The Indian SaaS market is bigger than any of us are old enough to remember. The global SaaS market is bigger still. Most founders end up trying to serve both, and most underestimate the cost of doing it well.
It's not one product. It's one codebase, two go-to-markets.
A US enterprise wants SSO, SOC 2, an annual contract, a dedicated CSM. An Indian SMB wants UPI, GST invoices, monthly billing, WhatsApp support. The product can be the same. The wrapper around it can't.
Pricing: don't dollarize
The most expensive mistake we see is pricing India-only in USD-equivalent. ₹2,500/month feels different than $30/month even if the math is the same. Have a separate INR price list. Have it lower. Make peace with that being the right answer.
Tier 2 of the same mistake: not offering INR at all. You leave deals on the table to skip a Stripe Tax setup.
Tax is a real architecture decision
India needs GST invoices with the buyer's GSTIN, HSN/SAC codes, and the right inter/intra-state split. The US needs sales tax in some states. Europe needs VAT with reverse-charge logic. None of this is glamorous. All of it sinks deals at the last mile if it's an afterthought.
Build a separate billing service early. Wire it to Stripe Tax, Zoho Books, or a clean GST API. Don't put tax logic in your application code.
Support hours, not support quality
The Indian customer wants a fast reply on WhatsApp during business hours IST. The US customer wants a Slack Connect channel responding 9–5 EST. The European customer wants neither—they want a thoughtful written reply within 24 hours.
You don't need three support teams. You need awareness that the surface area is different in each market.
Architecture: one product, two regions
Multi-region from day one is overkill. But pick an AWS region with India latency in mind (Mumbai or Singapore for India + APAC; or us-east-1 with CloudFront for global). Don't paint yourself into a corner: keep your data layer region-portable, even if you only deploy in one place.