When I last spoke to Ryan Frankel, CEO of VerbalizeIt, he was fresh off his victory as the audience winner of StartupCamp 7. In the past six months or so, business has been booming for the crowdsourced translation company, including an appearance on the hit ABC show Shark Tank. I caught up with Frankel to get an update on his company and a vision of its future.

Frankel stated that business has been busy on all sides. On the translator side, the company has expanded from the five languages he mentioned at ITEXPO (News - Alert) to 11 languages at present. VerbalizeIt has also quadrupled the number of translators it has in its fold, moving from 2,500 in January to over 10,000. Frankel pointed out that the translation pool has not only grown in numbers but in expertise as well, leveraging translators with industry-specific expertise in areas like the financial and medical fields.

The company has also debuted a new business platform, which is completely self-service. People can sign up today and immediately get translation services from VerbalizeIt, from translation of documents to the migration of a call center to a multilingual model.

In the past few months, Frankel has also learned a lot from listening to his customers. He has taken feedback from the marketplace, from customer surveys and direct feedback and used it to modify the platform and pricing model. He realized that pricing and ease-of-use will help differentiate his company from other translation services.

For the most part, the feedback has been strong. SMBs are thrilled, he said, because there are no minimums or monthly commitments. They can have a document translated today and not be on the hook for additional charges. He has received nice messages from travelers and translators across the globe thanking him for the opportunities provided by the service. 

Even before Frankel made his appearance at StarupCamp, he had shot his episode of Shark Tank, though it did not air until this spring. He said that it was a great opportunity to get his company in front of the world where it could be seen by millions of eyeballs – and potential investors. Frankel stated that getting insight from the Sharks themselves helped, as did the national exposure, as it helped increase translator sign-ups and drive downloads of the app.

As for the future, Frankel expects to see VerbalizeIt power translation solutions for businesses and travelers alike, becoming the engine behind all sorts of on-demand and asynchronous solutions for everything from call centers to video producers. And I’ll be excited to watch his progress, whether it is on ABC or at another TMC (News - Alert) event!