As we all know, international business markets can offer exceptional opportunities to grow your business faster and achieve revenue goals. If you understand when to expand your startup internationally you can learn how to expand exponentially from an early stage. This is extremely important for teams that sit outside large startup markets such as the United States. Often your local market does not have the demographic numbers in terms of buyers to give you a stepping stone to grow as fast as possible.
Proper planning and considerations are necessary to decide where and when you need to expand your startup internationally. International expansion of your Startup may increase your sales pipeline and help you run your business successfully. If you have started a business setup, you might consider expanding its international business markets. But when to expand is the golden question.
When Do I Expand my startup to the USA?
Most business owners prefer expanding their business in the USA because of its large and profitable business market and access to capital investments. The opportunities of the USA are that the country is the biggest English speaking market of B2B buyers and the majority of those buyers have a mindset of ‘being sold to is okay’. This means it’s a market where fast expansion via outbound sales is possible and where startups can achieve faster sales cycles. With that said expanding your business in the USA is not something to take lightly.
You can decide to expand your startup in the USA when you’ve proper resources and information about this business market. Before you decide to expand your Startup in the USA, it is crucial to consider the following things;
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Check your positions and determine if you can afford the expansion of your Startup in the USA. Do proper research to determine what your Startup can offer in the USA. Does the USA offer the benefits you want for your Startup? Does your Startup have enough potential to satisfy the needs of American buyers?
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Political issues can greatly impact the business market of any country. So, keeping an eye on political issues and business affairs in the USA is essential.
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Take time to research which legal form best suits you to register a startup in the USA.
Some of the key issues here are that it costs a lot to develop a presence in the USA and there a lot of complexities to get set up.
When Do I Expand my Startup to Europe?
When you start a business, your first goal is to make a stable position in the business market. Expanding your startup to Europe can give you all the perks you need to grow your business faster and achieve your revenue goals. It would be great if you considered the following things to determine the right time to expand your Startup to Europe;
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Gather information about European marketplaces to identify your initial competitors.
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Do you have a steady cash flow or budget to market your business in Europe?
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Do you have a potential customer base in the area you want to expand your Startup in Europe?
Factors that determine the Right Time for International Expansion of your Startup
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Familiarity of Offering
It is essential to consider that the people of your selected area have the potential to buy your product/services.
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Brand Recognition
A high level of brand recognition is crucial to growing your business in international business markets and your TAM (total addressable market). Researching your brand recognition in the international market can ultimately pay you off.
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Cultural Understanding
It is important to understand the professional culture of the international business market in which you want to expand your Startup.
Benefits of Expanding Startup Internationally
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Opportunities to grow your business faster
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Greater access to talent
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Exposure to foreign investment opportunities
Expanding your startup in international business markets can give you greater opportunities to grow faster. It would be great if you considered several factors such as brand recognition and your brand position to determine the right time to expand your Startup globally. It’s also very important to have a clear and well defined sales methodology before investing in global growth.
Contracting in different regions
Contracting with SaaS customers across different regions has its own difficulties. These often are related to jurisdiction, prevailing law and data security. GDPR is now something that goes well beyond the European Union in terms of contracting as more often than not as a software as a service company you’ll have little to no control over where your end users are based. Adhering to GDPR best practice is now a requirement in almost all countries.
Liability and service level agreements are also common issues when it comes to contracting in different countries. You need to remember that know matter how good your platform is at the end of the day a large enterprise company is weighing up the risk of procuring an online tool that was build on the other side of the world. There are times that you need to make concessions for this until you have grown enough of a reputation to not have to.
Understanding these factors will allow you to weigh up all of the commercial decisions that you have to make when you’re faced with closing new deals.
