You should be hyperrealist, open-minded, and radically transparent in approaching life’s challenges."
Meet Ofer Tirosh, the Founder and CEO of Tomedes, a remote-first translation company that offers multilingual and technological solutions to small-medium enterprises and Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
Ofer started Tomedes in 2007, with the aim of enhancing the customer experience in the underdeveloped translation industry.
Today, it caters to 95,000+ business clients and offers language and translation services in over 120+ languages and 950+ language pairs.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Ofer Tirosh: I’m Ofer Tirosh, the founder and CEO of Tomedes, a remote-first translation company that offers multilingual and technological solutions to small-medium enterprises and Fortune 500 companies worldwide.
When I founded Tomedes in 2007, I saw gaps in the underdeveloped translation industry and sought to enhance the customer experience. Since then, we have gotten three ISO certifications and cater to 95,000+ business clients.
We offer language and translation services in over 120+ languages and 950+ language pairs. At the same time, we work with 20,000 native translators from across different continents who specialize in various industries, like medicine, law, technology, and marketing.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Ofer Tirosh: I believe in celebrating all achievements, whether big or small. Last year, we achieved a lot of noteworthy accomplishments. We were ranked #1 by Clutch in their Top Global Business Services Providers for 2022.
GoodFirms placed us among the Top Translation Companies in the United States with a 5.0 review score. Last December, Globes and Statista recognized Tomedes as one of Israel’s top 100 fastest-growing companies.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle keeping talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are adapting to the current shift we see?
Ofer Tirosh: Remote work has a lot of advantages because we can work with experts from all around, the best of the best. We have colleagues from different time zones and cultures, which can be a challenge.
But despite differences in cultures and languages, we all have common goals and values. We look for those individuals who have the same values as we do.
We believe in transparency and being open in the situation of the company. We establish trust with our employees. Someone demonstrating untrustworthiness can be hard to work with.
And so, trustworthiness starts with me being reliable and sticking to my word. It starts with values. For example, all members and managers show up on time and work hard. Being dedicated to the company.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now, what book have you gifted the most and why?
Ofer Tirosh: During my free time, I try to read as often as I can. So it’s hard to pick just one book that influenced me the most. But the book that I recommend people to read is “Principles” by Ray Dalio.
According to Dalio, principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life.
Because of this, having the right principles can center you during turbulent times and help you achieve your goals. You should be hyperrealist, open-minded, and radically transparent in approaching life’s challenges.
From this, you can begin to do the 5-Step Process to get whatever you want from life:
- Have clear goals,
- Identify and don’t tolerate problems,
- Diagnose problems to get at their root cause,
- Design a plan, and
- Push through to completion.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Ofer Tirosh: The language industry has drastically changed since 2007. Compared to other industries, the technology within this sector is constantly evolving.
So, technology is both an opportunity and a challenge as it brings questions on how to effectively and ethically implement them in the workforce.
However, I believe that technology is a need and not an option. Whatever technology our clients use, we build connectors to support them better. I see a lot of opportunities and challenges in further integrating it.
So, I stay up to date with the latest technology in the market and discuss with my colleagues the best approach towards implementing them in our day-to-day operations.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Ofer Tirosh: As a leader, you have to manage uncertainty. Making them certain and transparent with everyone within the company. Listening to others.
The world keeps on changing, so adapt to it and be brave. Fear is to become a big company and not adapt. Each person takes it differently, show empathy to that and see how you can help them.
What does success in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Ofer Tirosh: Success is different for everyone. I still remember my first order, which was 19 cents, even though it was 16 years later. Success is the accumulation of small and big changes. And I define it on the cycle time of errors.
I believe that failures are important as you can learn a lot from failures. My measure for success is the number of failures and the shorter interval time between failures and successes. From this, I can determine how far I have come.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ofer Tirosh for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Ofer Tirosh or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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