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How do you expand to a new market? When is the time right? How do you not burn a ton of cash?
That's exactly what we discuss in todays episode
That's exactly what we discuss in todays episode
Creators & Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
[00:00:00] Toni: Hey everyone. This is Toni Holbein from Growblocks. You are listening to the revenue formula. In today's episode, Mikkel and I are talking about how to expand to a new market, but in a super scrappy way so you don't need to waste too much cash on it.
[00:00:15] Enjoy. what are you gonna get your wife for Christmas?
[00:00:22] Mikkel: Oh, you're gonna ask that now. I'm not I mean, this episode is gonna after. So I got her a sweater.
[00:00:29] Sounds so boring, but, uh, I I got a ton of other stuff as well. And, uh, she wanted it. She needs a sweater. She needs a sweater in her life.
[00:00:39] Amazing. Yeah. Exactly. So I got her one. I gave her warmth.
[00:00:43] Okay?
[00:00:45] What did you get your wife?
[00:00:48] Toni: Well, I will know by the time this episode airs.
[00:00:50] Someone
[00:00:52] Mikkel: by the time.
[00:00:53] Someone will have taken care of it.
[00:00:55] Toni: No. But I also discussed it with her. She's like, I also don't have anything for you yet.
[00:00:59] Mikkel: you yet. Nah.
[00:00:59] Toni: feel you feel a little bit less
[00:01:01] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:01:01] It takes Pressure off. That's good.
[00:01:02] That's good. It's also like at this point in time, you know, what do you really need?
[00:01:07] And It's such a luxury thing to say, but what do you really need more most more of in your life? It's like, it's not things. I can tell you that. It's like time would be great. Sleep, I would love
[00:01:18] that.
[00:01:19] Toni: would be great.
[00:01:20] Mikkel: Such a great gift. You know what? There could just be a card saying, honey, you know know what I got you?
[00:01:25] A weekend Off. I'm gonna take the kids, go to Sweden. Stay here. Sleep.
[00:01:29] There's beer in the fridge. Enjoy. It's like
[00:01:32] woah.
[00:01:33] Toni: Yeah. I
[00:01:34] Mikkel: Wow. Yeah.
[00:01:36] Can I marry you again?
[00:01:38] Toni: Exactly.
[00:01:40] Mikkel: So speaking of going to Sweden.
[00:01:42] Toni: Yeah.
[00:01:43] Wow. Well done. Cheers
[00:01:46] Mikkel: we are gonna talk about going to another country. We're gonna talk about expanding to a new market Yeah. But in a more scrappy way because I think the environment kind of dictates it. That That is not gonna be the big, flashy investment that you do. Right?
[00:02:03] That's it.
[00:02:03] And then Over to you.
[00:02:05] Toni: So going into a new market, everyone is thinking it's super expensive. Right? Oh, you need to open up a new office.
[00:02:11] You need to They hire these people and super risky. Is it gonna work out? Is it not gonna work out? You're gonna fail. Um, and, um, I think I think when you are listening and you're in the US, um, you know, going to a new market that's, like, super late in your, um, in in the company's lifetime, and then the first market you go to is, like, either Australia or it's the UK.
[00:02:32] Mikkel: Yeah, Ireland, Where the taxes
[00:02:34] Toni: Not not too far away. I need to speak our language. Otherwise, it's weird.
[00:02:39] however, when you're here in Europe, uh, you and especially when you're in Denmark. By the way, who who doesn't know it, but Denmark has, like, million people.
[00:02:47] Mikkel: Yeah. It's a small
[00:02:49] Toni: It's It's basically, um, you know, the I don't know.
[00:02:53] It's New York plus Hoboken or something like that. It's like it's a very, very small kind of place here. Um, uh, you basically are forced to go into a new market pretty early on. Yeah. Um, and you also don't have the luxury to scale your team and be like, okay.
[00:03:09] Let's have twenty reps. And then once you have twenty reps, you kind of bracket them into the SMB and commercial and enterprise. No. Uh, you won't be able to have twenty reps in Denmark for most businesses.
[00:03:20] Mikkel: Mhmm.
[00:03:21] Toni: before you before you even reach twenty reps, you have five in Germany, Uh, seven in the UK and, you know, whatever left in the Nordics.
