How to make your app a global success
Building a brilliant app is one thing, but helping it thrive on the global stage is quite another. These three developers have done exactly that.
Oskar Larsson started coding in elementary school, but could never have imagined that his photo collage app, SCRL, would reach more than 10 million downloads worldwide. Espen Janson was on paternity leave when he created baby sleep tracker Napper, which now has more than 1.5 million downloads. And Hanna Grevelius was a longtime user of the virtual golf scorecard Golf GameBook before joining the company and helping the app grow around the world.
The three developers talked to us about their journeys and shared a few insights about designing for a global audience.
Think global…
Espen: Until you decide to launch your app globally, it’s good to play around in your own country, because it’s easier to understand the cultural nuances. It’s also good for testing purposes, and for making sure you have a product that can work in other countries.
Hanna: When you do go global, you get the opportunity to be picked up in markets that you perhaps didn’t expect.
Oskar: And once you gain some traction, you can start localizing into more markets and languages.
… but make it feel local
Espen: It’s been key for us to recruit local people who can flag when something is wrong. For instance, our French translator told us that it’s very common in France to have nannies. It's very important to get those cultural references right.
Hanna: If it isn't possible to hire people or work with translators, connecting with users in a country can be very helpful for making sure your app's design is good for the market.
Don’t worry about competition
Hanna: You can tweak a product to be good for niche markets. The more niche your product is, the easier it'll be to reach your audience.
Oskar: If you focus on what you’re building — on making sure that your customers are happy — there will be a spot for you. There’s room for a lot of different apps to co-exist. It’s about you tracking your app closely and seeing what your users love about it.
Espen: The market is infinite! If you do what you believe in, you'll have a good time building that app with passion.
Originally published June 9, 2025
