Author name: Mollie Ring

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How to leverage every opportunity at SelectUSA

For many international companies looking to scale to the U.S. market, SelectUSA is a once in a lifetime opportunity. In our last post, we discussed how to goal-set your SelectUSA strategy plan and design an agenda that reflects your clearly defined priorities. In this post, we’d like to provide a quick overview of the unique features the 2019 SelectUSA Investment Summit has to offer to help ensure you are leveraging every opportunity to maximize ROI. At the 2018 Summit, we were blown away by the maturity of the companies, the preparation of the various regions, and the resources made available by U.S. government agencies, investors and market-entry thought leaders. With value at every turn, it’s critical that scaling companies take time before the event to strategize around who they’re aiming to meet and what they’re aiming to learn. Structured Content The agenda for SelectUSA, i.e. the schedule of events that take place between 8am on June 10th and 4pm on June 12th, is packed with workshops, plenaries, matchmaking and networking events. Workshops cover a variety of topics from fundraising to legal to regulatory issues specific to the U.S. market. In addition to generalist topics that are likely of interest to all companies planning to scale to the U.S. market, there are a variety of industry-specific opportunities, specifically tech, digital economy, advanced manufacturing, biotech and life sciences, and food and beverage. Beyond supplying uniquely useful content, these sessions are highly useful spaces for networking. Exhibit Floor On the exhibit floor, you’ll find the majority of all 50 states presenting the value of their region to scaling enterprises. If you’re coming to SelectUSA with the express purpose of determining where best to locate in the U.S., this is your prime opportunity to make connections. Many booths will be staffed by major employers and companies in the region (i.e. major potential customers), as well as economic development professionals who can provide tailored information on their region’s strengths and weakness for your particular business or industry. Besides the states and regions exhibiting, you’ll also find a variety of service providers and government agencies that support companies entering the U.S. Whether you’re looking for market data or have patent and trademark questions, these representatives are there to supply information, knowledge, and contacts to help facilitate your market entry. Matchmaking platform Taping into the SelectUSA Matchmaking platform is one of the best ways to maximize ROI. Through the online system and associated app, attendees can create a portfolio of documents and videos to introduce their company to the rest of the summit. At a minimum, we recommend uploading an opportunity 1-pager. Here’s what we recommend. The Matchmaking platform is a great way to easily identify yourself and your company. It can also be used to set up meetings, engage in messaging and develop your own customized schedule of workshops and events. Ideally, you’ll want to use this schedule to ensure the right mix of content, networking, and one-on-one meetings throughout the event. Collateral and spin-off events The full agenda of Collateral Events is available on the Summit website and will continue to grow as the event gets closer. These events are a fun way to gather information about particular regions and build relationships outside of the formal conference environment. For those who already have a strong inclination for the specific state or region they’d like to scale their company, spin-off events are perhaps just as valuable as the Summit itself. As early as a week before and up until several days after, these events take place on location and provide an opportunity for scaling companies to meet local business leaders and experts, and experience first-hand what the city, state or region has to offer them. If you’re considering multiple regions and it’s feasible, try a divide and conquer approach. The opportunity to spend quality time in your priority regions and be received by valuable contacts should not be missed. MEET and other resources At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. We look forward to SelectUSA all year for the unique opportunity to connect with companies that are seriously looking to grow in the U.S. market and could benefit from our platform of tailored services from strategy to execution. Please stop by and visit us at Booth 224 in the main exhibition space. Also, don’t hesitate to connect with us beforehand so we can learn about your objectives for the event and see how we can facilitate connections or provide information that will help you get the most out of the Summit. We also encourage you to connect with the hosts of SelectUSA with specific questions or connection requests. In our experience, hosts are the most underutilized assets at an event. Having vetted every participant at the Summit, they are your best bet for high-quality references. And because they rarely get asked for this type of information, they’re often happy to help. As we explained in our last post, the key to maximizing ROI at SelectUSA is to arrive with a set of clearly articulated goals and an agenda for how to achieve them. Like any good trade show strategy plan, this requires putting in a good deal of time before the event even takes place. Developing and uploading a 1-pager on the matchmaking site, reaching out to event hosts and economic development officers from regions of interest, and mapping out your priority workshops are just a few great ways to transform your goals into an action plan. Everyone who comes to SelectUSA is aiming to achieve something different. The trick is to find value in every available minute. We hope this quick overview of all that SelectUSA has to offer will get you started. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going