[00:03:29] Right? And and, uh, as much as you want to cut by segment because that's really important. Right? It's the career ladder also. It's like more expensive resource and so forth, more specialized, you have to cut by language first.
[00:03:43] There's just no way around it. Right? so and since it's super early fast in the lifetime to enter into a new market, you also Can't make it a super big bet or something like that. You don't have the money for that. and that's why we wanted, uh, to talk a bit about how do you expand into new market in a scrappy kind of way, which I think, know, fits the times to a degree.
[00:04:04] but also why should you do it even in the first place, Mikkel, why why should you go into a new
[00:04:09] Mikkel: Well, you need to you need to find ways to grow, period. Uh, and, uh, you need to assess whether this can be one. But if we're talking about some of the benefits of opening up in another market.
[00:04:18] you You know, I remember when we opened up First US, my Slack time extended. You know It would It would
[00:04:25] sit at night. That was the downside. But then when Australia opened, I just went, you know, crazy because then it was twenty four seven. Right?
[00:04:32] But the benefit actually is that all of a sudden you get more coverage. Right? So think about having a rep in one time zone servicing leads as in another. By default, you will have to wait for that rep to wake up in order to process the leads. we all know that, you know, the faster you can pick up the phone and reach an inbound, the more, you know, higher chances are you're gonna convert that into a meeting and into a customer.
[00:04:55] So
[00:04:56] Toni: you just hire someone in the Philippines to do that?
[00:04:58] Mikkel: I'm
[00:04:59] not so sure. Depends on what you're
[00:05:01] Toni: saying. So I think there's, you know, a couple of upsides.
[00:05:03] one is
[00:05:05] existing
[00:05:06] demand in the market.
[00:05:07] Mikkel: Mhmm.
[00:05:08] Toni: so, you know, you might be in the US. You might be selling nationally, and all of this is great. but being able to tap into some other market sometimes comes with some additional scaffolding you need to build.
[00:05:19] You can't just, Uh, ha customers in Germany suddenly because, well, you can't speak the language. That's difficult. And, you
[00:05:26] Mikkel: and, you need a business card.
[00:05:28] Toni: Germans and French people, they don't speak English. You know?
[00:05:32] Um, uh, the next thing is, uh, you need to service them also. So you need to be somewhere on the time zone there, etcetera, etcetera. Right? So these things, if you jump over that barrier barrier of entry entry
[00:05:44] Mikkel: barrier to entry.
[00:05:45] Toni: very gently when you jump over that, uh, you basically can access the existing demand that's in the market already. Right?
[00:05:50] and, um, I think another thing is and you mentioned this previously when we kinda chatted about this episode is, um, you become a little bit more legit for that market.
[00:05:59] Mikkel: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:00] Toni: So when, When I was able to not send out, order forms from a a Falcon IO APS, so APS is kind of the the Danish version of a limited, But actually could send it from an INC. That
[00:06:12] Mikkel: was correct. Yeah.
[00:06:14] Toni: Everyone was looking at this APS things like, is this company legit? They seem big and it's good product, but, you know, it's the this this is scam,
[00:06:24] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:06:25] Toni: and rightly so. People people should be thinking this. you know, once you have an INC, that's great. Once you have an actual, you know, address, uh, somewhere in the US, that's great, so forth.
[00:06:35] Right? And the same goes for Germany. Um, if you have, like, a GmbH, kind of, that's the same thing as a limit. Kind of people people recognize and see that. and and I think then there's another, like, Almost serendipity coming out of this.
[00:06:47] So you you are in the market. You bump to more people. Suddenly, something happens and so forth. Um, and those those upsides, you wouldn't be able to unlock otherwise. Right?
[00:06:57] I think very rarely, is the real reason why you expand is because you're you're running out of TAM. Uh, I think very rarely that's really the case. Sure. Denmark, maybe that's that's a thing. Um, but otherwise, when the US, when you're in Germany, when you're in UK
[00:07:12] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Toni: I mean, rarely.
[00:07:14] Let's just say it like that. Right? So it's really um, you can also think about it like, um, it's a start of a new s curve to degree. it's a start of, Um, okay. Now in this country, I can run Google Ads, which is super cheap, uh, in the beginning.
