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Winning Strategies – How to Prime Your Tech Company for Success When Entering New Markets

It goes without saying that technology is and will continue being the key to our future (You just need to look back to the last 70 years for empirical proof). As it is today, NASDAQ is at an all-time high, demonstrating that tech firms are best primed to reap astronomical profits in the years ahead. If you own/lead a tech company and already have a strong foothold in your domestic market, the best way to grow your firm exponentially is to internationalize, offering your products to new markets that have a huge customer base and a high potential for growth, such as APAC and Europe.

 

GOING GLOBAL IS NOT A VENTURE FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

In fact, should you choose to take this route to growth, you are taking a leap of faith, like jumping on a ship and hoping to find new lands full of treasures. It is a venture fraught with risks, but also promises of glory… You will either win or lose depending on the entry strategy that you choose and how effectively you manage to execute it. 

 

When internationalization is done right, not only will you increase revenues and strengthen your brand name, but there is also always the possibility of adding world-class talent and gaining exposure to other lesser-known technology innovators.  In the article below, we explore some of the business primers and strategies to consider if you are planning to go global.

 

Often used, and equally relevant, is the analogy of trying to woo someone on a first date, you do not take them to the first restaurant you come across. Normally you would first do some research to identify the best venue with the right ambiance, as your choice of location will most likely spell the start, or end, of a beautiful relationship. The same logic applies when internationalizing. The geographic location you choose could make or break your expansion dreams. When researching the best entry point, ask yourself the following questions:

 

  • Does the population demographic have an appetite for the type of products I am about to launch?
  • Is there existing infrastructure to support the rollout of my offering?
  • What are the costs of doing business in that location?
  • Does the location have a history of accepting foreign products or do they have a preferred local brand?

 

When choosing a new market entry point, you should go for a location that has a need for the solution you propose to offer. Furthermore, the ideal location should also offer the potential for growth/expansion, preferably even be a well-trodden path that other companies like yours, at least in size and stage, have also chosen.

 

Next, consider how you are going to penetrate the market. There are several options available for you to explore, such as organic growth of your business, a joint venture or even the acquisition of an existing company in your target market. If your research shows that the market is ready for disruption and likely to accept your product, and you also have the financial muscle, then going it alone and directly might just be the best option. However, if there are already established incumbent companies and products, your main challenge will be figuring out whether to partner or acquire, either option offering an established infrastructure to aggressively roll out your products and speed you to market.

 

You are only as good as the team you work with. For this reason, think carefully about the right individuals to represent your company in the new market.  It is not uncommon to transplant one of the founding leadership team to seed the business and establish your culture.  The obvious challenge is finding someone in your team who has the internationalization playbook and cultural awareness to do so, versus hiring such a person from the local market.  The key criteria being that they know the market and can demonstrate scaling regional revenues from zero to $20m, or from $20m to $200m if you are hiring the second iteration of General Manager or Regional VP. Rarely is it likely to be the same person who scales the region from small to tall.

In an ideal world, you will source the middle and junior management as well as the other company employees locally but do have a plan, or at least consider transplanting some of your experienced team. This goes a long way to not just ensuring cultural alignment with HQ, but also enables you to scale much more quickly.  Local staff will be able to provide insights on how you can strengthen your brand or localize your products to be attractive to prospective customers, particularly as your messaging will rarely if ever, be plug and play. If you are unsure on how to attract or select a regional VP or GM or are not familiar with the tier-one employers to source from in that locale, speak to your investors or local executive search companies for their insights, as they will be able to quickly dial you in.

 

Financial prudence dictates that you only commit to what you can afford, and this is no different.  Rome was not built in a day, nor on a shoestring.  This process normally requires a two-year commitment, and you will need to ensure sufficient funding to achieve your anticipated traction. Your go-to-market strategy will vary depending on whether you are B2C, SMB, or large enterprise-focused, whatever the strategy, you may need to price to win logos and prove traction, even if it is only for a short period to get the team into winning ways!

