Things Startups Should Think about when Looking beyond US
This is the article by Valentin Dombrovsky, head of market relations at Excursiopedia.
While I agree with most of the points in Alexander Chachava’s article, still I decided to make some own comments in order to show the situation with startups working on non-US market from my own point of view.
First, I want to say that search for opportunities on markets beyond US is useful tactics — no matter of startup origin. US startups also tend to expand to other markets as their own market becomes more and more competitive and overpopulated. Such unicorns as Airbnb and Uber have developed strong process of scaling to international markets (and no wonder, Airbnb was the 1st US service to offer accommodation in Cuba after embargo was cancelled). Therefore, expertise is already there and more and more companies start understanding the opportunities of working outside the US.
I also agree with the fact that company that manages to use workforce outside the US has an advantage, although managing of such team comes at its own cost. But again, we have some companies that have developed strong expertise in working with remote team and the number of remote employees will definitely grow.
There’s, however, one thing to be aware of: when you work with your home market, it’s one story. When you start expansion, it’s a very different story in any case. We tend to get adapted to US startup culture somehow — we learn from US entrepreneurs and investors and try to use business methods and UX standards that are developed there. At the same time, each local market has its own peculiarities. And I am not only speaking about “Europe vs. China” where differences are obvious, I am also speaking about differences that exist between French and German market, for example. From some parts of the world, Europe might seem homogenous, but it’s really not that simple. And when we speak about Russia, each company that starts working here, needs to understand how Russians tend to pay when doing online shopping (and how many of them are used to do online shopping in general), what search engines and social networks they use (Google and Facebook are not in the leading positions) and how to work with them (see cases of some online travel companies launches in Russia here).
I believe that Silicon Valley is a great place not only because of large company valuations and available funding, but also because of people that tend to gather there. I felt myself being in truly international atmosphere when we’ve got attendees from Russia, Denmark, China, India, South America and US, of course, on our small meetup with only about 20 people. So, while US entrepreneurs might tend to be more open to those from US (and it’s quite natural, in fact), still people in Silicon Valley in general tend to be more open to strangers than people from other parts of the world. And that’s something that the world should learn from this place.
In conclusion, I want to say: think out of the box and in all possible directions (and geographical borders should be no problem for you as well). When you think about opportunities, try to listen to different opinions, but make your own decisions. And good luck! :)