[00:07:28] Right? Um, there are couple of those reasons which new markets unlocked for you. So you get I would say you get a bit of a boost in the beginning, and then then it transitions into,
[00:07:38] the normal, uh, the normal process that you would see. And, yes, there's a little bit of a product market fit, go to market fit question, Uh, totally. Um, and you need to, you know, you need to figure out how can you remove that risk.
[00:07:51] How can you not Do all the investments and then basically kind of realize, oh, you know, we have a big product market for issue here because, I don't know, Privacy feature is missing
[00:08:01] Mikkel: us. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:01] Toni: All all my servers are in, like, you know, in the
[00:08:04] Mikkel: US. Yeah.
[00:08:05] Toni: Um, and I'm trying to sell to Germany. That's not gonna work, by the way.
[00:08:09] Um, and, you know, you you find out these things. So how can you hedge yourself against running into those silly issues that basically kind of Take the product market, go to market, fit away. Alright?
[00:08:18] Mikkel: Right? think another another cool thing is also you will probably see a lot of the processing metrics increase if you nail it. actually.
[00:08:24] But let's get let's get into the solution, mode. So how do you do it in a scrappy way?
[00:08:29] Toni: Yes. So what I've done a few times now is you just Open up that new market without doing anything about it.
[00:08:41] So step number one, you,
[00:08:43] You hire a couple of reps or repurpose existing reps. and depending on time zone issues,
[00:08:50] You start having them sell into the new market. So what we did, um, at one company is we basically had reps starting at, I think two PM or one PM, then had the regular hours until eight Eight PM. Something like that. and that then meant that, uh, they had some quite nice overlap with the US.
[00:09:13] They basically had eight AM, Eastern time overlap until, you know, late afternoon. and they could they started doing outbound. Bound. They started doing her, you know, running those, uh, deals. Um, we could then, put some ads live in the US.
[00:09:28] Once we started to sign some customers, we then had some CS reps that also came in late and so forth. It it worked to a degree. It wasn't great. Now. It was not great for morale for those folks.
[00:09:40] Um, also really difficult to crack open your market with, uh, Rasmus and Anders and you know? It's From an APS. And, um, uh, so, uh, but that basically kind of allowed us to,
[00:09:54] it allowed us to just test and check out, can can we do this? Kind of, does our outbound motion work in the US? Do our, ads that we put up online for inbound, does that actually work out?
[00:10:05] Um, and I think we did this, I would say three months, maybe a little bit longer. had all kinds of fancy board targets we wanted to achieve. We wanted to kind of sign x amount of lighthouse customers, meaning, like, you know, like a really recognizable brand. We totally didn't do that.
[00:10:24] We just didn't achieve it.
[00:10:26] and, uh, then at some point, we, uh, basically made the decision to Open up a tiny office. we jumped on something that resembled the WeWork. At that point, WeWork wasn't a big thing yet. Yeah. Um,
[00:10:40] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:10:40] We
[00:10:41] Toni: we did lemon squeeze.
[00:10:43] Mick Mick, if you hear it, kind of those those were the days. I still have one one of the lemon squeeze mugs, uh, at home, by the way. and, um, we basically can have then hired four SDRs.
[00:10:55] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Toni: and, uh, our head of sales one of the head of sales, uh, from Europe basically kind of went there for a
[00:11:02] Mikkel: you.
[00:11:02] Toni: year.
[00:11:02] That's kind of how that fully fully started. it was, like, four SDRs and one or two AEs or something like this. And then we just started. Uh, that point, we stopped the, we stopped this kind of shifted time zone operation in Denmark because it just doesn't it wasn't the right thing anymore. then for a year, we just tried to figure this out.
[00:11:21] Right? And it was I'm not sure if we spent, like, a million dollars on this, but it's only a million dollars, Honestly. Right? Um, and it sounds sounds a lot maybe for some, but, you know,
[00:11:31] it's probably the cheapest budget you can have, Uh, entering the US, basically. Right?
[00:11:36] and, um, that that proved out pretty successful in the beginning. Kind of, we were able to Build a little bit of a beachhead there. know, we started to have a Delaware Incorporated Inc. Uh, we had a a post box post office kinda thing there. We had an office.
[00:11:52] We had people that were called Joe and
[00:11:56] Mikkel: American sounding names. Yeah.
[00:11:58] Toni: Um, so So all of these things helped out quite a lot. and, uh, then I think the next phase really was, um, the head of sales then went back Was a family reasons, and I think you became a dad in between and stuff.
