“SumIT“ Graduate Will Help Find a Language School and Meet Silicone Valley Pros

A lot of Russian developers have successful career in international companies. Dmitry Pistolyako, CEO co-founder of the “LinguaTrip” online platform and resident of "SumIT" startup accelerator, is looking for new talent at ITMO University. The entrepreneur talked about his service - a search engine for language schools.

Please, tell us about your project.

We launched our project in January 2015. The “LinguaTrip” is an online service, which helps people to search language courses and accommodation abroad. It is the most effective way of language studying. Apart from language classes we offer our clients all that they need: housing, transfer, and visa support. Moreover, now we also offer young startup founders a new service. They can visit Silicon Valley, stay with “500 Startups” mentors and adopt their experience.

How much time does one Trip take?

Usually a trip takes about two-three weeks. It is enough to start speaking a foreign language. It is more effective than visiting language courses in a native country. After the first “lingua trip” a lot of our clients decided to do it again and again in order to get more language practice and experience exciting emotions many times.

What did you do to establish relations with international language schools?

We visited a lot of international conferences where we met with representatives and heads of language schools. We sign cooperation agreement only with well-known schools that have accreditation documents.

Who supported your startup when you launched it? Did you attract investors?

Nobody helped us when we started. We invested our own money. We had to work hard to turn our idea into reality. Thanks to a startup accelerator “SumIT“ I obtained a lot of useful skills. “500 Startups” project brought us the first investment.

Please, share your achievements.

“500 Startups” mentors suppose that our project is one of the most successful startups in this session. When we took part in a “Demo day” a lot of media included the “LinguaTrip” in the Top-5 high developing projects.

People from what countries use your service?

When we started all clients were Russians. Nowadays we collaborate with different people from the USA, the Dominican Republic, the Philippine Islands, Argentina, Spain, France, and even from South Africa.

Please, tell us about your team.

The “LinguaTrip” team is small but very effective. It consists of four experts. However we are going to hire several engineers from St. Petersburg. We hope that we will have an opportunity to collaborate with ITMO University in order to meet many talented developers.

Polina Poleschuk

News portal editorial office