Want to Succeed Globally? Start by Learning Locally, New Research Finds

Study shows startups that build with local users first are more likely to achieve international growth later

BALTIMORE, June 5, 2026 — Many technology startups assume that if they want global success, they need global customers from the very beginning.

New research suggests the opposite may be true.

A study published in the INFORMS journal Organization Science finds that startups can improve their chances of succeeding in foreign markets when they first focus on learning from users closer to home.

The study, “When Local Learning Scales: Entrepreneurs’ Initial Users and Market Expansion,” found that startups with a higher share of local early users—customers from the same country as the company’s headquarters—experienced greater subsequent growth in foreign markets. The research was conducted by Nataliya Langburd Wright of Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

“This research found that startups with a higher share of local initial users prior to launch experience greater foreign user growth afterward,” said Wright. “It’s all about building a foundation on familiarity. Familiar early users can provide clearer signals that help entrepreneurs refine their products before expanding internationally.”

The findings challenge a common assumption among entrepreneurs and investors that going to the target market should be the primary goal from day one. Instead, the research suggests that learning from local users, even if outside of the target market, can ultimately help startups scale to their target.

One reason is that local users often share language, cultural norms and context with a startup’s founders. That familiarity makes feedback easier to interpret and act upon, helping entrepreneurs identify problems, refine products and improve customer experiences before scaling to new markets.

Foreign users may ultimately represent a startup’s largest growth opportunity. But when young companies focus too heavily on those markets too early, they can miss the opportunity to learn from customers whose feedback is easier to understand and apply.

Using data from 1,106 early-stage technology startups launching products on a global platform, complemented with experiments and interviews with entrepreneurs, the study examined how the geographic composition of startups’ early users influenced later international growth. Researchers tracked website visits before and after product launches to measure expansion into foreign markets.

“Sectors where this has proven valuable are globally standardized digital product categories such as SaaS and web tools, where customer preferences are similar across countries,” Wright said, drawing on a new measure of globally standardized vs. locally fragmented products introduced in this work. “In these contexts, startups that began with stronger local user bases saw significantly higher subsequent growth in foreign website traffic, including from the United States, a major target market for technology ventures.”

The study suggests that local users do more than generate early traction. They help startups build the knowledge needed to compete internationally.

“Entrepreneurs often worry that starting locally will limit their global potential,” Wright said. “But in many cases, local learning helps build a stronger product foundation that ultimately supports international scaling.”

The findings also highlight the risks of expanding too quickly. Startups that rush into foreign markets before fully understanding what early users are telling them may struggle to refine their products effectively, limiting their long-term growth potential. This might particularly impact startups in smaller markets that often face pressure to expand quickly to new markets, contributing to why we see few startups scale outside of traditional hubs. 

As founders face growing pressure to scale rapidly and capture international markets, the research offers a different lesson: learning may need to come before expansion.

The study suggests that global growth depends not only on where startups find customers, but on who helps them improve the product in the first place. In many cases, the path to international success may begin much closer to home.

Read the full study here.

About INFORMS and Organization Science

INFORMS is the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research, AI, analytics, data science and related disciplines, serving as a global authority in advancing cutting-edge practices and fostering an interdisciplinary community of innovation. Organization Science, a leading journal published by INFORMS, publishes research on strategy, entrepreneurship, organizational behavior and innovation that informs managerial and policy decisions. INFORMS empowers its community to improve organizational performance and drive data-driven decision-making through its journals, conferences and resources. Learn more at www.informs.org or @informs.

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