[rdancer]

France is a massive homogenous market with high penetration of their target platform, and large comfortable middle class. It's probably easier to pilot in France than it is in most other markets. And launching globally has non-trivial implications for cashflow & risk.

[throwawaymsft]

I'm sure there are some strategic advantages. But when a French-only mobile app languishes, the lesson isn't necessarily "don't make a mobile app".

And it's not something you casually forget to mention in your postmortem (ctrl+f for "France" and "French" in the original article).