Ivan Smolnikov
Founder and CEO, Smartcat. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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Smolnikov founded Smartcat, an enterprise AI and cloud-based translation and localization platform that spun out into an independent company in 2016. Before Smartcat, he founded and served as CEO of ABBYY Language Solutions, building it into a top global language service provider.
1shows
1appearances
16statements
0resolved
0supported
0contradicted
Everything Ivan Smolnikov said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Free single-player SaaS solves the marketplace chicken-and-egg dynamic
“And that was our primarily idea to build something valuable for people, both for supply and demand and to give it away for free. Once we have it, people are coming to use our technology, both suppliers and customers. Suppliers are using our technology, even in…”
Smartcat has onboarded 20% of all global freelance translators
“And literally we have listed all of them already on our platform, and we have 20% of supply side, which is 20% of all freelancers globally.”
Enterprise translation requires workflow automation, not just freelance marketplaces
“The difference is that first you don't have automation workflow technology on the platform, and without that, It can't work for big customers because if you're a big company with good budgets, you just can't deal today without automation technology. You can't …”
Raising venture capital requires a focused pure software business
“First to raise money from venture capital, you need to have a focused business, you know, just doing software development.”
Smartcat operates without a sales team and relies on inbound adoption
“We don't have sales team because we have a lot of customers coming because of that technology, you know, and then we see if a customer is starting to grow, a customer success team is focusing on them to help them grow better.”
Smartcat grows 20% month-over-month and projects 7x revenue growth
“We have been growing 20% months to months. So this year we should complete these like seven, seven times growth compared to the beginning of the year.”
Smartcat customers spend an average of $10,000 monthly
“On average, it's about 10 K but there are customers who are paying us, like, 100 K or 200 K even.”
Smartcat generates 85% of revenue from marketplace and 15% from SaaS
“Actually, around 10, 15% is coming from SaaS model, and around 85% is coming from marketplace model, because we are more focused on it right now.”
Smartcat raised a $4M seed after bootstrapping with $5M prior profits
“Right now, not much, actually just four million dollars because it was pre revenue around a year and a half ago. It was like seed round. But before that, we invested close to five million dollars from our own profits within two years when we started to develop…”
Smartcat has close to 300 paying customers
“I would say close to 300 paying customers at the moment.”
Smartcat hosts nearly 100k freelancers across 150 countries
“And close to 100,000 freelancers from 150 countries at the moment.”
Smartcat retains approximately 95% of its paying customers
“Actually right now, because we have not so many paying customers, the retention is around 95%. If you mean lower retention.”
Smartcat's fully weighted CAC is between $1,500 and $5,000
“They cost us from thousand and a half up to 5000 to acquire them fully.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ivan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder and CEO, Smartcat | 1 | 16 | — | full record on Top Founders → |