[00:12:09] Like, uh, it was really good. Um, I moved over there, and then we hired local leadership,
[00:12:15] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Toni: Which was, I think, a big unlock. Kind of that's the big unlock next step. Um, and then local leadership also brings a lot of, like, oh, no. You can't do it like this.
[00:12:25] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:12:26] Toni: So so, I mean, we had, like there's so many stupid things that are happening. For example, um, paychecks in the US.
[00:12:34] us If you don't know this, everyone is basically paid, um, uh, biweekly. Yeah. So it gets a paycheck every two weeks, Uh, because they spend everything immediately.
[00:12:44] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:12:45] Toni: Can't wait a whole month. Yeah. Um, and we were basically like, no. We're only paying, like, monthly, and they were like, no. This is not how this how this works.
[00:12:54] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Toni: um, and a couple of other of those things, basically, which was, um, which is pretty pretty good to kind of know them. Um, and then also just adapting to how selling works in the US. Yeah. You know, local leadership is great for something like that. And then I think we went for a, very talented, director of sales.
[00:13:13] Uh, I think it was
[00:13:15] I mean, he's definitely not listening, uh, but, uh, I think it was a bit of a stretch assignment, uh, and he totally nailed it. Kind of he kind of grew this whole thing. And then, you know, once you have a couple of people in on the sales team, then you have a couple of people then in, uh, in support and in CS, and suddenly it was a full on satellite office.
[00:13:33] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:35] Toni: And even then to the degree that we had, uh, I mean, myself, I was there, but also, uh, we hired then a CFO there.
[00:13:42] Right. And suddenly that became a real, not not a similar size part to the European operation, but, like, sizable. Right? It was It got its own little, uh, piece in the dashboard and and then everything. Right?
[00:13:54] and I think This this way of of opening a market, think is actually pretty straightforward and pretty cheap. I think we did it very capital efficiently.
[00:14:04] Mikkel: So I wanna double back to something you mentioned because you said, hey. The next wave was kind of hiring, you know, those leaders there. What was kind of the deciding moment, what was the in what what's the indication kind of to look for that okay.
[00:14:17] Now it's time to bring on those folks.
[00:14:20] Toni: I think once you have removed your main risks, meaning product market fit and go to market fit, I think then you can think about just hiring kind of the leader because that's usually then the expensive ticket also.
[00:14:33] Mikkel: Right? Yeah.
[00:14:34] Toni: And, uh, and in our case, it was very natural because the head of sales was a one year, um, assignment, basically, kind of that came to a close. Um, and then we need to replace that.
[00:14:44] Right? And and for us, it was kind of super straightforward to do exactly that.
[00:14:48] And, uh, and I think for for others, I think the the thinking needs to be product market and go to market fit. What I would really, really recommend is Send someone over from the mothership, send someone over that has gone through some of the product market fit, go to market fit motions early on, which was the case with our head of sales he was basically our first sales rep.
[00:15:07] Um, and, um, the the reason is If you put in local leadership that basically kind of given the playbook and execute the playbook, they might just, you know, run this into the wall.
[00:15:18] Right? You need to do a little bit of Tweaking and adjusting. I would even recommend for the for the CEO to go over there for a long while,
[00:15:27] Because there's a lot of figuring out that needs to happen. and you can't just outsource that figuring out to the account executives. Right?
[00:15:33] It doesn't, you know, it doesn't work like that. Um, So I think that is pretty important that you nail that. And I think once you're nailing it or once you're kind of fairly certain that, Well, you haven't optimized it yet, but it it works. Yeah. Then kind of getting on, uh, um, local leadership is, I think, extremely Yeah.
[00:15:51] Uh, that that's probably the next best step.
[00:15:53] Mikkel: I Think it's also interesting because one of the the things I've picked up on from some of the other companies I've heard of moving for example, to US or elsewhere
[00:16:02] They would hire someone who built up the office, and And then all of a sudden, it's a separate kind of company, a different identity and culture, and it starts clashing more so than meshing In a good way with the the home, uh, operations.
[00:16:15] Toni: I think that, that happens.
[00:16:17] I think every office has its own culture. You could also have two offices in Copenhagen, and there would be different cultures.
[00:16:23] Um, but, yeah, I mean, the the time delay, the time zone stuff, different backgrounds from people, I think that's not helping. But, um, uh, that is, I mean, there are then things, you know, at what time of day are you gonna have your all hands?
