Any start-up company has to focus its limited resources to create a product that really really speaks to its target users. One place, however, were you should not cut corners is internationalization. Since its inception, Splashtop has been serving users as far from our California headquarters as Poland, Brazil, or Malaysia. In fact, if we look at where our new users came from in February, we see that the US accounts for under a half of our growth:

We have been stoking international use of Splashtop in a variety ways. On a very basic level, we have to enable users to type with a variety of local input methods. A big shout out here is due to the SCIM open source project that we benefit from. Thanks, guys! On an application level, we have been seeking out partners who enjoy popularity in their local markets. For example, Baidu powers our search in China, and Yandex - in Russia. Our Splashtop 2.0 product also incorporates a ton of local content from various markets where Splashtop is used.

Being international is a big deal for us. In fact, Cliff Miller, our Chief Strategy Officer based in Beijing, is out in California this week giving a keynote at the Worldware conference, which is all about global software strategies.

If you do software - whether in a start-up or in a large company, don’t forget that there is a big world out there beyond your borders - a world of opportunity!