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Another decent barrier here is language. Europe has lots of different languages in use, and while a lot of people speak english it's far from universal. It mak

Another decent barrier here is language. Europe has lots of different languages in use, and while a lot of people speak english it's far from universal. It makes it quite tricky to offer services across the whole of Europe without a lot of investment.

tormeh 5y ago
It is a barrier, but not a huge one, assuming you're talking about software. Translation is pretty cheap, all things considered. For consulting businesses and employees it's a different story, obviously. The real problem, particularly in the B2B space, is that if you build something for nation X, that solution might not work, be relevant or even legal in nation Y.
- minimaul 5y ago
  Translation for software is cheap, but internationalisation can be tricky - different languages have vastly different rules. Europe's not too bad here though. There are other costs though - such as support. In the US you can grow pretty well with a large market providing support in one or maybe two languages. In Europe, you need to provide support in English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish... and there's more besides, and some tricky local dialects. edit: also the cost of maintaining translation as you grow or make changes means it's not a one-off cost, it's a constant extra burden - even if it's not a huge one. For a larger business it's plenty doable, for a small startup (especially a non-funded one) it's very difficult. edit 2: also I'm meaning mostly western/central/northern Europe. If you go further east things get trickier still.
- reader_mode 5y ago
  Translation is easy, support, marketing, sales, adapting to local regulations, integrating with local providers. And the markets are so fragmented - there are so many small countries. I worked for a B2B startup in EU - even in development I'd say at least 50% of time was spent on dealing with country specific tasks (the startup had a payment processing component so that was a large part of it).

tormeh 5y ago

It is a barrier, but not a huge one, assuming you're talking about software. Translation is pretty cheap, all things considered. For consulting businesses and employees it's a different story, obviously. The real problem, particularly in the B2B space, is that if you build something for nation X, that solution might not work, be relevant or even legal in nation Y.

minimaul 5y ago
Translation for software is cheap, but internationalisation can be tricky - different languages have vastly different rules. Europe's not too bad here though. There are other costs though - such as support. In the US you can grow pretty well with a large market providing support in one or maybe two languages. In Europe, you need to provide support in English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish... and there's more besides, and some tricky local dialects. edit: also the cost of maintaining translation as you grow or make changes means it's not a one-off cost, it's a constant extra burden - even if it's not a huge one. For a larger business it's plenty doable, for a small startup (especially a non-funded one) it's very difficult. edit 2: also I'm meaning mostly western/central/northern Europe. If you go further east things get trickier still.
reader_mode 5y ago
Translation is easy, support, marketing, sales, adapting to local regulations, integrating with local providers. And the markets are so fragmented - there are so many small countries. I worked for a B2B startup in EU - even in development I'd say at least 50% of time was spent on dealing with country specific tasks (the startup had a payment processing component so that was a large part of it).