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Founder Reality with George Pu. Real talk from a technical founder building AI-powered businesses in the trenches. No highlight reel, no startup theater – just honest insights from someone who codes, ships, and scales.
Every week, George breaks down the messy, unfiltered decisions behind building a bootstrap software company. From saying yes to projects you don't know how to build, to navigating AI hype vs. reality, to the mental models that actually matter for technical founders.
Whether you're a developer thinking about starting a company, a founder scaling your first product, or a technical leader building AI features, this show gives you the frameworks and hard-won lessons you won't find in the startup content circus.
George Pu is a software engineer turned founder building multiple AI-powered businesses. He's bootstrapped companies, shipped products that matter, and learned the hard way what works and what's just noise.
Follow along as he builds in public and shares what's really happening behind the scenes.
New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
George Pu (00:00)
Recently upon checking the analytics data, I realized that I have been ignoring or taking granted 60 % of my potential customers for the past five years. While building SimpleDirect, we decided that we wanted to be focused on one geographical market.
We wanted to focus on the US market only, right? And for the product simple direct financing, obviously there was also a geographical constraint that, you know, the service providers that we select, right? The lending partners, they are all Americans and it was easier to start with that market. However, you know, our block traffic, over 45 % to 50 % of our block traffic actually comes from these following countries that we have ignored for so long. You know, the UK, Germany, France, and many countries in South America.
⁓ literally I think turning away these paying customers because I thought global just meant complex. But today I think every founder should be building by default global from day one. And it's easier, much easier than you think. So let me explain a little bit about my US only decision. ⁓
We built SimpleDirect, I think, exclusively for US home improvement contractors. And it required a few things that we had to get ready. We need to have a US address, business address, we need to have a US phone number for the business, and we need to have our incorporation and also having US banking. So we got those set up over the next couple of months back in 2019. And I thought it was basically just being
focus
in this market, right? And I think there were some good points into it, right? As somebody who just came out of college and is trying to do a business.
I guess I was naive enough to think that being focused on one market is the solution for everything because for the two startup companies that have interned before a natural company, one of them was building a cycling analytics company for people around the world, not just the US, not just in Canada, not just in the EU, around the world. And we even have users from Japan and China, which I was so surprised. I remember when I first discovered it. And for the second startup, it was interesting because it was basically a blockchain startup.
and that's something ⁓
I guess it's exciting when you see that your product is becoming global. So as I was working on those two products, I was pretty excited about it. But for some reason, when I was transitioning to working on my own startup, SimpleDirect, I was really stubborn at a time about, don't want to expand to more countries. Even though the blog analytics, think, has in the past has even consistently shown we have a lot of international traffic. We have traffic from Spain, from Ghana, from Africa, from UK, Germany, France, Brazil, Australia.
Canada obviously all those different countries and in the past five years We also got so many support tickets or just code emails or just LinkedIn messages with customers asking potential customers asking Do you serve this market we get that for Canada a lot get that for Australia? I'll get that for UK a lot and every time our answer just sorry We don't serve that market where us only right as as if I was basically wearing that as a badge of honor But here's the thing. I didn't realize is that
Businesses exist globally, right? And businesses globally probably have the same problem, have the same needs. And even though at a time we were serving a very specific home improvement problem for home improvement businesses, let's be honest, there are also those businesses around the world as well. Every country in the world have home repair issues, right? So I was basically essentially telling myself, there's no need because we're in the most advanced market, right? While we're building essentially a software platform, right? So basically there's no reason
for us not to build globally, right? Because we're not Home Depot, we're not selling physical goods in a certain geographical constraint area. We're a software company, which means we can essentially release our software anywhere in the world. And companies from around the world might have deeper issues, right? Let's say, because I personally, if you have built a product in the US, you know that it's a very competitive product. have venture capital back startups coming out anytime, right? And a competitive landscape is usually harder. Whereas I didn't think about is that
Okay, there are international markets, whereas there might not be any solutions to the problem that the customers are facing. So maybe they're even willing to pay a little bit of premium in pricing, right? And as well as like, think charging different currencies indeed is a headache. But you know, look at Shopify, Shopify is a Canadian company. It's based in Ottawa, which is the Canadian capital. However, Shopify has consistently charged USD for all of these customers for all these time, right? And I think has become sort of like industry practice.
for global companies to be charging only USD. And I think that is a good thing. That also means that you don't have as much currency risk. It's not like you're taking multiple different currencies or having to use Stripe to transfer or convert those currencies into one currency. You are one currency and you're less riskier.