[00:16:37] Yeah.
[00:16:37] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:39] yeah. Team meetings, I remember, was the oh, man.
[00:16:41] And that gets exasperated by, you know let me tell you the the APAC story. Kind of how did we open up APAC.
[00:16:47] It was completely random. For some reason, Denmark is a big, uh, Aussie country. So lots of Australians are in Denmark. Lots of Danish people are in Australia. I don't know why.
[00:17:00] But for some reason, it's it's just it's it's It is
[00:17:02] known. It is a true
[00:17:04] Mikkel: fact.
[00:17:06] Toni: And, uh, since we were, uh, from Denmark selling into the UK, which is not a big problem in Denmark because everyone speaks English kind of okay, and And the UK is pretty forgiving with accents and something that the Danish accent is pretty charming,
[00:17:21] Mikkel: apparently. Yeah.
[00:17:22] Toni: it was you know, it's not a problem, but we basically kind of hired, you know, English speaking raps. And then if there's someone that is actually from the UK or from Australia or the US, great.
[00:17:31] Right? So we had a couple of, uh, Australians actually on the team. then one of the guys was basically like, hey, mate. I wanna go back. Yeah
[00:17:42] Um, I was like, okay. Too sad. You know? It's too too bad. Sad to see you leave.
[00:17:46] Bye. It's like, no way. Kinda just work from there. this was pre COVID. Right?
[00:17:52] This was not a, uh, okay. Time zone is a bit of an issue. like, no. That doesn't that doesn't happen. That doesn't work.
[00:17:59] You know? Companies like deel and remote. I don't know if they existed or not, but, you know, at least no one used them because they were sketchy. And they're still probably sketchy, but everyone is using them.
[00:18:10] so, really, all of this goes hand in hand with, like, well, you need to now open a, Um, and incorporated in, um, in APAC in Australia.
[00:18:17] Um, I
[00:18:18] think I think we did use some kind of, uh, office space. Like, we work actually at the point in time. But, basically, what happened with that gentleman and I was super against it. I was like, that's never work.
[00:18:27] Yeah.
[00:18:28] and whenever he sees me, which is never at this point,
[00:18:31] He's like, Toni? I told you. Yeah. And he's totally right about this. Um, but he basically, um,
[00:18:36] flew down there, Open up shop, like, a mini office just for himself and started calling.
[00:18:43] Yeah. And, um, you know, getting processing the inbounds and and suddenly, it go went from, like, one person to, I think, it's, like, thirty people or something like this now. It's like a Or more even. Yeah. Um, and he is still the guy.
[00:18:57] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:18:57] What is so funny.
[00:18:59] Toni: basic I I think he's almost the GM now Yeah. Uh, kind of managing this region. Um, and, uh, you know, it started with, um, can I have an SDR?
[00:19:08] Yeah. It's like I mean, that's the easiest thing you can ask of me. It's like, sure. Have SDR. Why not two?
[00:19:14] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:19:16] Toni: Um, and then it's, uh, because he was originally actually an account manager.
[00:19:20] I was like, okay. You know, I can handle those those customers. No problem. And some point was like, no. I I think I need a CSM now. I'm sorry. Yeah. too much success.
[00:19:30] And then, you know, CSM support, and suddenly, we had then you know, to your point, we had, like, global coverage in terms of support.
[00:19:38] We had support in basically every time zone.
[00:19:41] Toyota was one of our biggest customers, and, um, in Australia, it's fairly straightforward to find Japanese, uh, speakers. So we kind of hired a, a Japanese speed speaking CSM slash support to cover Japan.
[00:19:53] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:19:53] Toni: Right?
[00:19:54] From from that perspective.
[00:19:56] And then this thing grew, and I think it was probably completely profitable, like, from
[00:20:02] from beginning.
[00:20:03] day one. It was basically cash producing at that point. and I also gotta say another another addition here is that especially Australia,
[00:20:13] They they they feel like they're the the forgotten English speaking colony. You know?
[00:20:20] And, um, Yeah. Pretty much. Um, and they they do appreciate it a lot when you have an office in in in Australia. It's usually, it's gonna be Sydney or Melbourne. But, um, Basically, if you have an office there, uh, that's, like, extremely highly appreciated from them.