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Creating Your SelectUSA Success Plan, Part 1

Last year, the team at MEET joined more than 3,000 international business investors, U.S. economic developers, CEOs, government officials and market-entry thought leaders at the 2018 SelectUSA Investment Summit. Unequivocally, SelectUSA 2018 was the best trade event we’ve ever attended and we’re thrilled to be returning this year. For companies looking to scale internationally to the U.S. market, you’d be hard pressed to find a better opportunity to help you achieve your goals. At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. One of the most effective ways we do this is by ensuring that every investment of time and resources in the U.S. market is maximized. This requires an immense amount of trade show strategy planning—from event selection, marketing design, execution, and follow-up. In our recent webinar, Setting the Table: Creating Your SelectUSA Success Plan, Part 1, our goal was to help companies planning to attend SelectUSA approach the event from the perspective of a trade show strategy plan. In essence, how to apply our strategic planning and implementation tools to the best opportunity in the business. Setting your goals for SelectUSA For many companies looking to scale to the U.S. market, SelectUSA represents months or even years of planning executed in a 3-day event. Fully leveraging this opportunity requires setting clearly articulated goals for: What you’re aiming to accomplish; Who you’re aiming to meet; and What you’re aiming to learn. Goal-setting your trade show strategy is similar to using the gym. A facility manager fills the gym with all sorts of equipment with the expectation that not everyone will use every asset but some combination will satisfy each individual’s purpose for being there. It is therefore up to the individual to identify the best regiment to achieve their desired results. Similarly, every trade show attendee comes to an event with different goals and priorities. Meanwhile, the event organizers have curated a full program of tools of resources with these goals in mind. Y(our) role is to develop a unique plan of action (meetings, booth strategy, speaking events) to achieve them. SMART Goals For a really simple way to look at effective goal-setting, we like to refer to SMART goals — Specific, Measurable, Achievable (realistic), Relevant (to the priority that you’ve set), and Time-bound, i.e. it’s not a goal if you don’t have a deadline for meeting it. High-level examples for SelectUSA may include determining the best city in which to scale your venture, connecting with U.S. investors, and developing channel partners. Using SMART to distill these goals into a clearly articulated action plan will help you be more effective at prioritizing your agenda, and at networking. The better you are at succinctly expressing your purpose for attending SelectUSA, the better those around you will be at helping you achieve your goals. Setting your agenda Now that you have your SMART goals, it’s time to set your agenda. That means determining who, of the approximately 3,000 people in attendance, are your primary targets and how you will meet them. These are not general categories or types of people, i.e. investors or marketing consultants, though that’s a great place to start. Rather, these are people by name or discipline/role who you know will be in attendance and networks you can use to connect with them. At MEET, we recommend taking a deep dive into the SelectUSA platform (schedule of events, attendees and resources) as soon as possible, and creating a map which overlays your top three market entry priorities with the most valuable resources. Back to our gym analogy, maximize ROI by becoming your own ultimate trainer. Identifying your best leverage points Like sand in an hourglass, time does run out on great opportunities like SelectUSA. Another strategy for maximizing ROI at high stakes events like this one is to utilize every available minute the show has to offer and identify your best leverage points for making connections. You are not restricted to the event dates to schedule your meetings. As soon as the event app is available, you should begin matchmaking, even setting up preliminary meetings. Positioning yourself so that you can have second and third-level conversations at the event. This will create more value than trying to follow-up remotely from your home market. Maximizing ROI at a unique opportunity like SelectUSA requires preparation. Setting goals that you can clearly articulate, mapping a strategic agenda over these goals, and leveraging every opportunity before the event to connect with the most valuable resources are a great place to start. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Return on Investment

