So, do you propose that u.s. bootstrapped startups have a disclaimer on the registration page saying: "you cannot put foreign characters anywhere in our system"?
Even if you focus on u.s., you will have problems. If you're doing a CRM, even u.s. users will put in foreign names from time to time. If you're building a CMS, users may want to put in a quotation in french, or will simply use copy&paste from Word, which replaces "-" with "—"...
I honestly have a hard time finding a u.s. centric startup which could afford to ignore unicode. The support requests, the fires caused by errors, and the disclaimer that you'd have to put on the registration page, would cost much more than simply learning how to code the f'n utf.
Building MVP is good practice in Lean. Saying "I'm bootstrapping hence I don't have the time to learn the programming tools" is just ignorance and incompetence.
It's not like Unicode gives you extra work, it just requires you to learn a few basic concepts. If you try to build a site which doesn't support Unicode, you'll have to put a lots of safeguards everywhere to cover up for your incompetence.
Even if you focus on u.s., you will have problems. If you're doing a CRM, even u.s. users will put in foreign names from time to time. If you're building a CMS, users may want to put in a quotation in french, or will simply use copy&paste from Word, which replaces "-" with "—"...
I honestly have a hard time finding a u.s. centric startup which could afford to ignore unicode. The support requests, the fires caused by errors, and the disclaimer that you'd have to put on the registration page, would cost much more than simply learning how to code the f'n utf.
Building MVP is good practice in Lean. Saying "I'm bootstrapping hence I don't have the time to learn the programming tools" is just ignorance and incompetence. It's not like Unicode gives you extra work, it just requires you to learn a few basic concepts. If you try to build a site which doesn't support Unicode, you'll have to put a lots of safeguards everywhere to cover up for your incompetence.