International Expansion Considerations for Startups

David Zeff

David Zeff

Founder and CEO of Whistle, with over 10 years of selling technology to hundreds of SMB and Enterprize companies across multiple sectors.

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Table of Contents

Technology is great! Not only is it making the world a smaller place, it also makes it easier for international expansion by aiding in the ability to service more clients globally.

Perhaps you are sitting on the fence and you’ve been contemplating the idea of international expansion?

Here are some of our pointers, learned from working with fast-growing B2C brands who are focused on accelerating B2C adoption and unlocking the B2B potential of existing clients in both local and overseas markets.

 

Right Time for International Expansion

It begins with feeling confident that you’ve got a working product, great customer experiences together with a solid foundation at home. It helps to have a team with the skill sets that can support the move abroad and build towards the activities that arise from it. Thirdly, a telltale sign will be when you can see an opportunity in the international market that aligns with where you are today so that you don’t have to make too many jumps to find overseas customers.

 

Benefits of Moving Overseas 

For a startup, you can firstly look forward to gaining more exposure, more customers, and product opportunities. The learnings at this stage are great too. Overseas markets may have different tastes and preferences so you’ll be sure to learn new ways of approaching challenges and product development. As a startup, moving internationally can make it easier to find potential investors, and building your team overseas can have cost benefits with favorable local currency exchange as you’re able to recruit new local talent in markets that are perhaps more economically affordable.

Perhaps the reason you haven’t made the decision to move offshore yet, is due to fears of entering a new market and little knowledge of how to gain a foothold in a new country?

When it comes to Australian startups, the time zone difference is a factor that poses the biggest problem. A walkthrough of such an example is Sinorbis, the EdTech/MarTech SAAS company based in Sydney. Sinorbis had approached Whistle when they practically exhausted and saturated the Australian market. On their behalf, Whistle targeted West Coast and East Coast USA, Europe, and the UK over a period of six months, resulting in over 220 appointments globally. This meant that employees weren’t needing to wake up in the early morning to prospect. Sinorbis were able to close a number of those sales leads and appointments which gave the company a strong footing in those countries and a platform to expand from.

 

How Whistle Can Assist

Whistle are specialists at internationalizing sales with vast amounts of experience selling to different western countries, specifically to Europe, the US, and the UK.  Whistle’s approach is intelligent and cutting edge. Every process is transparent and systemized, giving its clients the confidence to understand what is working and where to improve. In doing so, Whistle provides the tools to solve similar problems in the future while our joint consultancy/agency approach ensures that we solve the right problems.

If you’re ready to make the move to an overseas market, expect more deals!

In all likelihood, you will see higher value contracts as you’ve exposed yourself to more buyers. The learnings from your home country where you initially launched your product or service might have been at a conservative, lower price point to secure the first few clients. You now have the ability to rebrand and reposition yourselves to new buyers. This is also an opportunity to restructure pricing or appeal to a different demographic.

 

Start the global expansion process by interviewing potential customers. Run outbound campaigns to test for interest and have sales conversations that double up as information-gathering tools. For further information on expanding your sales globally, get in touch with us.

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