However, those are the businesses that generally we as founders, we think
are not going to work, right? Even though they do make some money. so those are the bad examples of what not to build. However, let's take a look at a few common reasons why founders think they should be local and they shouldn't expand to other countries. And there are a few very common, excuses that I've heard from some of my founder friends. the first is that, we need to understand local regulations, right? So obviously we hear the quote unquote, horror stories coming from Europe. The European commission is finding Google is finding Meta.
blocking this and blocking that have new regulations. So some people say, okay, this is really scary. We don't want to be really operating in space. And a second, second excuse is that, you know, different countries have different needs, right? So maybe the fringe customers are a little bit different than the German customers because they're in different cultures. And I need to, we need to tailor the product differently. Right. So that also
is a very common objection from founders. the third is that, language barriers will be too complex. Language barriers, like people will not be able to understand how can they be our customers, right? And last, think, you know, payment processing is complicated or, you know, customer support across multiple time zones are impossible. So, and to be frank, I've thought about some of those issues as well, right? But in reality, from working on my startup for the past five years, I realized that all those things I just mentioned, the five things, they are just assumptions, right?
facts and the problems
Again, why are we using the tools or what we're using? Think about the tools that you use on a daily basis. What problems do they solve you? And let's say we go back to another country, say England, Australia, Japan. Do they not have the same problems? Do they not use Google Me? Do they not use Zoom? Do they not use the same tools that we use on a daily basis? The answer is yes, they do. People around the world use Microsoft and use Google. So that's a perfect example of having the same sort of problems.
It's not regional. As a startup founder, can build your solutions to be globally applicable. Let's look at a few examples. I personally really like the company Buffer. It's Buffer.com. a social media scheduling tool that helps you schedule social media posts from a suite of different products, whether it's Facebook's threads, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook. you know it.
the problem is universal, Like social media scheduling is an issue. But if you go to buffer.com, you don't see they have a Danish language switch. They don't have a regional switch. They don't have like, you're from Europe, so let's do the European versions, right? So they don't have any of that. So they are a startup and they're able to basically launch a global platform. And they charge from USD. And they never needed localization to scale globally
because universally, all of us have the problem, If you run a brand, you know that even for my personal Twitter account, I use a different solution app that helps me schedule all this content because it's impossible to be logging in, timing myself and posting different content throughout the day, right? That's just not possible. And then...
Let's look at another example, think it's Stripe. So we all know Stripe, right? But Stripe's approach is a little bit different. So Stripe process payments globally first before they perfected any single market, right? So Stripe is obviously very different than Uber. However, it's also regulated, right? They built their infrastructure first that worked across multiple different countries using the Visa framework. And they didn't wait for
Perfect or local compliance each jurisdiction before they expand it, right? Think about it this way if they have to wait for regulators to prove every country's expansion They would not have been this big today, right? So if stripe can launch globally from day one, so can your business? Eventually also like if you're not the examples like github and zoom I think we all know exactly why they work across different countries globally, right and they will you'll have the same problem and Here is what I think after learning so much and doing some
research in the space, what I think global companies share, first is that they all have a universal problem.
And that's for you as a founder, something to note about. So this problem needs to exist almost everywhere, right? And I think it's not hard to find those problems. Monitor a day in your life and see where's the bottleneck. And I think it's very easy to find out where the bottleneck is. And you can probably build in software to solve that, right? And second of all is that all those different companies are English by default, right? Before Zoom went public and before they went big, I remember using Zoom in 2018, 2017 in my second internship. And it was just in English. There wasn't any other language.
So you as a founder, don't have to wait for localization or adding different languages. Just use English, right? And same goes for pricing. Just use USD standard terms. don't offer more than just USD initially until unless it's absolutely necessary. But even though I don't see a reason to have multiple different currencies, right? And fourth is that all of these different successful global software companies, they only ship software, right? They use digital delivery and there is absolutely no physical constraints.
And lastly, there's like network effects, right? So global users based, obviously they give their feedback, they tell their customers, right? So all those different networks, for example, like if we launch a product called a simple direct on change lock, for example, that product will be spread across the world. And then some people in Europe, you in France might be happy and maybe he might share with some of his friends. And that's how the global network will start. Right. And then this network will become bigger and bigger and bigger. And next thing you know, you already have customers from 100 countries in the world.
And that's the most amazing thing. You know, that's the most amazing thing that can happen. So I think that's really interesting. And in my opinion.
