We Built It Because Nothing Else Worked: the Story Behind Qangaroo

How one translation agency’s QA frustration gave birth to a hopping great solution.

In a world where deadlines and encroaching AI influence loom large, the last thing a translation professional needs is a QA tool that demands more hand-holding than a toddler in a theme park. Yet here we are in 2025, and many of us still need to manually copy and paste segments into spreadsheets to check if quotation marks match.

It took one fed-up QA specialist with a curiosity for code, a linguist with an eye for detail, and a playground of ideas to create the tool we, and probably all of you, desperately need.

The birth of a tool (necessity is the mother of invention)

Qangaroo wasn’t born in a boardroom with a whiteboard and buzzwords. It was born out of frustration.

“It started with all the small annoyances,” says Erik Bogerd, developer of Qangaroo and co-owner of the tool. “You get a CSV or Excel file, but before you can even check anything, you have to massage it through Excel just to get it ready. And then there were the .xlf files that showed segments as ‘untranslated’ just because the status wasn’t right. Super helpful, if you enjoy wasting time.”

Things got worse when they looked at the QA checks themselves.

CAT tools didn’t cut it

Suzanne van Duijn, co-owner of Qangaroo, an experienced software tester and linguist remembers the pain clearly:

“We missed a lot of crucial checks, thanks to the shortcomings of existing software tools out there. For example: language-specific quotation marks that didn’t match. Or spaces before punctuation marks that no tool flagged. Even something as basic as a space before a comma, like this one , or a period, like this one . Most tools just didn’t catch it.”

And while CAT tools like Phrase (then still called Memsource) and Across tried their best, their built-in QA features just didn’t cut it.

Suzanne: “Eventually, we worked with exports, and with some effort we converted that into a file that Qangaroo could actually read and use to perform QA checks. That was the first time we thought: hey, maybe we’re onto something.”

“Brand™” and the error that broke the camel’s back

The tipping point came with a feedback comment from a client.

“The source had ‘Brand™’, and the target just had ‘Brand’. No error. Nothing flagged. That was the moment we knew: we needed something better.”

That daily grind built up until Erik, Ludejo’s QA specialist with a coding hobby, did what any rational person would do: build a tool from scratch.

And just like that: Qangaroo was hopping

Erik made a list of “everything” they were missing in existing tools. Suzanne added to it. All those real-world annoyances they’d been patching for years. He built a platform where they could address the issues they were facing, one by one.

Then they gave it to colleagues at Ludejo to try out. The feedback loop tightened, the tool got sharper, and finally, Malon Hamoen joined in to help guide the thing from side project to proper product.

Erik’s QA tool

Malon saw the bigger picture. “Erik’s QA tool” as it was known to the team at Ludejo, was possibly something other linguists could benefit from.

“Ludejo means ‘playground’ in Esperanto,” Malon says. “So it made perfect sense. We were playing. But with purpose. After quite a bit of frustration, post-it notes, and ‘aha!’ moments, we realized we had something to share.”

One of the most satisfying “aha moments” came when deciding on the name - Qangaroo. For the marketing team at Ludejo, that is obviously easier to play with. “It’s also just a nice name,” Erik says. For the team at Ludejo who were involved in the development of Qangaroo, at its heart, it will always be “Erik’s QA tool”.

Not a sales pitch (but also, you should totally use it)

Qangaroo has been designed specifically for translators, copywriters, proofreaders, translation agencies and their teams. It enables smart, cost-effective analysis without compromising on quality. From spelling and terminology, to style, consistency, special characters, and numerical accuracy; Qangaroo checks it all.

It supports a wide range of file formats, whether content is written by humans, assisted by AI, or produced entirely through machine translation.

A tiny investment with huge returns

In today’s competitive landscape, Qangaroo is a lightweight add-on that runs smoothly alongside existing workflows and helps you deliver faster, better, and smarter. Export your content, run it through Qangaroo, and get a clear, actionable QA report. No more juggling different tools or complex workarounds.

Happier clients, fewer rounds of revisions

With Qangaroo, you can finally QA both source and target content thoroughly. Whether you’re managing large-scale multilingual accounts or quick local projects, Qangaroo gives you peace of mind. We all know the last thing you want is another awkward call explaining why you didn’t catch something obvious, while working under extreme time pressure.

“We built Qangaroo because we were tired of wasting time and energy. Now we just deliver better work. And that feels good.”

Hop over and win!

Want to give Qangaroo a go? Keep an eye out for Andrew Hickson at GALA Conference 2025 in Montreal. He’s the Irish guy with the ginger beard trying to get money out of you for Translators without Borders. He has free trial coupons!

See Qangaroo in action, help us (Ludejo Studios & Qangaroo) support TWB, and discover how Erik’s QA tool can transform your QA process.

Qangaroo: Hop in, explore, and take a leap towards flawless content.