Plenty of Valley businesses run on two languages every day at the counter, then publish a website that only speaks one. The Spanish version, when it exists, is usually an afterthought: machine-translated, bolted on, a little off. Customers notice.
Translation is not the same as belonging
A translated page tells a customer you were willing to include them. A page built bilingually tells them it was built for them. The difference is felt, not read — in the phrasing, the examples, the tone. "En español" as a footnote reads differently than a site that simply works in the language you think in.
Why it is a growth lever
- The customer who was going to bounce stays, because the page speaks to them.
- Your team stops manually bridging the gap on every call and form.
- Search engines index both languages as first-class, so you show up for how people actually search.
Building in two languages from day one costs a little more attention up front and saves a lot of retrofitting later. It is the same principle as security or automation: cheaper to design in than to bolt on.
That is why every BIS build ships bilingual by default. Not as a feature to upsell — as the baseline for doing business in the Valley.