[00:20:35] I you know, we we chatted previously, you know, to this episode with a couple of folks here on the team, and no one has ever seen Australia go south, uh, meaning kind of, you know, that that expansion never
[00:20:45] Mikkel: worked.
[00:20:45] Mhmm.
[00:20:46] Toni: it's It always kinda works out. You can always make money in this market, um, because the the competitive pieces I don't know. For some reason, it's not
[00:20:53] Mikkel: I think it's also we so we talk we joke sometimes around, well, UK is such a hard
[00:20:59] market Because every single American company who wanna have a beachhead into Europe That's where they start.
[00:21:05] It's Great for taxes and blah blah blah, blah, but it's kind of silly. You could choose, I don't know, Belgium or some other obscure market.
[00:21:13] and get
[00:21:14] yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:15] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just to say, you know, then it gets super bloody, that market, versus Australia is like, well, who wanna move all the way down there and open up shop. But what we saw just from the marketing perspective was, well, not that many we're running ads, So we could. It was cheaper. We could acquire at least cheaper for that gentleman down there. Great.
[00:21:34] He could be on the web chat, so we had twenty four seven coverage rather than two thirds of the day. Great. More leads and opportunities and cost. So all these spillover effects started happening as well.
[00:21:45] Toni: No it was great. Um, and, um, and again, I think the APAC thing was super cheap, super scrappy, but also very luck dependent. Right? Because you already had someone that grew up, uh, in the mothership, uh, that knew how things worked. Uh, he was an AE, then he was an AM.
[00:22:01] He worked super closely with the CSMs. Uh, he's also switched on guy that, you know, understood product. Um, and he just wanted to go back, so there was no force. You know, with the head of sales that was going to the US, it was, like, always a bit of a I mean, it was a bit of a pain, uh, understandably so because his wife basically kind of got pregnant in that time, and she wasn't there. She was in Denmark.
[00:22:21] Kind of that sucks for everyone, basically. Right? And, then him wanting to go home all the time. I mean, it totally makes sense. It's not you know, don't get me wrong.
[00:22:29] But if you have the opposite force of, like, no. I want to
[00:22:32] Mikkel: I want to
[00:22:33] Toni: Um, and I know everything about this company. I I and I wanna build this build up this market.
[00:22:39] That is fantastic, but it's also hard to replicate. It's like, oh, let's bank on
[00:22:43] that. Yeah.
[00:22:43] Um, so there were a couple of things kind of coming together That made it extremely successful, super scrappy. and I think, generally speaking, CAC payback wise, I think Australia is much softer and nicer
[00:22:56] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:22:57] Toni: Meant to go to the US. Right? I think when you do the US, you always need to realize that, um, you do it for a strategic reason, Which usually has to do with funding and with exit markets. Because it's almost like, uh, okay. If you can make it in the US, then you can probably be a big company.
[00:23:14] If you make it in Australia, it's like, okay. Cool.
[00:23:17] Mikkel: you gonna be Atlassian? It's
[00:23:18] like, nah. Yeah.
[00:23:19] Mhmm.
[00:23:20] Yeah. Not sure.
[00:23:21] Toni: the other company out of Australia. No. But, uh, it's like it's not proving anything. Right?
[00:23:25] You're not you're not, oh, you're not a global player. I know in on on your work, uh, way to that is you're you're achieving something in Australia and that's nice for you, but no strategic value.
[00:23:34] Mikkel: Yeah. So there's one thing I kind of then wanna circle back to because we've we've kinda outlined some of the steps you can take to get there. We've talked a lot about the benefits. I just wanna circle back to when is it actually the right time to consider moving out? Because you you talked about the TAM and blah blah blah. So how should the listener if this is something the potential wanna recommend to a boss or the other boss and wanna think about this, what are kind of the how should the stars be aligned?
[00:24:02] Toni: I think it needs to come from a place where you feel the end of the s curve in this market is approaching, Um, or a version of that.
[00:24:10] Basically, okay. This is you know, we figured this out. It's working out, but I couldn't just double the team right now. Right? Once once you start having those thoughts, um, I think then going somewhere else is usually kind of a good thing.