Maximize Your Trade Show ROI by Running Through the Finish Line

Trainers and experienced athletes will always say, “It’s not enough to complete the race—you need to run through the finish line.” After months of hard work and training, it might seem obvious that you’d do everything to maximize your results. The reality, particularly for less experienced runners, is quite the opposite. With the finish line in sight, many athletes begin to ease up and succumb to an “I’ve already won” or  “it’s good enough” attitude. The results of this behavior are nothing less than disappointing. See this often repeated example of a runner slowing early and losing a race. The key to maximizing trade show ROI When approaching trade shows and in-person events, particularly high ROI opportunities like industry matchmaking events, it is critical that your team not only makes it to the end but runs through the finish line. At MEET, we talk a lot about the importance of advance preparation for trade show events. We refer to it as “winning the race before it begins,” which is to say that your best indicator of ROI will be the amount of preparation time and resources you invest before your team ever hits the trade show floor. Also fundamental to maximizing ROI is finishing strong and committing similar time and resources to effective follow-up, which includes analyzing your results and prioritizing your post-event strategy. A prime example of opportunity lost Also known as brokerage events or business speed-dating, industry matchmaking events are uniquely profitable opportunities for B2B companies to achieve sales partnerships. For international companies scaling to the U.S. market, one sale at a venue like this has the power to fundamentally change a companies market position and trajectory. And yet, we have watched companies not only slow down before the finish line but leave early, thereby squandering and failing to realize the events full potential energy. The truth is, at every trade show and in-person event, we see exhibitors and participants leaving early. This creates two major issues, the first of which are the potential lost opportunities for meetings. Quite often the best connections happen at the end of events as it can take multiple “impressions” for the most valuable prospects to opt-in. The second has to do with the follow-up strategy. When a team disperses without clear action items and next steps, their ability to maximize ROI is impacted exponentially. What a difference a day makes At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. With 75+ years of experience in the field, we’ve seen companies make a lot of mistakes that impact their ROI. Fortunately, we’ve also developed a system of best practices to overcome them. One best practice that we would equate with running through the finish line in a big race is keeping your team at the event site for a full day after it is over to accomplish the following four goals: Use a multi-criteria based scorecard to narrow down which opportunities will be targeted; Discuss and finalize decisions, priorities, and a timeline for follow-up; Divide up these responsibilities across all team members; Do the follow-up right there, onsite, before leaving the event city Appoint one person to be the “expediter” to ensure that everyone does their bit and to report back to the whole on goals achieved by a set date. Interested in learning more about how to implement a post-event strategy before your team has left the event? Contact us today. For many firms, events can sometimes feel like a distraction—time away from the office and existing customers, for outcomes that may or may not materialize. At MEET, we believe that when executed effectively, trade shows deliver the most efficient way to get face-to-face with a target prospect. Failing to fully leverage trade show and in-person event opportunities is a huge waste of time and resources. Our goal is to help you avoid that mistake This is why we recommend maximizing your ROI, in some cases, by keeping your team at the event an extra day. Events are exhausting, even for the extroverts among us. Too many trade show exhibitors, like too many runners, begin to relax when they see the finish line. They notice the others around them and lose sight of their ultimate goal of achieving their personal best. Running through the finish and maintaining enough energy to devise and execute the best possible follow-up strategy will not only maximize your team’s ROI, but it will also deliver a sense of confidence and achievement that will make you stronger (athletes) overall. For more on MEET’s unique approach to tackling Trade Show ROI, check out our Special Report: How to Maximize ROI with a Trade Show Strategy Plan. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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Scaling to the U.S. Market? Time to Sweat the Small Stuff

