Expanding Globally
During the Kiwi Founder Stories webinar with Tarik Mallett — founder and CEO of Mobi2Go — we discussed expanding globally. Mobi2Go is a company well on it’s way to global domination, and Mallett shared the story of his global expansion to date. Mallet chose to expand Mobi2Go to Australia first. This decision has been good for them, but he’s learnt a lot about Australia along the way. “A lot of people think ‘oh, Australia, it’s so close to New Zealand it’s just an extension of New Zealand. But it’s not. Australia is a completely different market. Even within Australia you’ve got many different ecosystems. Melbourne is, for example, very different from Sydney. Melbourne is all about your networks, who you know and building relationships. Sydney you’ll have an amazing meeting and everything will be fantastic and it’s the deal of the century. And then nothing ever comes of it.”
Mallett boils down the challenges in Australia as similar to expanding into any every market. Which are how to build the right team, and how to find the right people. In New Zealand and Australia, a major challenge is finding the right talent; particularly people who’ve had SaaS experience “It’s just too new. There haven’t been that many exits, or people that have experienced your hyper growth companies in Australasia.”
Mallett is also working towards a presence in the Northern Hemisphere, as a way of capitalising on some of the interest that they’re receiving in the US, Canada and Europe. From a time zone perspective alone its very difficult to service customers in these areas from New Zealand or Australia. Furthermore, having that US or Canadian number makes a surprising difference to companies willingness to engage with you. “Perception is actually really important.”
Mallet took a really smart approach to expanding into the Northern Hemisphere. He choose Toronto because of good time zone overlap, a strong pool of talent at a good price, and it being a beautiful city to visit and do business in. They then went about market validation, putting someone on the ground to speak to customers and do early sales. “We had this person over there and a few key things that came out of that. One, was it validated that there was a huge opportunity over there for Mobi2Go. Secondly, as with other markets we’re still relatively early and having to do a bit of education, so there isn’t enormous time pressure. Thirdly, that one or two people on the ground was not going to be enough. If we were going to go in and put a sales and support team in Toronto it really needed to be a minimum of 5 people. Not only to have the breadth of skills and experience we required, but to build a culture that kept people passionate, excited and involved in the company.
Watch the webinar here:
Kiwi Landing Pad supports the best New Zealand founders global growth aspirations. Join our community.
