A Kiwi Entrepreneur’s first adventure in the USA

I’ve just arrived back from my first trip taking Weirdly to the USA. We chose the USA for a myriad of reasons. Having access to a huge market that a is leader in recruitment practices, and a very supportive NZTE team on the ground were a couple of them. Read our recent blog on other considerations.

I had 30 meetings in 5 cities in 14 days (excluding weekends). Whew. What a whirlwind but more importantly what an incredible experience.

Because I’m working for an early stage start up time and money are in short supply so like a typical kiwi I packed in as much as I could in the time I had.

America is an extra-ordinary place of extremes. Never have I seen so much money and so much poverty in the same place. Everyone is moving at a pace that’s so fast they’re a blur, or they’re sat on the side of the road not moving at all. The large cities are all tall buildings, sky scrapers and Ubers or they’re wide open spaces, low rise buildings and people walking everywhere.

Whatever the pace or location business still happens fast. Meetings are 25 minutes at most and these guys like to get straight to the point. One minute of chit chat then “what I can do to help you” or “tell me what you need”. This can be a bit off putting for a kiwi like me, but by the end of the trip I was pretty used to it.

Here are some of my observations that might help some of you entrepreneurial business travellers to the USA:

• Be clear on what you’re wanting to achieve from your trip and plan everything around this. For me it was to establish 1–2 channel relationships, meet recruitment and hr professionals to suss out if Weirdly’s focus on recruiting for culture fit was some thing they could get excited about and to understand what the business landscape is like. And experience the US to decided if I actually like it. Big ticks for me all round.
• American’s don’t like to book meetings more than a week out. I had a goal to have three meetings per day booked before I left. And I ended up making tons more once I arrived — some at very short notice.
• The food isn’t really that big and bad. I found some great supermarket chains and plenty of cafes/restaurants that were super healthy and organic.
• Make the most of every moment. You never know what’s going to pop up when you’re in a city you’ve never been to before. Meeting minor celebrities, extravagant parties, crazy stories from uber-drivers, dining alone in a romantic couples restaurant on top of the San Francisco hills,
• Make sure you have some down time. Travelling alone is a blessing and a curse. The blessings are things like you never have to check what someone else wants to do or eat. The curse is that you will find yourself working at every spare moment and you might forget to look up once in a while and realise where you actually are.
• Three weeks is almost too long. I had the opportunity to stay an extra week to attend an amazing conference (Saastr Annual). This was due to us having our ticket and flights paid for via sponsorship from BNZ and KLP. Without this financial assistance we would not have been able to attend. Towards the end of that week I realised I wasn’t absorbing everything as well as I had been so might not have have made the most of it.
• You don’t always have to take a taxi. The ease of using these guys seems to have trained people to think that they can’t actually walk a few blocks.
• Be yourself — Authenticity and honesty goes a long way. They friggin love Kiwis over there. We’re from tiny little NZ and we made the trip all the way to America. This carries a lot of kudos immediately.

If you’re a kiwi startup and the USA is a market on your horizon then stop dilly dallying and get over there. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll start learning.

And if you do get to the USA, be sure to pat yourself on the back. It takes a lot of guts to take on one of the giant markets of the world.

I have tons more tips and tricks for you guys. If you’re interested in hearing them drop me a line.