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Everyone dreams about taking their company global. But most teams have no idea how hard it really is.
In this episode, Toni sits down with Shantanu and Koen from Personio to talk about why expanding into new markets can easily sink your go-to-market strategy. They’ve both helped companies like Gong, LinkedIn, and Personio grow across borders, and they’ve got the scars to prove it.
They dig into what founders get wrong about international expansion, how to tell if your product actually fits a new geography, and why “just translating the website” is never enough. You’ll hear how cultural nuances, regulations, and even small hiring decisions can make or break your success abroad.
This episode is brought to you by Evergrowth — Their Agentic GTM Workspace enables revenue teams to collaborate and win with AI-powered teammates, breaking down silos and helping B2B teams grow smarter with fewer resources.
Want to work with us? Learn more: revformula.io
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (03:57) - Common Mistakes in Expansion
- (09:10) - Product Geo Fit
- (11:59) - Localized Market Strategies
- (19:25) - Cost and Investment in New Markets
- (24:07) - Finding the Right International Leader
- (25:53) - Practical Approaches to Market Entry
- (32:07) - Viewing Expansion as a Bet
- (34:51) - Team and Culture Considerations
- (37:31) - Leadership Advice for International Expansion
- (43:13) - Balancing Global and Local Needs
- (47:24) - Navigating Complexity in International Operations
Creators and Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, 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.
Why you shouldn't internationalize with Shantanu & Koen from Persionio
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[00:00:00]
Introduction
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Toni: Today I'm joined by Koen and Shantanu. Both have been on this show before and. Both have experience in building international go-to market teams for companies like Gong person, LinkedIn, and a few more. Today we will discuss why you should maybe skip your international expansion plans and now enjoy.
Shantanu: Yeah, you might have a massive market and everyone who comes to to Europe from an American company says We need to get France right.
And we get Germany. Right? Right. Because UK is step one, step two, step three is France and Germany. Once you look at France and Germany, you have to really understand. Regulations are very different the way. Consumers react to products which are not local, is very different. But also, are we, are we ready for the geography?
Do we have the right amount of branding that, does the marketing message really resonate?
Koen: I think the first thought of many founders or CROs is still a need. Like, ah, but let's go spread quickly because then we, then we see where it sticks. And, and, and there we, we are, we will put maybe some extra money.
The times are different [00:01:00] there. We don't even, even even companies like ourselves who are really well funded, but we also need to be more cautious on where we spend and how much we can spend. I think regardless if you have a lot of external, external money, you need to be very cautious on where we can spend, and eventually you need to expand deeply in the market.
So you need to have. Deeper pockets to, to, to, to really be sustainable.
Toni: So I'm joined here today by two OGs on the show. I think the only people beating the two of you is like a Jocko and, uh, and, and a Kyle and a Chris Walker. I wanna say other, other than the two of you. Uh, other than those. Um, no one has been more often on this show then.
Uh, so congrats to, to the two of you. Shantanu and Koen. Um, I think Shantanu last time you were on the show, I think you were still with Gong. I was. Now you joined Koen's team at Personio. Yeah. Um, and the two of you are now teaming up, so really happy to have you on the show.
Koen: I was even listening to Shantanu's podcast back in the day and I was like, [00:02:00] ah, it will be such a pleasure working with him and like a year later.
Working with him.
Shantanu: Just small world. All thanks to Toni there. You, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Toni: I still, I still have like, I still have like one. Um, one quote from you in mine that I actually use Hannu when someone talks about planning, which the two of you're knee deep into right now, apparently we are, um, which is in itself hilarious.
Uh, but one of your quotes was like, well, you know, when you do planning, it's like climbing Mount Everest. And at first you need to know where are you? Are you at base camp? Are you somewhere in between? Are you close to the top? And then you need to figure out what tools to use, you know. Still fantastic stuff.
So if anyone is interested, please go back and listen to the episode with Shantanu, but today. We're gonna talk about something else. We're gonna talk about international expansion. Um, there will be a bunch of examples coming from the team that the two of you are currently working on, which is sio. So it's really a German darling that is now expanded to many [00:03:00] different places in Europe.
