This seems completely wrong to me. I'm guessing that the assumption 'European startups fail to scale' is in comparison to US startups. I haven't seen any US sta

This seems completely wrong to me. I'm guessing that the assumption 'European startups fail to scale' is in comparison to US startups. I haven't seen any US startups change branding colours or change UI for European markets. They succeed in spite of this. We're also assuming that 'scaling' is the goal and considering the writer is a 'growth hacker' it's good for business to pretend it is. But if we're talking about cultural differences it's important to consider differences in the overall goal. Profit seems to be a much bigger driver in Europe - scaling to billions of users and then trying to squeeze some money out of them isn't as appealing. I don't think you can say one approach (scale vs. smaller but cash flow positive) is better than the other.