[00:24:24] And what we've learned and, you know, tiny Denmark, Um, we've been operating for five or six years. Uh, I don't know, less. Um, and then we we acquired a local competitor. Um, they had customers that we we didn't even have in our CRM. mean, it's like
[00:24:38] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Toni: You you basically realize, yes, it's a tiny market, but there's still plenty of room here. And, um, uh, and that's why I'm saying it never truly is a TAM issue, but you start getting this creepy feeling of, like, if I doubled my team, I think we would run out of of space. Right? And you can do all kinds of, uh, nice analysis with, you know, sizing the TAM app, using a lot of statistical information. It's like You can do some of these things, but sometimes also a bit of a gut thing that comes out.
[00:25:08] Um, number one, obviously, you might need to prove something strategically, and therefore, you go to the US.
[00:25:13] Um, but number two, it's more like, you wanna create fertile ground to start a couple of new S curves. Basically how I'm seeing it. Right? You wanna go to Germany and UK, and and the US, obviously.
[00:25:25] Kind of those are markets that you wanna establish yourself. And once you have, you can scale into infinity
[00:25:31] Mikkel: there. Yeah. It's
[00:25:32] Toni: there's nothing there's nothing going to hold you back. Right?
[00:25:34] So it's it's almost a, A necessary step for you to take. Now if you're in the US, no. You don't actually have to do that. You can go IPO just Yeah. Selling domestically.
[00:25:46] There's no reason for you to, you know, expand internationally. If you look though into all of those public companies, Uh, most of them go public with, like, ten percent international business. And then over time, where's money coming from? It's international business suddenly. Right?
[00:26:00] And suddenly, they have, like, fifty percent of the revenues are sitting internationally. and that is that is, again, that's the s curve that you can drive there suddenly. Um, and, um, when is the Point in time specific is really, really hard to say. Right? Um, so that's why I would almost default back to do you feel that you can keep doubling Your team.
[00:26:20] And if the answer is no, then it's probably time for a new market.
[00:26:25] There's one other story, actually, uh, now that I'm thinking of this. Um, and this was this was less on, uh, mid market motion, one SMB motion. And, um, what we did Oh, what we wanted to do.
[00:26:40] I'm I'm I'm a bit fuzzy on my past here on this. but we basically created a Scaled down version of the product. Mhmm. Yeah. It wasn't as robust and couldn't do all the bells and whistles, but, you know, a very scaled down version.
[00:26:55] And then we basically put this online. You could purchase online in every single market that we weren't currently covering, Uh, which meant we could tap into global demand
[00:27:07] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:27:08] Toni: Uh, super cheaply. And, um, and then we could use the data from that to figure out Where do we have accidental product market fit? You know, where are people just clicking this thing, going through the, uh, the process, paying the money, And I'm happy and, you know, really like it, and then we could say, like, oh, see that.
[00:27:26] Portugal works out great or, you know, Middle East works out great.
[00:27:31] Why not double down there? Why not add some features? Why not, you know, I don't know, uh, do some localization for them now and so forth? Um, so this is another scrappy way of you can figure this out, where something works.
[00:27:42] It's very specific and usually more like a PLG Yeah. Motion where that works out. Um, but, um, You know, that's that's a great way to to also be scrappy about where where to even expand. Right? Because everyone is let's go through the United States.
[00:27:57] Um, and, um, and that sometimes, um, especially in those time in current times, is maybe not the best way to
[00:28:03] do.
[00:28:03] Mikkel: No. Okay.
[00:28:05] Toni: Wonderful. So we talked about being scrappy in opening up new markets, and I think we went through three little stories Yeah. One is, um, how we went from Denmark to the US in a scrappy way, how we went from Denmark to Australia in a scrappy way.
[00:28:23] And then lastly, how we went from Denmark to, you know, global to figure out where to Yeah. Double down on.
[00:28:30] Mikkel: That's it? That's it?
[00:28:33] Toni: So much energy with you today,
[00:28:34] Mikkel: I'm
[00:28:34] just wondering what the outro is gonna be. That's it. That's all I'm
[00:28:38] Toni: Leave a review to help the cause.
[00:28:41] Mikkel: Okay.
[00:28:41] Yeah.
[00:28:42] Thanks for that.
[00:28:43] Uh, with those words, uh, no. Uh, hope this was helpful. Hope you enjoyed listening. Thank you Toni.
[00:28:49] Toni: Thank you, Mikkel. Thank you, everyone else. Have a good one. Bye bye.