
Ask HN: Is there room for apps like “X, but for Brazil?” - xnptc
I see many businesses on the US taking advantage of great software tools - talking mostly about SaaS applications - to grow revenue, get smart metrics or even as a customizable CRM.<p>In Brazil - and I am sure in many other countries - the SaaS market isn&#x27;t a hit among the average business owners. I am talking about restaurant owners, local breweries, artists, freelancers, etc. SaaS tools are used mainly by startups and digital agencies, and it doesn&#x27;t get much far from that (source: I live here).<p>I suspect the main reason for this is due to language, which itself is big a barrier for most people who live here. Many folks do know how to read english, but using it for work tasks on a daily basis is a complete different story.<p>So it got me thinking, are there opportunities for making the same apps we use and love, but localized for a different country? Kind of treating it as niche.<p>Are you aware of any successful cases that made the &quot;Basecamp, but in Japanese&quot; or the &quot;Intercom, but Russian&quot;?<p>Please note I am not talking about having a landing page with an option to switch languages, I know many companies have this. What I refer to is explicitly targeting different cultures with marketing, content and even product features.
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PaulHoule
Back in 2000, I helped Mauricio Roman develop Tivejo, which was a re-branded
version of the Paltalk chat client for the Brazilian market combined with a
user registration system that I built.

We got upwards of 350,000 users at one point; although the site is not running
anymore, I believe Mauricio did make a successful exit.

At the time I talked with VCs and other industry people in Sao Paulo and many
of them commented that localization was a big issue: for instance, many
preferred Microsoft over then-current Linux distributions because Microsoft
had Portuguese docs and Linux did not.

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sharemywin
Think lean startup go out and start talking to target business owners. If
their biggest problem is something you can fix you might have a business.

