that’s where we started using machine translation, I mean, our custom machine translation engine in production. And my job Personally, I mean, my translation was, was boosted with machine translation, I mean, I can translate about twice as many words in an hour than without machine translation. So I see the situation is quite the same as a translation memory, it will increase the productivity. And it will have its problems and its drawbacks, but sooner or later, it will be built into a two set of average translator. I mean, not everybody, every translator, who wants to, wants to be invested in this business, because I know there are quite a lot of translators who do without translation memories. And they are living and they are happy without translation memories. But the mainstream is that a translator uses a translation memory. It would be the same with with MT I believe.
Andrej Zito
Maybe we touched on this topic a little bit. But what do you think is wrong with our industry?
László Kovács
Oh, it’s smaller. It’s extremely small. I don’t know if it’s wrong or good. From one side, it’s very good. Because if you look at the construction industry, for example, the people working there are not very nice. But we work in a in a in a small, nice industry, everybody’s kind of we don’t kill each other. Or on just special occasions, maybe. But I would say that even if you take the largest transportation company, it’s nothing in the world of retail companies, for example.
Andrej Zito
You mean in terms of revenue?
László Kovács
Yes. In terms of revenue in terms of number of employees. In terms of profit.
Andrej Zito
Do you think the profit margins are getting worse?
László Kovács
I don’t think so. At least not. Not at TEK. So the same in some years. We have higher profit margins in some some years lower. But in general, if you take a large transmission company, it’s still nothing in the outs in the normal. I mean, if you compare it with a car dealer, or telecom company, so I think we are just small.
Andrej Zito
What advice would you give to someone starting a transmission company these days?
László Kovács
Oh, if you do not have your clients then don’t do it. So I wouldn’t start a translation company without clients. It’s not like, like a burger place or a cafe or something like that, that you just open. Just put a big sign and guests will come. So you have to have your, your business plan. And that the business plan should include actual clients who give to you.
Andrej Zito
Okay, final set of questions. So we’re getting to two hours. What are your plans for future? What are you excited about in 2020? Whether it’s personal or professional.
László Kovács
I wanted to ask if it’s personal or professional. Personally, I’m quite fine with my co working place. So I want to develop that that’s quite, quite enough for for a personal goal. professionally. For TEK, it’s automation. and project management, automation, or video, quite a lot of Monkey work, like copy pasting deadlines, and do numbers from one system to another. And that should be automated as much as possible.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, that’s something I’m working on right now. Yeah, but let’s let’s just take a detour like, Okay, I know, this is called the localization podcast. But since you mentioned, it’s like something you’re excited about. And you even spend more time than working with text. So maybe just tell us briefly like about the CO working space, like how that whole idea came to be?
László Kovács
Well, as I mentioned, I have a testing company. And it it started to grow and it outgrew its current office or previous office service. So we started to look for offices. But there was non v could really relate to or wanted to move to. But we found an empty space some 700 square meters, which was very, very large for the testing company, it needed some 150 square meters. But we decided it would be a great co working space. So together with the people who are founders of the testing company, including me, and my, my nephew, the founders, another company, and decided it would be a great idea to open a co working space there. And I still believe it was a great idea. The most did quite a lot of work and money into it. And we are starting it up. Also a part of that is working there. And the testing companies working there. Oh, and we have a lot of new friends. It’s, it may sound bad, but the situation is that our if you have our own office as a company, and it’s let’s say it’s in our flat, not in an office building, then you are completely isolated from the rest of the world. So, typically, resident or building doesn’t have a canteen to meet other people, and things like that. So you adjust your own visit on your own with the 10 people in the company or 12 people. And after a while, it’s not very exciting. So why we decided to start this co working space is that we can meet other people. Also, we have a place where we can invite guests or clients. And also, there is some. So things are happening around us, not just sitting in our flat with those 10 1215 people. But people come people go, and actually interesting people come and it’s, it is very hard to talk to them. So that’s the concept behind this co working place. And it works quite well. I would say.
Andrej Zito
Maybe it’s your way to, to not being an outsider anymore. When you were sharing, it’s like like, are you like a people person? So do you consider yourself a people person or no?
László Kovács
People person? No, no. If If I could do I would work with machines, I like machines much better because they are predictable. That’s when I’m in a bad period. When I’m in a good period, I would say that I want to work with people because they are interesting. And machines are boring.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I think I think we have the same thing here. What are the absurd or stupid things that you do? to this is kind of like like, let’s say everybody does things in a certain way. But you, for example, do something like totally different. Like when people would know about it, they would say like, Hey, is this guy stupid or what?
László Kovács
Oh. Smoking is one of them. So.
Andrej Zito
that’s pretty mainstream.
László Kovács
Yeah. Okay, I try to be less mainstream. I usually visit my clients on on the inline skates. And also I use that to go to work. Okay, I really, you know, it’s very, very practical. Because if you meet someone who you have never never seen, you don’t know each other. Then you say let’s meet here or there. I have a pair of pair of inline skates with me. That makes it very, very easy.
Andrej Zito
Wait like do you bring like an extra pair for them? Or do you expect them to bring it?
László Kovács
No, no, no. I take my own. I mean, that’s my distinctive feature in a in a restaurant or something that I have a pair of skates with me. I’m in mine. So you’ll be instantly instantly see me.
Andrej Zito
Okay? Favorite cat tool?
László Kovács
Oh, my MemoQ
Andrej Zito
Favorite software.
László Kovács
In general. Maybe Total Commander.
Andrej Zito
Okay. favorite word in Hungarian.
László Kovács
Bazmek, certainly. Because
Andrej Zito
I know it but I don’t know. Exactly. But what does it mean?
László Kovács
Yeah, it can mean shit. Fuck it. It can be a period at the end of sentence a coma in the middle of the sentence. And it can mean a lot of things. Yeah, so you can express quite a number of emotions.
Andrej Zito
What is your favorite TV show?
László Kovács
I don’t watch the TV shows.
Andrej Zito
Okay. And who was your favorite Spice Girl?
László Kovács
Oh, I don’t remember the names. The sporty one. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
don’t know her name, but yeah, I think everybody will know. Okay, um, is there anything I should have asked you, but I didn’t?
László Kovács
I don’t think so. I think you did a very good job.
Andrej Zito
Yeah. You can share this with your son. Okay, final words? Is it something like like this is your moment where you can speak to everyone’s soul? Everyone who works in the industry? What would be like your parting comments?
László Kovács
Have fun.
Andrej Zito
Have fun. Thank you László very much for this interview. And we’ll speak soon.
László Kovács
Thank you. Bye bye
