Two words: language barrier. In the U.S., you can launch a startup in NY, SF, or Texas. It doesn't matter. You can still reach everyone in the U.S. with a web

Two words: language barrier. In the U.S., you can launch a startup in NY, SF, or Texas. It doesn't matter. You can still reach everyone in the U.S. with a web service in a single language from the same location. It's very different if you launch a site in Germany, Estonia, or Spain. You just won't have the same reach by default, especially if you only offer the service in English. If you want to reach all of Europe and most people, then you'll have to offer the service, the ads for it, and the support, in 20+ languages. Alternatively, you can stick to English...but you'll reach far fewer people. Search for a certain type of product or service on Google Adwords in say Estonia or Poland in English, and then in the native language, and you'll see at least an order of magnitude more potential traffic/clicks for the native keyword. It may be easier to scale physical products than services in all European countries, but it still won't be as easy as such expansion would be in the United States. You may still need to deal with locals in their native language, so you may have to hire some people in those countries that speak that language. Hopefully, Google or someone will solve this issue through technology, so that in 10 years it won't matter if your service is offered in English only. Because otherwise, it will probably take another 50 years before 80% of the European population speaks English well by default and prefers to search for everything they want to buy online in English.