Let's take a look together about the default global strategy that we can all grow using. We can all use it to build global companies. And as I mentioned, as we're a sunsetting simple direct financing for the next two products, which is one of them is simple direct context, which is basically using MCP servers to help, you know, customers around the world who are using Claude, who are using open AI, who using Google Gemini or different chat box to use the MCP servers to build a complete picture about where the company is.
adding significant amount context to their AI tools. That is something I think globally every company who's using AI could benefit no matter where they are. And a second tool is SimpleDirect ChangeLock. And SimpleDirect ChangeLock is a very interesting tool because we all have a need of building a change lock. And there are GitHub change locks, sure, but we don't currently have a good solution on the market that's building change locks specifically for customer facing change locks. Because if you're a software company,
You want your customer to see what you have shipped. You want a customer to know that, you know, your SaaS monthly pricing is worth it because you're consistently shipping your products. That's the premise of SaaS. So there's obviously a need for change locks across the world as well. So as we're sunsetting simple direct financing, we're launching these two new products in the coming weeks. so I'm personally pretty excited about it. And as you know, we're shifting obviously by sunsetting simple direct. We're removing our last constraint of not being able to shift.
into a global market. As we sunset it, simpledirect ChangeLock and simpedirect context will both be a global company from day one.
We're going to be using English as a primary language. We're not going to wait for translation and we're going to be USD price for stability, right? And then we'll use stripe handle currency conversions automatically. If somebody pays in their currency, sure, they can pay the local currency, right? But it will be based on USD. So what we take is we'll always take USD. And then let's also talk a little bit more about legal because this is something that scares founders a lot. I think it really depends on the sort of company
that you are, but if you're not a payment processor, you're not a stockbroker, you're not these like fintech tools that touches people's banking information or money, start with terms that work globally, right? Start with terms that work around the world. And then for example, you just need to create a privacy policy and a term of service. So think about three things as you do it. There's the California rule about privacy. There's also the GDPR for Europe. And there's one potentially
I for Canada, right? So there's a three that's a little bit of universal. So think about those three and then build a privacy policy that combines those three, right? There's nothing additional that you need to do other than having those policies. It's basically just by giving users an ability to opt out, right? That's your privacy policy can be done in an hour, right? Or less. And then for terms of service, I recommend start globally. Start with wherever you are, making sure you're complying with your local laws about the terms of service. But then don't worry too much in my opinion about
having to adhere to around the world, right?
you're a smaller company and I have never heard any one of my founder friends who complain about to me about compliance and regulation just by launching globally. So don't be scared. Start simple. Start with the terms that work globally. Right. And in my opinion, many regulations are similar also across countries. So that shouldn't be something that you have in mind. And also for customer support, that's also like, as I mentioned, one of the huge concerns from founders that, for example, like, you know, I'm on the East coast, so like, what do
do for customers who are in Asia? What can I do if I cannot answer their queries on time?
If you don't know it yet, almost everywhere software tools were already using email support across time zones. And you can be very strict that, oh, you can only text support, you can email us, we'll give out to you in 48 hours. You can get back to them at your same time as long as within 48 hours, as long as it's in two business days. And customers are usually content with that. They're okay with that. And then for documentation, use English, obviously, to serve a global audience.
community support, I think is a really smart thing recently, that we will also consider doing a simple direct is basically by adding a community forum so that if someone has a user having a problem, other people from the community can actually go back and help them as well. This requires a little bit of network effect, but I think if you're building really cool stuff, you have a community, you have a following, it's actually easy to do that. So I think don't worry about a customer support site and just use the ones I just mentioned and you'll be much better off.
And also, I think...
I will try not to ask users about which country they're from and remove any country specific restrictions in sign up forms, right? And also accept international phone numbers and addresses, right? By defaulting to be users can enter any phone numbers and user can enter any addresses, right? Also, I think this one's easy. Use a payment processor like Stripe that works globally and designed for different time zones from day one so that your app actually accomplish, know, your app is accommodating different time zones.
