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Ask HN: would you (founders) use this service?

13 points by chris_l ↗ HN
I want to offer localization services to startups (for free/affordable), especially in the mobile arena. The idea is that startups often neglect this in their early focus and loose valuable market share when they can't test stuff (and adapt to local customs, special cases, etc.) in other countries.

Initially I can only handle UK and Germany properly, but if successful this can be grown country by country with new subcontractors or whatever.

15 comments

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chris_l
Also: how do you currently solve this problem, if you do. And if you don't, how do you feel about staying within your own country?
davidw
Interesting idea, and something I've considered doing myself, for Italy. The "downside" to it is that it's a linear-growth consulting business, rather than a product business. Still, it seems like something that US companies ought to think about so as to avoid having their lunch eated in other countries by clones. I'd be interested in talking more if you want to look me up through my profile.
puzzle-out
I think a product's sensitivity to serving a number of different locales often has to be sacrificed during the start-up phase, as otherwise the product development could end up, well, unfocussed. I think your service would be most beneficial during the expansion stage - but then of course, with internet start-ups the lag-time between start-up and expansion can be very short, so your service could really be onto something.
tonystubblebine
Yes, I would love an affordable version of this service. I think of XHTMLized as a potential model for you. I think there are some parallel types of services popping up in testing.

I think it's more important for you to be convenient then it is to be perfect. We have foreign-language users who struggle with our english version. Any translation would be a huge upgrade for them. And the users would be our test bed.

brianr
Here's something related that I definitely would pay for: a subscription-based service that provides reliable proxy servers in a wide variety of countries. There was a thread recently about this sort of thing-- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=405946.

Basically, I want to be able to browse the web, reliably, as if I were physically located in anywhere.

mdasen
It depends on price and what's involved.

Don't do it for free. As much as free and freemium has become all the rage, I'd want to pay for this. I wouldn't want excessive fees, but consulting like this can't be free. It involves human work and not cursory work if it's going to be good.

Do more than simply translations. First, I don't think many people in the UK would care so much about spelling, but also I think translation is easier to come by than a lot of stuff. Geo/mail stuff is a pain when you don't know the country. What services are you thinking of offering.

sammcd
Currently I only localize things, if I have a friend that I trust very well that knows the language. Basically no matter what service I use, I am going to want to check it myself.

If you establish trust I will be very interested in this type of service.