[paganel]

> huge market for itself in the EU, but a EU company can't?

Yes, because that US company was already big in the first place thanks to its foothold in the US (a single-language market). The same thing was starting to happen with AliExpress just before the pandemic but I'm not so sure how things stand right now (politics-wise, mostly).

It's pretty hard close to impossible to become a "google" or "facebook" in the local German or French markets big enough to conquer the rest of the continent. Spotify and the rest of the similar European products have had the success that they encountered precisely because they focused on an international (i.e. English-speaking) market first.

[bserge]

I believe it's possible with a way bigger marketing/sales team, from all around Europe, so the product could be marketed all over Europe (and the world).

Basically, I think starting with just one language is a mistake - if you're aiming for the whole EU market, start with as many languages as you can.

Of course, that will be more expensive on a continent where funding is not easily available.

Some resellers, Wish and Joom for example, have ads in every European language, it's the same ad but with different text/voiceover. Seems to work pretty well for them.

[BlueTemplar]

Seems to have worked out well enough for Blocket.se/LeBonCoin.fr and Covoiturage.fr/BlaBlaCar.com... Not to mention Nokia... until bought by Microsoft!