It’s easy for international CEOs who are scaling to the U.S. market to get completely absorbed by tangible tasks like fundraising, customer validation, and team building. While these milestones are fundamental to any U.S. market entry endeavor, there remain less tangible, “softer” tasks that scaling CEOs must master in order to achieve success. Tasks like fitting in culturally and building local networks of support. In our recent blog series reflecting on our conversation with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures, we covered best practices for internationally scaling firms related to fundraising, team building, and market testing. We concluded our conversation by discussing the less tangible prerequisites to successful scaling, such as bridging cultural divides and how to compensate for the absence of a business network. Learning in context People often joke that the U.S. and the UK are separated by a common language. In the context of scaling to the U.S. market, this typically means that companies misinterpret shared language as shared business culture and as a result fail to account for the vast array of small but critical differences between the two countries. Priscila suggests that it takes several visits to the U.S. over an extended period of time to actually appreciate its cultural differences. “I like to encourage entrepreneurs to forget everything they’ve learned about the U.S. and pretend they’re expanding to China or Japan. I ask them: How would you behave? What would you take for granted? What would you question? What would try to learn? Because the U.S. feels familiar, people skip that step of recognizing that it’s an incredibly different culture.” From how informal Americans can be in conversations, to the value of small talk, and to predicting next steps in a negotiation, cultural differences are best learned in context and that will require time on the ground. As Priscila reminded our listeners, the U.S. itself is a culturally diverse place. From doing business in New York to Los Angeles, foreign companies report having vastly different experiences with U.S. funders, service providers, and contractors based on differences in pace, formality, and perceived friendliness. Saving time and money The ability to understand the culture of the country you are aiming to scale into is more than just a “nice to have”.  It can easily save you time and money when building relationships that lead to sales. Priscila points out that while B2B Europe is still very relationship driven in terms of how it manages sales and contracts, the U.S. tends to be more value and criteria driven. “Buyers do their homework and if you don’t meet those criteria, it doesn’t matter how nice you are. What you don’t want is to misread a situation and spend a lot of time spinning your wheels with contracts or conversations that are not going to happen.” The key to building local networks Local networks provide companies powerful insight into market trends, policy changes, and in some cases, a reliable stream of new customers. Foreign companies entering the U.S. market lack these networks and the unique benefits they offer. The key to making up for this loss, Priscila suggests, is to build the type of team that is both aware of the culture and skilled in identifying and forging strategic relationships—the type of relationships you might take for granted in your domestic market. “It’s critical to have people on your team who are open to the challenge and understand how to build alliances, ask the right questions, and get under the skin of what’s really happening. Ultimately this is the missing link for many scaling firms.” The role of relationships in U.S. market entry is complex. On one hand, in the B2B space, foreign firms may feel that U.S. deal-making underemphasizes the role of relationships and relies too heavily on criteria-based decision-making. On the other hand, building relationships in a foreign market are critical to understanding cultural dynamics and developing local networks of support. In essence, scaling into the U.S. market means sweating the big and small stuff. Putting together the right team to help you manage it all, helps. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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3 Steps to Fundraising Your International Scaling Venture

Few companies are able to fund an international scaling venture completely on their own. Effective fundraising requires striking the right balance between proving your ability to succeed and making a strong case for how funding will get you there. In essence, you need the chicken and the egg. To explore this topic of fundraising for internationally scaling firms, we spoke with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide to U.S. expansion. Step 1: Put yourself in the investor’s shoes Whether you’re looking for investors to fund your expansion or plan to apply existing capital from your current round, it’s critical that you understand growth milestones from an investor’s perspective. According to Priscila, “you have to be incredibly mindful of what investors consider to be the tactical milestones for a successful next fundraise. The bar keeps changing and this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs don’t understand intuitively.” Despite what feels like immense progress from your perspective, measured growth must be calibrated with investor milestones such as hitting customer acquisition or revenue targets, adding critical team members or channel partners in the new market, and exceeding repeat sale or retention metrics. Step 2: Time your scaling to avoid failure Considering the timing of an expansion, Priscila points out, is critical to successful fundraising. “CEOs need to consider whether internationalizing now will help you, or will it actually hinder you in achieving your milestones if building a global business is part of the story used to attract investors.” Placing growth milestones ahead of your international scaling plans will help to secure your company’s foundation and improve your chances of attracting investment for scaling. Once you begin your expansion to other markets, it will be almost impossible to sustain your fundraising capacity should any of those efforts fail. Perhaps the best possible time to attract investors to help you scale is during your highest rate of sustained growth in your domestic market. The ability to demonstrate success at home will put you at the top for investors who want to help you scale. As Priscila points out, we may all agree where you’re trying to go, but the question for investors is “do I really trust that you’re going to get there.” Step 3: Look for investment when you don’t need it. It is common practice for companies to recognize their need for capital the moment they start running out. This is a recipe for failure. The process of fundraising can take a full six months. Assuming you have money today: 1. Forecast when you will need money to fund your next growth milestone; 2. Backtrack six months; 3. Put in place a plan to have proven investor milestones by that date. In addition to achieving milestones in preparation for investment, companies also must take into account the dynamism of capital markets, staying on trend and keeping competitive amongst other investment opportunities. While a focus on milestones is important, it’s also important to poke your head out of the tunnel and explore how your ROI offer compares in the broader investment landscape. As Priscila points out, outcomes are a relative measuring stick rather than an absolute one. Even if yours are excellent, it’s essential that you keep a pulse on the market. It all comes back to balance Investors are looking for ambition, but perhaps more importantly, they want to see that you are realistic and that you understand the complexity of the decisions that you’re making. The magic of really great entrepreneurs, Priscila states, is that they’re able to balance ambition and calculated growth. They “create momentum such that the moment something has been proven, they throw fuel under it, and let it grow.” With all growth comes risk. Keeping an eye on your goals and future needs while strengthening your position in the domestic market will be your best leverage point with investors. Those who can successfully balance these responsibilities will naturally rise to the top. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Return on Investment