 

Lastly, though it is important that you approach internationalization with optimism and have the resolution to succeed, do not jump in with both feet!  If some of the above criteria aren’t quite in alignment just yet why not consider testing the market from afar, maybe leveraging your marketing team or a partner?  Normally if you can service $1m in sales remotely, then you have your validation for putting boots on the ground and the data to remove much of the risk.  You should also remember that failing once does not mean you won’t eventually succeed.

 

Whatever direction you go in and strategy you apply, good luck! Fortune favors the brave!

 

Skale Executive Search work with the founders and investors of high-growth technology companies, to help them enter new markets and scale their leadership teams. More details can be found at www.skaleexec.com.

 

Taking Your Company Global – The When

Now that your company has become established and gained a solid share in your original home market, you may now be thinking of scaling internationally, enhancing your geographic reach, and growing your overall revenues. Internationalizing a company is no easy task… As the leader of a business hoping to break into new markets across Asia and Europe, you will need to carry out extensive planning for your plans to succeed.

Remembering that in most instances, only the best-laid plans tend to succeed, and all require frequent course alterations and corrections along the way. If you are planning to enter a new market and win big, our research has identified that one of the most important aspects to consider “when might be the best time?”  If you can get “the when” right, then you will have laid solid foundations for your journey to international success and be well on your way to realizing true unicorn status!

 

Always carry out thorough and diligent research on your prospective market entry point before taking your business global. Internationalizing is akin to you personally relocating to a new country. When moving, if you do not carry out thorough research, you could end up locating in a less than an optimal neighborhood with all kinds of nefarious characters. However, with a little more consideration, you can choose a location where you will enjoy the experience, be able to immerse yourself in the culture, and ultimately thrive.

When carrying out your research, you will find that some markets are better or easier to enter than others, or that they are even offering start-up incentives to businesses just like yours.  Do not be afraid to engage with the various government agencies as you will be amazed at what they can offer. If you are lucky you can even be introduced to other companies and peers who have gone on a similar journey.

 

You should also consider how your business is performing in the current market. To find out if the time is right for internationalization, ask yourself:

  • Have I standardised the key processes of my business?
  • Have we captured market share?
  • Has growth slowed, or even stagnated?
  • Has the total addressable market changed?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then it may be time to explore new markets.

 

Before rolling out your plans for global domination, ask yourself if you have enough capital to fund your expansion efforts. Internationalization is a money-consuming venture that needs to be approached with a lot of financial sobriety and is a decision that will no doubt be keeping your CFO awake at night. Some of the funding you require will be earmarked for:

  • New offices
  • Hiring employees
  • General business operations
  • Paying for business licenses and local compliance
  • Marketing

Remember that your business will not start showing revenues immediately and will most likely take months or even years to break even.  Make sure that you have very clear targets beyond pure revenue in the early days, and do not expect to get it right on the first attempt.  You don’t want to be one of those companies that are had to retrench back to the core market as your funding hasn’t completed as you had hoped.

 

HIRING

This is one of the most time-consuming and critical tasks you will undertake and should form part of your decision matrix when determining the right time to launch in a new market. Start this process early, as early as possible before you plan to officially launch, as non-US employees will likely have notice periods ranging from one to three months. By hiring early, your local team can take charge of smoothing the road ahead for you, ensuring that you and your business can focus on seamlessly integrating into the new environment.

Top of your list will be top-tier sales and marketing executives, preferably those that have been on this scale-up journey before and understand your business stage, go-to-market strategy, and are prepared to roll their sleeves up and do whatever it takes to propel you. Hiring the right people, at the right time or even in-time, will be critical to your international success.

 

Remember that different markets have different needs. What your tech company is offering in its home market may not necessarily be aligned in your new target markets.  Before committing to internationalizing, ask yourself:

  • Does my target market have a problem that will be solved by my existing product?
  • If my product cannot solve the problem that my target market has, can I modify it in some way to effectively solve their challenges?

