[mytailorisrich]

It is often repeated, but does that make it true or understood?

My reasoning is that if you're a tech company then translation costs are trivial (that's close to obvious)

Now, depending on your industry, cultural differences may be an important factor but that's different. All the well-known tech companies are equally present across the EU so it does not seem like a major problem (that may be different across widely different cultures).

[est31]

Even large companies like Amazon or Facebook launch some of their new products only for the american audience and only expand to europe later. And early stage startups don't have the resources of translating their app into two dozen languages, offering customer service in those languages, having a sales infrastructure, etc. It's doable but more expensive if you operated in the american market.

[mytailorisrich]

What does that have to do with language?

Now, if you're an early stage startup you have your hands full already, you can wait until next year to spread across the EU in different languages. That does not impede anything

For support, it's quite easy to hire people who speak different languages and the total cost will be the same.

[mbesto]

> you can wait until next year to spread across the EU in different languages. That does not impede anything

It literally is impeding you from operating in that other country right now. What do you not understand about that?

Take a like for like example:

I have 10 customers in Texas who use my software and they pay me $100k/year. I can sell my software to 5 more customers in California...tomorrow. So I make $150k this year.

I have 10 customers in the UK who use my software and they pay me £100k/year. My software isn't localized and therefore I can't sell my software to 5 French companies (because they require the French language for their employees). I have to wait a year to earn the additional £50k/year while I add support for them. I only make £100k this year.

I just lost out on an additional £50k. How is that not an impediment to my growth rate....it's literally 50% less...

Oh, I also have to hire French people to support them which increases my costs and therefore making me less profitable.

impede =/= prohibit

[bpodgursky]

Do you have actual experience building a product with cross-language support, or are you hypothesizing?

[mytailorisrich]

I do have experience.