Cultural Contributions to a Startup
Digging into an incredibly diverse cultural make-up and experience, I’m intrigued as to how that’s made it easier to run a startup that focuses on several locations across a host of different cultures.
Where are you from?
Really tough question for me to respond to but let’s give it a go:
Born in Germany, but parents are Turkish and Mongolian; passport is as German as they come. Usually spent a lot of my childhood and youth in Italy, Switzerland and Turkey, mostly due to family being spread out. Briefly moved to the US after graduating from high school in Germany, but ultimately ended up in the UK, where I spent almost ten years, with a year’s break in Dublin, Ireland. Have now been in Hong Kong and Shanghai (more recently) for the past four years. Where’s home? No clue!
This isn’t really a humble brag or anything along those lines but more of a “this is how I managed to take advantage of a culturally confusing past, can you identify with the above?” type of reach-out. I feel as though the above mentioned kind of upbringing shapes people’s personalities in such ways that it essentially makes a person more flexible, with an increased amount of imagination for the right type of opportunities when they come along, without the limitation of international borders.
How does this contribute to the startup experience?
In my case, that feels like an easier question to answer. To begin with, not really understanding the concept of a permanent home supports the idea of looking at several markets at the same time. When we first started fundraising and ventured into the somewhat mythical streets of Silicon Valley, the theory of local investors not thinking beyond a 50-mile radius made it quite tough to genuinely capture the interest and imagination of VCs in the region. They simply couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that we were looking to enter Asian and European markets, without putting too much emphasis on the likes of LA or San Francisco.
Now, I understand that (supposedly) “having everything you need” within that 50-mile radius can be a great advantage, but the reality is: the world’s not moving that way anymore! Remote working is a reality, flights are more easily accessible than ever before, and overhearing a Swedish man having a conversation in fluent Thai is fairly normal these days. In other words, people now seem more culturally diverse than they did only a few years ago.
In that sense, my background serves as a very intriguing platform for engagement with others. I grew up between cultures that were built on different habits, gestures, tastes, opinions, languages or otherwise. This makes it easier to deal with people from different backgrounds. With this in mind, one starts to simplify the use of the English language, avoids too expressive gestures or even avoids humour that clearly doesn’t have the same effect across cultures. These things typically ensure smooth conversations and negotiations.
With particular reference to the “startup experience” in terms of fundraising for example, this wide view of the world also unlocks access to a range of investors that might be based in several geographies but understand the need for a wider-reaching approach in terms of target markets. In my case, this takes me from country to country on a regular basis, and pitching a company that is big (ish) in Thailand but is trying to get the likes of Swiss VCs to invest becomes very normal and offers unparalleled access to globally applicable resources.
What’s the in-market experience like?
On a number of fronts, this is an interesting question. To give you an example: we have a strong presence in Thailand where we closely work with large corporate partners and customers. Known as “Land of Smiles”, being met by a smile in Thailand can be quite misleading. As opposed to most Western cultures, our local business partners here smile pretty much all the time. You share great news, they smile. You make them feel uncomfortable, they smile. It’s these social cues that one needs to be aware of or familiar with.
I guess that it’s exactly this level of diversity that a lot of investors shy away from. How could a startup bridge this cultural gap and understand a market before conquering a more domestic one? Having said that, a little bit of cultural flexibility goes a long way and can unlock a lot of attractive opportunities in the most unexpected places.
Within our startups, the journeys that unlock those opportunities are arguably incredible. Amongst us, we have a Chinese colleague travelling to Sri Lanka to meet with partners and customers, an American training channel partners in Thailand, a German pitching our startup to Chinese investors…in fluent Chinese, Serbs proposing AI-powered improvements with a heavy accent, and more! All of this makes for a very interesting but equally effective in-market experience because we collectively carry the values and benefits of cultural diversity.
Interestingly, our product is sold to the hotel market, where this level of diversity is very common. There is nothing unusual about an Australian managing a hotel in Vietnam or a French person greeting hotel guests in Brazil; my team and I fit right in!
Final thoughts
Ultimately, beyond my personal experience, it’s been a very interesting journey with this company in terms of both approaching investors that have sympathy for a global approach and dealing with customers in several countries with a differing cultural make-up.
In many ways, caution should always be applied as you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew, but taking a wider-reaching approach will not only benefit your startup but will equip you with skills that will come in handy when you are ready for the next move.
In my personal context, my upbringing has always pushed me to explore what’s beyond the hills, so this was a very natural journey.
