Winning at home teaches you almost nothing about winning abroad.
A market twenty times bigger isn't your market with more people in it. People buy differently, there are far more competitors, expectations of a supplier are higher, and every assumption that quietly held up at home gets tested all at once, usually in your first month.
We've done this from the inside rather than read about it. Running New Zealand for two international data businesses, taking a New Zealand safety platform into the US and Europe, and running product and partnerships across the UK and Europe before that.
Christian teaches this for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, on the Export Essentials program.
For companies doing well at home and preparing to export. Particular depth in North America and the United Kingdom.
Where we help.
Which market first, decided on evidence rather than on which one sounds most exciting at a conference.
What has to change about the proposition, the pricing and the packaging before any of it lands over there.
Direct, partner or channel, and what each one genuinely costs to run from twelve thousand miles away.
Your first ten customers, and what they have to prove before you spend another dollar on the place.
Working across timezones without the founder living on a plane or on a 3am call for two years.
Knowing when the answer is not yet, and being specific about what would have to be true first.