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This is dead wrong. Until you have business in the language of your primary customers you shouldn't even THINK about less understood markets.


Not sure why you say this is dead wrong? It just stresses that focusing on only language is leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

Of course, make sure you have a business in your primary customers' language, I agree!


It may be leaving lots of opportunity on the table but at the early stages of a company - which includes many in the Hacker News community - they're not taking advantage of the opportunities that are already in front of them.. or they're still figuring out how.

Adding an additional market at that stage ranges from a waste of time/money (if it doesn't work) to a poor customer experience (if it does). How do you sell to and support a customer if you don't speak their language?*

This is not a decision you want to make lightly without some deliberate thought and planning with the rest of your organization.

* I work for Clarify.io which although we don't do translation services (and no interest in it), we work with multiple languages on a daily basis. Adding support in even one language the founders don't know is challenging at best. Luckily, between our two founders, we have 5 languages.




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