And that is something super easy to build into. here are a few more things that I think don't do when you're launching a global business. First of all is like, don't actually don't build a separate version for each country because it's impossible to catch up. And eventually you're going to burn yourself out and burn your team out. Right. And don't overcomplicate with local customization initially. And I'll give an example. When I personally went to Qatar and the UAE, there were some interests about people using SimpleDirect for their specific
specific market, but the thing is they want some customization. So I thought about it for a while and I eventually said, no, no, sorry, we're not doing that for the, at this time, because I don't want to overcomplicate with local customizations initially. And I want to build some tools such as what I just mentioned about simple direct change locks or simple direct MCP, people and businesses from those different countries, even in the middle East, they can use it easily, right? Without having to read a manual in different languages. And that's just something straightforward.
they're solving the problem right away. And third
Also don't assume that you need a local partnership or anything like that. That was also another mistake I was thinking about in the UAE and Qatar. You actually don't need any local partnerships if your product is straightforward enough. So launch global, get traction and think, and you can take a look at which markets are the strongest markets and then you can also double down those markets. But again, there's no reason for you to have a local partnership, whichever market it is to start and don't wait for a perfect international strategy because there is not a perfect international
international
strategy. The strategy itself is basically just like launching globally, right? And building our audiences. And with social media these days and blog these days so international, as long as you're writing in, you know, I think a certain language like English, which is very universal, you're able to launch globally pretty easily.
So as I said, for Simple Direct, the two upcoming products we're going to have are global. And we are launching actually a changelock waitlist and a context waitlist already. And we're actually getting people from visiting around the world already. I can see it on my Twitter. I can see it on my Google Analytics. So the traffic right now is pretty good. So I have learned from just these two initial products that
international customers actually convert at a similar rate as it was when we were launching simple like financing at a US only market. Right. And I was, as I was launching those two products, I also realized that the support ticket isn't actually significantly higher, which I'm sure other founders who building global might have the same to say. And payment processing Stripe gives a kudos just works and time zones that she never bothered me. I work with customers in different time zones from beyond just the U S obviously from Europe.
in Asia for people who are interested in using us, right? And also visiting the blog and sketching guests and all that. No one ever had an issue about me being in my time zone and them being in their time zone.
International users pay more because maybe you're solving a huge problem that their local partners or local competition is not able to solve. Right. And also just following up on that, there is less competition in some international markets.
and a word of mouth is going to be able to drive your revenue much faster. And network effects is locked in across multiple different regions. So you're not just growing from one country, one region, right? You're growing from multiple different regions and your work actually works in a multiplier way that actually drives your revenue and growth much faster. So what happened now is that
You know, nothing has changed on a product perspective. The product stays the same. The pricing stays the same. You know, the support process is the same and development workforce is the same. However, just by focusing on global by default, we're able to grow our audiences on a much faster way by removing that us only or regional only mentality. We're able to grow much faster than we were before. And I'll be glad to share the statistics with you guys in just a few episodes as we're collecting more information. But right now for what I'm seeing.
we're finally able to utilize the 40 % traffic that we were just seeing and never utilizing, right? So for you as a founder, for you as a business owner,
I think obviously for sure try to remove those restrictions as much as you can. Try to be global from day one. If you are focusing on one region right now, check your sign up flow, check your onboarding flow, check your existing customers and check your international traffic and think about how you can actually make your product global. Right? Because many times we think that we have to be regional and I think we're maybe lying to ourselves. Unless you're solving a specific problem, only problem that countries, people have, you
Which I think is really really rare by the way I don't really see that lot unless you're tied up to some APIs or only work for that certain country Otherwise, I really think you have a chance at becoming a global company check words of traffic coming from check which country has higher engagements but no conversion and check like if you have any Support agents or support people have received similar tickets about people asking for different countries right and remove those barriers Test measure and I think you're going to get there quite easily, you know and
going from the beginning, you know, I believe the product you're launching and the problem that you're solving exists universally.
And I'm sure international markets, international customers can use your product in English, right? And I'm sure you're building something that can be delivered without a physical presence. I tried e-commerce by the way, was horrible to ship between national locations. And I think everything else just works. Most founders, you know, artificially limit their markets by assuming international means complex setups. And I was one of them to be quite honest. But in 2025, as we're approached even the end of 2025 in almost a few months with modern payment
processing, modern cloud infrastructure, and global English adoption, growing global should be the default and it should be always easier than perfect local optimization. And you know let me know what you guys think as well in the comments. I personally do believe launching global should be the trend from now on.
And I'll be building that by myself for the next couple of weeks and months and I'll let you know exactly how that goes. So if you have any thoughts about global setup, any questions or anything you want to discuss with me, can always find me on the George pu on Twitter and for all the show notes, transcripts, also summaries and also never seen before blog posts that you will not see on the show on the podcast, you can read founderreality.com to see more about it. So thank you so much. This is your host George pu and I'll see you next time.