Building Your U.S. Market Entry Team

The task of building a U.S. market entry team is full of tough decisions. For example: Should we transplant key leadership from the home market or just hire locally? How do we maintain company culture and quality of service from so far away? What kind of investment is necessary to be a competitive employer in the U.S.? The answers to these questions will depend heavily on the industry you’re in and whether you’re a B2C or B2B company. Either way, you don’t have to figure it out all on your own. To explore this topic of how to build an effective U.S. market entry team, we spoke with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide to U.S. expansion. Building traction helps Fortunately for B2C companies, it tends to be a lot easier to build traction entirely from Europe if you’re distributing via a marketplace or central distribution channel like an app store. According to Priscila, building initial traction is key to attracting top candidates. “Tech is booming in the U.S. and the best people have job offers from large and established tech companies and other successful startups from around the world. If you cannot demonstrate traction in the market, you’re unlikely to be able to attract the people that you want.  Anyone who has experience in scaling a foreign tech company from the ground has an abundance of options at the moment. It’s a buyers market in their favor.” Top candidates want to know that their walking into a well-structured company that has been highly strategic in timing their scaling endeavor. Traction helps to demonstrate that. You get what you pay for With U.S. market entry comes high compensation costs. To ensure that you’re getting the most qualified people in the market, you have to pay top dollar, which includes competitive benefits packages and stock options. Priscila warns that compensation is not the only investment scaling firms have to make in order to draw the highest quality candidates. “For B2C companies, in particular, you need extensive market data to be able to show who your customers are and how you’re attracting them. You’re more likely to convince someone really good to jump ship and help you build if their path to success is more clear.” Without that data, Priscila warns, it’s not only hard to attract top talent, but it’s also hard to know whether someone’s a good fit after a significant investment of time and money. “If you hire an American, it will take at least six months to figure out if it’s working out, what traction they’re getting, if they’re embedded in the team, and whether they understand the culture. By the time you figure out this person wasn’t the best fit, you’ve easily lost $1 million.” The importance of maintaining company culture Company culture takes time to build and is often rooted in a number of shared experiences that bond your core leadership team. Establishing a new presence with a newly hired American at the helm puts you at risk of jeopardizing those hard-earned intangibles that strengthen your company’s mission. “Frequently, we see firms ending up with two organizations operating under different cultural behavior sets of practices. That can create immense frustration and even slow down decision-making because you may not be sharing information due to lack of trust. It becomes really ineffective.” This division, Priscila warns, becomes especially harmful when one market outperforms the other. “Because the U.S. is a bigger market than most companies are used to, we’ve witnessed cases where once the American side’s revenues reach or exceed the home country’s, resentment starts to build. Feelings of, “we’re carrying a lot of the business but all of the decision-making is happening elsewhere,” is not uncommon.” Key advice for building a U.S. market entry team Octopus Ventures recommends having a founder or executive DNA on the ground in the scaling market. According to Priscila, the question comes down to whether this person is willing to sacrifice their existing responsibilities to travel back and forth to ensure U.S. market entry is successful. “People very often underestimate how painful those plane rides are going to be and how challenging it is to all of a sudden feel out of the loop in Europe because of the time they’re devoting to coordination and communication.” Building a strong team of people you can be honest and grow with is critical. One strategy that Priscila recommends is to develop a working group and set milestones. This will enable you to assess at three-month intervals how working as a divided team has affected your outcomes and make adjustments along the way. Priscila also recommends practicing what it will feel like to add 24 hours to any decision you have to make, as this will be the case when scaling from Europe to the west coast of the U.S. “Practice will help you figure out if you need an internal solution. It can be a creative and constructive process that might even make your domestic business better because now you’ve also learned best practices on flexible and remote working.” To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

