Nordic startups that focus too much on their local market die. The whole point of startups is to SCALE. This cannot be when the country you live in has less population than greater LA.
What actually happens is that the startups here are "Global-first". They immedietly start talking about branching overseas and meeting with investors that can help them do so.
It's actually the SV startups that can huddle in their bubble for years of time, before doing an easy US wide launch, that already is a huge market.
Even international by default aka pure internet companies like Facebook start as English only and tend to stay that way for a long time.
Uber on the other hand is only useful inside specific cities.
Remember they where .edu only for 2 years even thought they had significant funding. Their core problem was if nobody in Australia signs up then it's boring for the first users in Australia. However, by starting with an EDU focus they could leverage word of mouth to grow a network by location.
The path was starting a Harvard, then other ivy's, then other US collages, then US high-schools. That's clearly designed to leverage exclusivity.
How long was Facebook English only after they got VC?
I think that's slowly changing. Dutch startups are told to think big nowadays and access to venture capital is also improving.