Why local-first is bad advice for SaaS founders

View profile for Andrej Bantulić

Founder building AI-powered multilingual devices for tourism and conferences

So many people told us: “Start local, prove yourself, then go global.” Sounds safe. Logical. Also? Terrible advice — if you’re building SaaS. Software doesn’t ship in boxes. It ships in seconds. And if the problem exists everywhere, so should your product. But hardware? Different beast. Before you dream about international markets, make sure your neighbors even need what you’re building. Because if they don’t, neither will the rest of the world. At Vavilon, we'll be renting devices daily on a local level, but that is impossible to do on a global level, so we need a different strategy. There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook. Just strategy, timing, and execution. So, founders, where did you start? 🤔

  • First day in office 05/05/25
Romana Jocic

Go-To-Market | Positioning B2B startups | Fixing what’s blocking startup growth

3w

Go market by market, and you can’t go wrong, but don’t stay on one market (local for example) just because of the proximity. If there are enough people willing to pay, and willing to pay immediately - that’s your market 😊

Malik Waqas Arif

Backend Developer | Developed & Powering SaaS, MVP, Fintech, E-Commerce, Healthcare, Real Estate & CRM Platforms Web Apps

3w

Andrej Bantulić, Brilliant distinction, this is the kind of clarity most founders overlook. SaaS scales with servers, not shipping, while hardware demands local proof before global ambition. I’ve seen the same in backend architecture, scalability is strategic, not accidental. Loved how you tied Vavilon’s model into the bigger founder lesson here.

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