Return on Investment

The Answer to U.S. Market-Entry is Not in the Tea Leaves

Succeeding at U.S. market-entry is such an enormous task it’s no wonder people look for shortcuts. And yet, it is these shortcuts, these efforts to predict success without the investment to prove it, that are the greatest source of failure for scaling firms. To explore this topic of how to avoid shortcuts to U.S. market-entry, we spoke with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide on U.S. expansion. What is the riskiest shortcut a scaling firm can take? The riskiest shortcut is mistaking initial traction for product market fit. According to Priscila, “the challenge is when companies start getting to that $1-3 million mark, they’re feeling great, and they’re thinking we got this, we found our product market fit, now we can expand.” In fact, as Priscila points out, getting a certain number of customers doesn’t necessarily mean that your company will be able to meet the next scale-up milestone and the one after that. That’s because the bigger the market is, the larger the share of innovators who want to try new things and have the budgets to do so. Early success in this environment is crucial, but it also puts you at risk of misreading these results in terms of growth capacity. “Until you’ve had the opportunity to go through some periods of churn and repeatability to understand the patterns around what customer retention means for you, it is very difficult to know you’ve found product-market fit.” The benefit of an all-in approach Octopus Ventures works with some of the most successful European-based companies exploring U.S. market-entry. We asked Priscila for a prime example of an all-in, no shortcut approach to scaling. Here’s what she shared. “Graze, a UK-based subscription snack company, started initially shipping snacks to Americans from the UK. But in order to truly test the market, they invested in an Americanized website and customer service in U.S. time zones. The data signals they received from this were strong and because they were already doing $20-30 million in revenue at home, they could do it properly.” “In a matter of a year, Graze had scaled in the U.S. bringing in an additional $20 million. They not only got the testing right, but the timing as well. They were able to focus on scaling because the home business was secure.” Protecting yourself against a false positive result Even for those who aren’t necessarily looking for shortcuts, there’s always a risk of getting a false positive on your market-testing results. We asked Priscila how she helps clients protect against this. “The process of ensuring against a false positive is going to vary a lot depending on the context, the industry, and the stage the company is in.” Priscila points out that in instances where products have multi-year contracts or platform integrations that make it difficult for customers to walk away, retention data may be skewed. In cases where it’s easy for customers to walk away from your product, the process of ensuring against a false positive is different. “We want to see data like really high NPS (Net Promoter Scores), and what percentage of customer acquisition is word-of-mouth versus paid. It’s truly a matter of stress testing, looking at the sensitivities. If we’re wrong, what’s going to happen and at what price, and if we’re right, do we risk anything by waiting six months or a year.” Withstanding the journey of U.S. market-entry As Priscila points out, scaling into the U.S. market is a bit like the Odyssey. Odysseus knew where he wanted to go but it took him ten years and he had a number of adventures along the way. “You have the destination in hand but it’s important to be flexible about the journey.” Doing customer development right, without shortcuts, will take time. Part of success is being able to withstand the ride and seeing value in precision. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821

