International expansion is part of almost every business plan of an ambitious start-up but few ever get around to it: strong existing competition in international markets, a lack of understanding of the local culture or not enough international expertise in the management team often keep start-ups in their domestic market. At AbeBooks, we learned very early what huge opportunities international expansion can bring and the company is generating today more than 40% of its revenues outside of North-America. I was therefore very happy to see Suite101 expand so quickly into Europe with the launch of a German site last week – as with the launch of every new site it will take some time to develop this part of the business but it is important that we plant these seeds as early as possible. The Suite101 team has done an incredible job in pulling off the project in a very short period of time and I am sure that the concept of providing a publishing platform for freelance writers will find the same success over in the Old World as it has here in North-America with over 7 million uniques / month – good luck for the official launch of Suite101.de this week and the accompanying press tour in Germany!

* On a sidenote: it is nice to see that the tradition of office sharing between portfolio companies continues over in Germany: in the same way that Techvibes bunks up with Suite101.com here in Vancouver, Suite101.de found some desks at Tripsbytips over in Berlin.