A current example is Uber – a mobile application for alternative transportation. Consumers download an application with which they can call a car to transport them from point A to point B, while they can see where the nearest available vehicle is, the rating score of the driver, and how much the service will cost to the selected destination. The application also allows people, who are not professional taxi drivers and have not obtained all the necessary licenses and attributes, to earn some extra money during their spare time or even make their main income this way. Being the mediator in this service, Uber charges a modest commission, while you have the chance to ride in new cars with drivers who take care of your comfort, because they know you will rate them once the ride is over, and they want to boost their rating, which will be seen by future clients. Indeed, the service is a real alternative and manna on the local market, but also a service that the countries around the world are trying to charge and control in any possible way. Uber is the perfect example of how a product launched on the market to solve consumers’ problems – in this case, all the troubles with late arrivals of the taxis in peak hours, the quality of the service itself, as well as the price.

Well, so far, so good. The business of the San Francisco-based company is estimated at 40 billion dollars, which is more than enviable. Everything seemed picture-perfect until the localization of the local project started, or in other words – when the service set foot in other cities around the world. In Nevada, Portland, and California the company met a stern rejection on behalf of the local authorities. In the Netherlands, Vietnam, and Singapore the service was faced with legal obstacles, while as of 2015, after severe pressure exerted by the trade unions of taxi drivers, France amended its laws in order to declare the company illegal. Taxi drivers staged protests against Uber in London, too. The company also faced severe fines imposed by local competition protection authorities in other parts of the world.

Now you see how a positive service, allowing people with spare time to earn some money and at the same time to provide comfort to consumers, managed to make itself bitter enemies by harming corporate and private interests enjoying, more or less, strong lobbies in the state structures. In short, if something works well in your city or district, it does not necessarily mean that you can apply it in any other part of the world, because when people, laws, mentality, and customs are different, you can never be absolutely sure that a certain small application or service, which seems simple, convenient and logical, will eventually rub salt into some wounds of the society that you have not even suspected.

This example comes to show that when thinking of a certain project as a local one, with the idea to develop it into a global one later, we may end up setting ourselves some pitfall from the very beginning and when the time comes to go out on the world market, we may trip over.