Lingart: one app, multiple languages, and an ocean of books. Read or listen to? You get to choose!

Lingart is a Lviv startup that we first met in Kyiv during the Innovation Festival Kyiv 2019 and continued our acquaintance during the preparation for KYIV TECH HUB’19. A startup whose founder impressed us with his determination and Outlook on life: something you don’t like? Do you want to change something? Just do it! Next, a conversation with Mikhail Malkush, the founder of the new generation electronic library project. Read, get inspired, and act!

Tell us more about yourself and your team.

My name is Mykhailo Malkush. I have been a web designer for ten years now. But before I turned 14 my life was filled with literature; I used to write poetry and take part in all kinds of contests, was a member of a literature club.

When I already had my prototype ready and a clear-cut understanding of the idea of this project, I made up my mind to make it known and my sister Yaryna Burban joined it. She took upon herself mostly general issues that were not related to the technical side of the project; she would prepare presentations, publications, was looking for clients, arranged talks and other things like that. But last autumn she took maternity leave, and now I am doing everything myself, being both the founder and representative of the brand.

How did you get an idea of launching a startup? Who inspired you and encourage to try yourself out in this field?

I have lived in Lviv since birth, but once I was offered a nice job in Kiyv. I decided to change my life and accepted that offer. Quite a lot of time I wound spend commuting but it gave me an opportunity to listen to audiobooks. Taking the subway, I would often switch from audiobooks to regular ones. The books hooked me and I would like to go on to see how the stories unfold but because of the noise on the train, I was not able to hear the text. Well, that was the way that first idea occurred to me, to synchronize recording with the written text. A few years ago the idea was quite novel, no one had yet come up with such technology. I managed to have listened to all the available Ukrainian audiobooks and went on to English ones. I found it difficult to make out some more serious literary texts, even if I tried to guess new words, find their meanings and translations. I aimed at making literary translations of whole sentences. So, I arrived at another problem to solve, which was cross-language synchronization. I am also interested in technical and scientific publications, and it would be lovely if I could listen to such books as well. Audio versions of such books can hardly be found because they have got many screenshots and code samples are can not be rendered in sound form. But nowadays everyone has got a smartphone and I think we can resolve this problem by means of attaching content to a sentence.

How long did it take you to develop the Lingart the way it is now?

At first, I just fancied a dream player for interactive multilanguage audiobooks and plunged into designing it. It took some time to design the player using new technologies that I had not been familiar with, so I had to get down to all their peculiarities and intricacies. In about half a year, in August 2018, the first player was created and the first demo audiobook was recorded. Gradually a team of partners was formed, and it took us a year to develop and launch MVP. A series of changes took place, including that of our business model, and then we realized that it was necessary to devise a mobile addition the prototype of which was a web version. Now we are planning to release the additions that have been already created, we have also agreements with the producers and our own recording studio is set up.

Which business incubators/accelerators have you participated? Which of them do you find useful?

In August 2018 we were invited to Tech Startup School (TSS) on very good conditions, and we agreed to participate. WE were engaged in various contests and they helped a lot to prepare video materials, apply and get grants. WE were winners of the Innovation Festival in Kiyv and made it to the final round of KYIV TECH HUB’19, then we had a chance to present Ukraine at Investor Days in Germany. We also were able to attend the G-Fair international exhibition in Korea thanks to TSS. It was an incredible experience! Not only we were able to understand the basic needs of the market and their variety, but also make friends with other startup teams from all over the world.

How would you describe your experience with Polish – Ukrainian Startup Bridge?

A high-quality mentor session was given by the Polish Ukrainian Starup Bridge. We had nice discussions about financing, presentations, positioning of the projects, and marketing. Actually, at that session, my ultimate vision of the Lingart project took shape, and a deep understanding which way it should develop. We came to terms with the fact that audible is no competitor of ours. PUSB also conducts international conferences of technology Kyiv Tech Hub. As to startup contests, I am afraid I do not understand or support their idea and concept because all those startups that tend to participate are different in nature. I can’t see how they can be compared and judged. Some of them may have valuable ideas, others have already marketed their products; some have a well-developed pitch a wonderful presentation of the project, but some other people fail to talk about their startup in English. Presentations might be poorly done but the projects are very interesting and worth attention. Well, I am very sorry for the jury :)

In the beginning, we loved the contests ardently and were looking forward to winning the competitions, but now we look upon these events as a great opportunity to meet people who are the best in this field and learn how to present our project in the best possible way.

YC Startup School: what are you planning to achieve by participating? What type of support are you expecting to get?

January 20th we began training at YCC. I view it as a great impetus for me to act and make progress. It does not concern general development, what has already been achieved, but some specific factors, and in the first place revenue. It seems to be a two-month-long deadline period. We are trained to develop our skills, are given access to all kinds of teaching materials, we are able to discuss our results with other founders, we also attend AMA sessions, etc. I hope we are going to make speedy progress during these two months, which is important. Besides, this training session is a step to acceleration in Y Combinator, I wish I were selected, but it is not our major goal.

Startup to startup: give a piece of advice to another startups on early project stage:

Many teams, including mine, have mental pictures of the project and get used to their imagination of it. It can be difficult to take a look at the project from a different angle, consider other ways of making money (profit). I don’t think one should focus on imagination but rather listen to expert advice. If there is a qualified team known for its expertise, you can do everything. Ideas are flexible, they can be altered, checked out, modified, my tip is to turn it into an idea fix but consider the team in the first place.