

Is English the good option for non-english-native startups? - lewebdalex

Hi there,<p>In order to set the context up, I'm writing this from Belgium, this small country in Europe where there are 56% people speaking Dutch, 41% speaking French and 1.5% speaking German.<p>We are launching a new web-app based on Twitter. For now, our logical behaviour was to develop our application in English, for international purposes and to do all our communication in English only. 
But comes this time where we want to launch a blog in order to support and put valuable content attached to our app. And then this question hit us : in which language should we do so ? Is English the real good option ?<p>We could for sure do it in English, but I have this strange feeling that the fact that we are non-native speakers will slow us down : all our writings will sound like non native english (as this post may sounds a bit for you). Furthermore, our direct surrounding are also not native english speakers.<p>But they speaks either French, Dutch or German and we can not (intellectually) speak the three.<p>Then deciding to go for a "main language" (translations we could do set aside) other than English may cut our target percentage by more than the half.<p>What's your advice/opinion on this one ?<p>Cheers,
Alex.
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ferrantim
You should publish your materials (app, marketing, blog, website, etc) in the
language that your users are comfortable in. If that is English, then it needs
to be in English. Sounds like you have an audience that is multi-lingual, but
English is that main language. This can be a challenge, but one you need to
face. Also, keep in mind, if your app is awesome, users will forgive a few
grammatical errors. Even native speakers make mistakes writing so a few errors
in not a huge deal, imo, especially on a blog). Good luck!

