Author here — this is a great example of exactly what I was trying to get at.
What’s interesting in cases like yours is that population density looks like the obvious explanatory variable before launch, but after the fact it turns out to be a proxy for something else entirely: institutional density, learning culture, distribution norms, or even how people discover and legitimize educational products.
San Francisco and certain European capitals often share very specific conditions: higher tolerance for self-directed learning, stronger peer signaling around education, and shorter distance between “interest” and “action.” None of that shows up if you frame the market as “the U.S.” or “Europe,” even though it decisively shapes outcomes.
This is why I argue that markets are defined by purchasing situations, not demographics or geography. You didn’t find a cultural preference so much as a repeatable context where the same offer could travel through similar constraints and still work.
Your experience is a good illustration of how misleading country-level reasoning can be, even for products that seem universal on the surface.
What’s interesting in cases like yours is that population density looks like the obvious explanatory variable before launch, but after the fact it turns out to be a proxy for something else entirely: institutional density, learning culture, distribution norms, or even how people discover and legitimize educational products.
San Francisco and certain European capitals often share very specific conditions: higher tolerance for self-directed learning, stronger peer signaling around education, and shorter distance between “interest” and “action.” None of that shows up if you frame the market as “the U.S.” or “Europe,” even though it decisively shapes outcomes.
This is why I argue that markets are defined by purchasing situations, not demographics or geography. You didn’t find a cultural preference so much as a repeatable context where the same offer could travel through similar constraints and still work.
Your experience is a good illustration of how misleading country-level reasoning can be, even for products that seem universal on the surface.