The Samwer brothers fill a (pretty big) hole in the market. They execute proven business models in countries before the market leader can get there. If US-based companies would put more emphasis on international expansion the Samwers' business would melt away. (I'm a American who's lived in the UK for years and gets really irritated that a lot of great US companies don't bring their services here.)
side note -- I have to think there's a market for a group of experts based in major European/Asian markets that would specialize companies in clearing the hurdles to expanding internationally. Get a handful of people in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia who are experts in local regulations and can work fast to expand a US-based business.
I'm in the UK, and has done quite a bit of work in the payment space, and I've kept seeing this all the time.
On one hand, a lot of US companies just ignore the European markets. On the other hand, a lot of the ones that try demonstrate why:
Assumption after assumption about regulatory regime, languages, culture etc. need to be beaten out of them. When they grasp multiple languages, you can bet a lot of them will get caught out with multiple languages in a single country (this one always confuses me - so many US companies deal with at least Spanish that you'd think more companies would be prepared to deal with this). Then there's inevitably issues around VAT/sales tax, and engineers who don't have the faintest understanding for just how strict handling of invoices are in some European countries (I remember when my dad still had to print out every electronic invoice he issued and glue them in on numbered pages in a book to satisfy the auditors - thankfully things have moved on somewhat, but US engineers: Stop making systems where invoices can even theoretically be mutable after issuing already, and you'll be vastly better placed for international markets).
> so many US companies deal with at least Spanish that you'd think more companies would be prepared to deal with this
Actually it's the opposite - inside the US, Spanish-speaking markets are mostly served by companies that only serve those markets and not the English speaking ones.
I am working for Zalando, the biggest fashion eCommerce platform in Europe, founded by Rocket. I am astonished that this does not happen more often. In Germany, there are just some local companies who try to compete. UK is a tough market but those companies also don't expand beyond UK. Europe is a big market where eCommerce just recently started to evolve and competitors are rare.
(This is my personal opinion and view of the situation)
I think that's a great idea. There definitely should be market for this kind of thing. That being said the startup world tends to be notably consultant-shy when it comes to things like this. VCs appear (and this is not scientific, purely my subjective opinion based on personal experience) to not like writing checks to consulting firms for such business-development related activities.
side note -- I have to think there's a market for a group of experts based in major European/Asian markets that would specialize companies in clearing the hurdles to expanding internationally. Get a handful of people in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia who are experts in local regulations and can work fast to expand a US-based business.