Remember, no time will ever be the absolute perfect time, and the hardest part of going global will undoubtedly come from overcoming the inertia and comfort of sticking to your home market. Apply the tests above, do not overextend your business to the point that your home market suffers, invest for the longer term, and leverage the knowledge and expertise of people who have successfully scaled revenues in your target markets.

 

Your unicorn status will follow shortly after. Good luck!

 

Skale Executive Search work with the founders and investors of high-growth technology companies, to help them enter new markets and scale their leadership teams. More details can be found at www.skaleexec.com.

 

Why Jeff Bezos Thinks Your Business Would Benefit From Shared Customers Knowledge

Would you care to come on a little thought experiment with us? It’s just a question, nothing fancy. If you had the option of having your own private doctor, who had no other patients aside from you, would you choose it?

The first thing that comes to mind is probably “well, sure! I would never have to make an appointment or wait for them to see me ever again!” – and that’s a fair point. But just let it sink in: this person only ever saw you, learned from you, just one person. What if you catch something for the first time? That would mean it would be extremely hard for your doctor to diagnose and heal you – he would have no experience of it!

 

SHARED IMPROVEMENTS

Just as you wouldn’t choose to be your doctor’s only patient, why would you work with only one editor instead of taking advantage of a team who are constantly learning from all their clients? This is what we call “shared customer improvements”. The basic idea behind it is taking whatever lessons we learn from each of our clients and applying them to other clients who might benefit from it. This way, we don’t wait for issues to come up for each creator, we’re ready to avoid them altogether and everybody benefits from each others’ experiences.

As Jeff Bezos says, “if you’re the only customer on the software system, you’re the only one driving it forward. If thousands of customers share that system, then the other 999 that are not you are also driving it forward and you get that as a tailwind.”

Note: the shared knowledge refers to what works as a system for each creator, never their content or data of any kind. We are fiercely protective of the confidentiality and uniqueness of each of the creators we work with. What we want to share are editing methods and systems that can be used for recurring cases, not specific or individual information (e.g. specific checklists, project sharing procedures, training the creator mindset, etc.).

 

SO HOW DOES IT WORK?

Let’s take an example to better illustrate this process.

An editing company has 10 different clients. They have a basic, standard system to edit videos for all of those clients. One of the rules in this system is that every video is edited by only one editor. As time goes by, they realize that for one of their clients, having only one editor on each video is not the most effective tactic, since they mostly run out of time or come up short on their creativity. So they decide to try having two editors work on each video, sharing the workload. This new strategy works wonders: they never miss a deadline and no one feels stretched too thin.

Now they look at the rest of their clients and find that, although it wasn’t as obvious, four of them could also benefit from using this method, so that’s what they do. The service quality for those other 4 creators has automatically gone up, only because they scaled up an individual measure. This is the true value of the shared customer improvement philosophy.

Another example could be the use of a standard checklist to review videos, no matter the client. If the company chooses to learn from each of their clients and apply that knowledge, that checklist will continuously grow and expand from the experience of reviewing each client.

Building A Healthier Relationship With Perfectionism

How many times have you said to yourself (or to someone else) “I’m just a bit of a perfectionist”? And how many times has that meant endless nights polishing little details and countless re-do’s?

Although pursuing perfection is part of what drives creators to improve, this personality trait is not really a sustainable way to look at things. In fact, it’s not even possible to be “a bit of a perfectionist”, because the defining line of thought for this mindset is actually all or nothing. Black and white. And that can seriously damage creativity.

 

So why can perfectionism be dangerous and what can we do about it?

Creators that work from this mindset find it hard to forgive mistakes: anything less than perfection can feel like a failure and this has a huge impact on their confidence and self-worth. It’s also hard for them to trust anyone else to do things exactly like they would, which costs them in terms of time and energy since they end up taking on the workload of multiple people. And they often burn themselves out quicker and more frequently than others. For content creators, being a perfectionist can be the quickest way to suffocate creativity and kill a career.

To be fair, it’s not hard to understand why someone might want their content to be as perfect as it can be – because who wouldn’t? If it was perfect, you’d know it was faultless and you wouldn’t be judged for it. We get it.