Return on Investment, Workshops and Webinars

Getting U.S. Market Entry Right the First Time Around

The phrases “fail fast,” fail often,” and “fail better” abound the literature on successful entrepreneurship. Yet regardless of one’s exposure to the idea of failure, it’s never easy, particularly for entrepreneurs who have already experienced the feeling of starting a successful company. One of the greatest challenges foreign-based firms face with U.S. market entry is the fact that they’ve already succeeded in building a successful company at home. Internationalization is not simply more of the same. It requires a localization strategy that calls into question every assumption about your existing business model. To explore this topic of localization and getting U.S. market entry right the first time around, we spoke with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide on U.S. expansion. Here’s how Priscila’s recommends starting the U.S. market entry process. Understanding true costs The first step Priscila recommends is to “sit tight at home and set up a little SWAT team” to tackle localization. This team must operate under the assumption that your existing business model and value proposition will not work in the new market. Everything must be tested and analyzed. The task of localizing your business strategy for a new market requires immense resources, particularly the time and energy of this team. “It’s critical that clients are aware of the cost on those people’s time and energy. Even if you think you’re not spending extra money to hire someone to do this work in the U.S., you’re taking these resources away from somewhere else.” Market-testing Similar to that first time you went to market, the first step to localization will be to validate your product with real U.S. customers. Priscila advises that getting these first few customers is critical to proving that your pricing model will work in the U.S. market. Business models do not always transfer A common pitfall among firms endeavoring U.S. market entry is the belief that because they are successful in one market, they’re going to be successful in another. Priscila recounted many cases where the scaling business model falls apart because the economics and value proposition between Europe and the U.S. are different, as is the shape of the industry and size of the competition. “We had one case in which a company that was doing super well in Europe managed to fundraise $10 million from a U.S. investor only to die on the beach because the business model simply didn’t work.” Localization means understanding the market, the industry, and the unique value proposition for entirely new early adopters. It also means reallocating your budget. Entering the U.S. market is not only going to cost more than you anticipated, but it’s also going to require you to allocate your budget from a localized perspective. As Priscila explains, “the U.S. spends a lot more on marketing than other markets. Plus it’s going to be more competitive.” As a result, she recommends “leaning in on external resources—service providers, consultants, contractors, part-timers—to test your go-to-market strategy and figure out how to gather feedback from real customers. Setting goals and a deadline As we’ve referenced in a previous post on determining when is the right time to scale, exploring U.S. market entry is similar to sand in an hourglass. Time does run out.  Money, investor support, employee retention: all are limited resources during a high stakes expansion. This is why setting goals, milestones and a deadline for your U.S. market entry is key to getting it right the first time. Even more important, don’t sink the whole ship on your journey out to sea. Metrics may include the number of conversations with potential customers, key service providers secured, and strategic partnerships formed. “Agree to a set of milestones for the next three months at which point the team reevaluates if it’s working. If not, you have to be willing to walk away.” Redefining U.S. market entry success Deciding that now is not the right time to scale to the U.S—before you’ve over-invested time and resources and strained your existing infrastructure—may be your best definition of success. The process of exploring U.S. market entry may also lead you down another path you never expected. “We’ve had a number of situations in which the process of U.S. market entry led clients to think about other markets.” Firms often take learnings from an initial scaling exploration and apply them to smaller, more centralized markets where their strengths are better appreciated. Two years later, with one successful scaling venture under your belt, you may be better prepared to tackle the U.S. market. In essence, getting U.S. market entry right the first time may mean going for it the second time around. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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Time to reality check your plans to scale in the U.S. market?

At MEET, we often refer to the dangers of viewing the U.S. market as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Yet, we understand where this view comes from. With its vast market size, large pool of high-quality talent, and abundance of hungry investors, it’s a hard opportunity to ignore. Particularly when your company has a strong team and traction at home. But sometimes we all need a reality check; something or someone that gives you pause, perspective, and practical guidance around how to sort fiction from fact, and where the best resources can be found. This is why we were so drawn to Question the Questions, a comprehensive resource guide to scaling in the U.S. market put out by Octopus Ventures. Headquartered in London with an office in New York, Octopus Ventures operates as part of a venture capital investment group that manages over £8.5 billion on behalf of 50,000 investors focused on supporting entrepreneurs in three key areas: industry, money, and health. On March 14th we had the pleasure of speaking with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures and the driving force behind Question the Questions. Why do foreign companies need to reality check their plans to scale in the U.S. market? Priscila shared, “a number of entrepreneurs start from the base assumption that it’s inevitable they will go to the U.S. Some see it as a rite of passage—that if you have ambitions to become a market leader and a global company you must go to the U.S.” “While scaling to the U.S. market will be a step on the trajectory for ambitious global companies that want to disrupt a market, the data will also tell you that the U.S. is the graveyard of more companies than it is the bounty they expect.” What was the inspiration for the Question the Questions Resource Guide? “Question the Questions really came from this recognition that there are a number of assumptions that are made about the US market. It may feel familiar because of shared language, movies or news articles that constantly give you a false sense of confidence that it’s going to be a market like your own. In practice, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.” For that reason, Octopus wanted the Resource Guide to be incredibly practical and “battle-tested.” “It’s about what works in the real world, in the wild, with some of the most talented people, because even those people struggle like crazy.  That’s because what you’re up against is a really, really hard challenge.” What are the unique risks to U.S. market entry? For all the reasons why the U.S. market represents an unrivaled opportunity for foreign entrepreneurs looking to scale, Priscila warns of the double-edged sword. “In many cases, the U.S. may cannibalize your domestic product, create divisions in your team, and make you vulnerable in both your home and new market.” Priscila isn’t trying to dissuade any of her clients from scaling in the U.S. Rather, her goal is to ensure they are prepared and approaching the endeavor with eyes wide open. For many foreign companies, U.S. market entry is absolutely the right answer. Timing is key and unfortunately, many companies operate under false pretenses. She shared this common trend: “In the beginning, companies get really excited when they start to see some traction in their home market. Suddenly they feel like they can’t miss out on the opportunity to expand to the U.S.” Key insight: Make sure that your impetus to scale in the U.S. market is not simply based on a desire for faster growth. Changing the geography of an underlying problem, as Priscila points out, will lead to even greater setbacks. “Unless you understand exactly why it is that you’re not picking up the speed that you need, growth is not going to be faster in a bigger market. If anything, it might be even slower because now you’re diluted amongst all of the American and international startups.” Priscila advises that firms take a step back and consider their reasons for scaling to the U.S. market. “Our role is to push on them to understand the real causes of their growth. And if it turns out expansion to the U.S. is a great option, we sit down and figure out how to execute correctly.” There is no such thing as a free lunch. Investing in the U.S. is going to cost you something and you have to be ready for the trade-offs. We recommend you check out Question the Questions for a reality check on what it takes to scale successfully. To hear more from Priscila about the challenges and best practices to U.S. market entry, check out our full interview: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821

