Markets
How a Startup crosses a border into a new Market, with Prices in its currency, a Site in its languages, and the law that wakes there.
A Market is a region where a Startup sells, hires, or keeps books. Each one sets a currency, a list of locales, and the legal floor rows that wake when the Startup enters it.
What a Market sets
Every Startup starts in the United States Market. The others are opened one at a time.
| Market | Currency | Locales | Floor rows it wakes |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | USD | en-US, es-US | CAN-SPAM, Phone, Sales tax, Privacy rights, Data broker, Information returns |
| European Union | EUR | en-IE, de-DE, fr-FR, es-ES, it-IT, nl-NL, pl-PL, pt-PT, sv-SE | VAT, Jurisdictions, Privacy rights, Accessibility, Vulnerability handling, Whistleblowing |
| United Kingdom | GBP | en-GB | VAT, Jurisdictions, Privacy rights |
| Canada | CAD | en-CA, fr-CA | VAT, Jurisdictions, Privacy rights, French language |
| Australia | AUD | en-AU | VAT, Jurisdictions, Privacy rights |
A Market names its countries by code, its currency by ISO 4217 code, and its locales by BCP 47 tag with the default first.
Entering a Market
enter opens a Market to a Startup in one Action. The Finance Lead performs it, and because it commits money and law, it is one-way and waits its delay window.
When the window closes, three things happen at once:
- Every Price gains an amount in the Market's currency.
- The Site, docs, and Messages gain the Market's locales.
- Every floor row the Market lists wakes and opens its Process.
Take a scheduling API for dental clinics that enters Canada. Its $49 Offer gains a CAD Price and its Site gains en-CA and fr-CA. The Company registers for sales tax there, and the French language row wakes.
Currencies
A Price shows in the buyer's Market currency, and a Customer pays in that currency. The books record each charge in its own currency and in the Company's home currency at the rate on the day it settles. Payouts settle in the home currency.
A Price is set per Market, never converted on the fly. Within one Market, an Offer has one Price for every buyer. A price test runs across Markets as a geo Experiment, never as a split inside one.
Languages
Localization translates the Site, docs, Messages, and support into each locale. The Content Lead owns it. Every translation records the source Version it came from, and a source Change retranslates every locale before it ships.
Support answers in the Customer's locale. Legal paper is translated by a credentialed Human translator, because a contract binds in the language it is signed in.
Law, tax, and export
A Market wakes the floor rows its law adds: VAT and its equivalents, privacy, accessibility, and its sending rules. Two rows apply at every border.
Sanctions screens every checkout and every payout against the sanctions lists. Export controls classifies Software with encryption before its first sale abroad and refuses delivery to embargoed destinations.
Hiring abroad
A Market is also where a Startup hires. A Human who lives there works through an employer-of-record upstream under local law and local payroll, while the Startup seats them in its Role. Human workforce covers who employs them and how they are paid.
Next
- Localization: how every translation stays in step with its source.
- Legal floor: every row a Market can wake.
- Offers and pricing: how Prices are set and tested.