 

But there’s a catch.

The trap of perfectionism is thinking not only that perfection is achievable, but that it will also save your content from being judged or unsuccessful. There are so many other, more important elements that make a creator successful rather than “is their content perfect?” – in fact, most people would agree that perfection isn’t even a factor as to why they follow the creators that they follow.

That’s why, in this post, we’ll go over some antidotes that could help you get your inner perfectionist in check.

 

THE HOLY GRAIL OF AUTHENTICITY

Although no one can point out exactly what makes a creator authentic, we all know it when we see it. It feels spontaneous, not fabricated; raw, not manufactured; honest, not frigid; relatable, not foreign… It feels real, not perfect.

Take it from Scott Adams: “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep”. It’s not about erasing all the blemishes, it’s about using them to give your picture its texture. In video-editing, we could draw parallels between “perfect” editing and mainstream TV and film editing – which is actually the bane of authenticity on YouTube. People come to creators for real personalities, and the editing of your videos is a huge part of that as well: it does not need to be perfect to be authentic, fun, and engaging.

 

YOU CAN’T MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY

There are certain objective markers of video production quality but on YouTube, most of the time, the true worth of a video isn’t in the technical details – it’s in your story and how you tell it. And when it comes to story-telling, each creator (and each viewer!) has a unique way to do it and their own judgment of what is good and what isn’t.

Your viewers vary just as their opinions do, so the more you grow your audience, the harder it will be to give everyone what (you think) they want. This brings us to the next point…

 

COLLABORATION: THE UNSUNG HERO

If we judge how perfect your content is by the vision that you have for it, then delegating tasks to other people will make it into something at least a little different from what you had originally planned. But there are very good reasons for choosing to collaborate with other creative people (even, or especially, when it means sacrificing perfection).

The main one is that, although you might be a great creator, you’re probably not the best person for every job that goes into your content, no one is. Are you the best editor, the best videographer, the best SEO specialist?. And more importantly: do you enjoy doing all of those jobs?

We sometimes lose perspective of why we cling to certain tasks; but every once in a while, it really helps to check in with yourself about which parts of your job you are not enjoying and which of those you can actually afford to delegate (in terms of costs and benefits).

And even if you do find that you enjoy wearing all those hats, consider the time that you spend on them and the speed at which content loses relevance online. Is it really not worth it to delegate your editing, for example, if you can post your content a couple of days earlier when the topic is still hot and your reach will be considerably larger?

 

YOUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY THAT YOU HADN’T EVEN CONSIDERED

When we get caught up in making things perfect, then we are rejecting every other possible way of doing things. And in a creative industry, this is actually bad for your content and your reach.

So how do you know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t allow yourself to diversify, try new things, collaborate with people, take chances? Even if those chances don’t pay off, you’ll still be left with a valuable learning experience.

The worst thing that could happen if you delegated your editing would be that your viewers don’t take to it and they ask you to go back to the previous style you used. So in the worst-case scenario, you learn that the way you’re doing it works for your audience and that’s one thing that you don’t need to improve. Useful stuff.

But here’s the exciting part: what’s the best thing that could happen? You could attract new people, grow your audience, open up new creative possibilities, explore a new direction- it’s really a no-brainer. And in order for that to happen, the first step is to let go of your standard of perfection and being open to a range of new possibilities!

So we know that perfectionism is usually rooted deep within our personalities and it’s not always easy to manage. But the rewards of doing it are truly helpful for all aspects of life. And there are many ways to do it:

 

  • You can analyze why you want things to be perfect and why nothing else will do.
  • You can experiment with sliding into someone else’s perspective when analyzing your own work: look at it as a subscriber would look at it, as a creator from a different niche would look at it, as someone who has never even been on YouTube!
  • You can leave perfect precision to machines and simply remember that you are.. human.

 

There are plenty of ways of challenging your inner perfectionist, but it all starts with letting go – you’ll feel much better once you give yourself the chance to be less than perfect.