Return on Investment

U.S. Market Entry the Octopus Ventures Way: Part 1

Are you a CEO considering U.S. market entry? The decision to scale into the U.S. market, followed by the execution, is not for the faint of heart. That said, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business Project and statistics shared by SelectUSA, the United States ranks in the top ten overall for ease of doing business and number one among nations with populations over 100 million. Easy or not, everyone can use support when navigating a foreign market. At MEET, we help international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. To learn more about how we can help scale your business in the U.S. market, contact us today. To highlight some of the work our partners do to support companies endeavoring U.S. market entry, we spoke with Priscila Bala, Head of the New York Office for Octopus Ventures. Headquartered in London, Octopus Ventures operates as part of a venture capital investment group that manages over £8.5 billion on behalf of 50,000 investors focused on supporting entrepreneurs in three key areas: industry, money, and health. As one of Europe’s largest early-stage investors, the partners at Octopus realized that a significant amount of the money they were deploying in Europe was being spent in the U.S. This prompted the idea to open a center in New York specifically focused on supporting these firms with U.S. market entry. Priscila was Octopus Ventures’ first U.S. hire. Tasked with truly understanding the challenges and best practices that come with U.S. market entry, she jumped into action. “We went on a mission to interview over 100 VC-backed European companies that had expanded to the U.S. market and then documented their challenges and patterns of success. We then built a library of resources to support our portfolio of companies based on those findings.” Recognizing the immense value of this exercise, Priscila’s team decided to share the wealth of these findings by creating a reference guide to U.S. expansion titled: Question the Questions. Originally released in 2017, a 2nd edition was unveiled in 2018 with additional focus on fundraising and how to build effective teams. Before exploring all that Question the Questions has to offer firms currently exploring U.S. market entry, we wanted our listeners to get a better sense of how Octopus Ventures supports their firms in this endeavor. How does Octopus Ventures support U.S. Market Entry? Octopus Ventures sees itself as a soup to nuts advisor during international expansion. “At the outset, we provide strategic insights, asking the critical questions of: Does internationalization make sense? If so… Should it be the U.S.? If so… With whom, in how much time, and with what level of resource commitment?” “Once the U.S. market entry decision has been made, we provide an entire suite of resources to help them execute that expansion effectively. This includes a roster of service providers, discounts and benefits, even candidates that could join their team” Priscila’s goal is to help firms hit the ground running. Once these resources are secured, she offers support with go-to-market strategies. “These are bigger resources on how to operationalize and scale up processes that might be different from Europe. We help them think through the regulatory environment, then recruit, and even interview new team members.” Does Octopus Ventures offer support with fundraising? Fundraising can be one of the most time consuming and resource intensive processes for a start-up. As a result, Octopus Ventures has made fundraising support a strong focus of its U.S. market entry resource suite. “Once our companies are established in the U.S. we are able to broker connections with other U.S. investors that could syndicate with us and provide follow-on rounds of funding.” “We have a vested interest in creating as wide and as big a network of support for our companies as we can and so I spend a lot of time with my American counterparts thinking through what are their metrics and milestones for companies that really are a good fit to try and expedite that process.” To learn more about the challenges and best practices to U.S. expansion, check out our full interview with Priscila Bala: Reviewing Octopus Venture’s Treatise on U.S. Market Entry: “Question the Questions.” For access to all of MEET’s webinar content on how to successfully scale your company in the U.S. market through trade shows and in-person events, subscribe to our YouTube Channel. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps international B2B growth companies soft land and scale in the U.S. through trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward.  Contact Bill Kenney for a free, no-obligation consultation bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

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