It's a really awesome story, but at the same time, um, and I'm just rattling off some logos here and maybe I'm starting with the more, more impressive ones. Um. Shana, you have been part of Gong and LinkedIn? Uh, both basically US teams expanding into Europe. You've been part of that. Um, then we talked about persona already.
I was part of Brandwatch and Plan Day, which basically did European expansion. Kuni also a part of team leader, kind of, it's a, it's a, um, Benelux, uh, darling, I wanna say that expanded across right? Lg? Not even lg. Oh, then there you go. And then, you know, this is the Europe to Europe expansion, but we also have some war stories maybe to share from the Europe to US expansion, which I think a lot of people on this podcast are selling.
Thinking about, um, and this specifically for my time at Brandwatch and Falcon, so let's maybe jump into this right away here. Koen.
Common Mistakes in Expansion
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Toni: Um, [00:04:00] whenever I think, or anyone thinks about international expansion, going to new market, doing all of that stuff, um. Usually it's like always like, oh, this is great. Let's totally go for that.
Um, what, what is the, what is the thinking mistake you think people are committing when they're just, you know, trying to jump into a new geo?
Koen: I mean, and I think that's, that's the interesting one, and I, I can only typically talk from my experience, but like, hey, we want to expand and expand on itself.
Whether it was pre COVID or pre iiv, uh, pre AI or now is like, oh, let's open up new markets. Because, hey, we sell this thing in the Netherlands so we can sell it in Belgium. We've started in Germany, so why not go to France or to UK or Hey, we've, we, we started in the uk. Let's go to the us or we started in the US and let's go towards UK because we speak the same language.
And I think that in our ambitious, which we all have is SaaS, whether you are funded or not. I think the same question counts for founders indeed, who are maybe bootstrapped like. Okay, we need to expand, [00:05:00] so we expand our tam. I think that's the mistake where a lot of people thinking, do you really need to expand tam?
And how can you expand the tam? Right? So is it tam? Which is the, the, the, the critical factor. So I think for myself, that's like, uh, um, yeah, one which is obvious, but I think we need to take way more things in consideration. Um, before we are growing and how are we growing, especially, let's be honest, um, in, in the earth of 2035 and now moving into 2026.
So that, that to me is, uh, a way of thinking, which I think, uh, needs to be challenged by, uh, by many, but I don't know how you see this. Yeah,
Toni: yeah. I mean, it's, it's always such an easy decision, right? Kind of. And I think in Europe it's, it's almost like a little bit of a different perspective because, you know, if, if you start out in Belgium.
I mean, international expansion is a thing for you from day two basically. Right? Uh, if you start out on Denmark, I mean, there's 6 million people live here. You, you can't, you can't run a local play that doesn't really work out. Um, but then you [00:06:00] have teams that are starting out in a German speaking region and maybe going after like the middle stunt there.
So kind of SMB midsize businesses, you know, there are plenty of those around there. Right. And I think the, the, the mistake I sometimes see is that, um. Hey, we're not getting enough inbound. We are, you know, we, we are calling a lot of people already. Let's just add another region to it. Um, which kind of on the, on the spreadsheet level seems super, super simple, super straightforward.
Um, especially if you go to the UK or the US like massive markets. Um, but I also think that, and this is, I guess what we're also gonna discover here today is you jump over a lot of critical. Critical thinking in that approach. Right. I'm, I'm not sure, before we jump to the next piece here, Shantanu, but what's your, what's your take on this?
Shantanu: I would say, and I, I love how you phrased it there, Toni, because if I think about Tam expansion, I think that's a, almost like a wild goose chase. Sometimes people might go after it, depending on which stage you are in the [00:07:00] company because. You have a lot of literature written in the world about getting your core right first, right?
How do you maximize what you get from your core? And whether it's your core segments, the core markets, the core product. So once you're getting that piece of the puzzle working really well, it's very natural to then think about what's next. Um, and one very interesting framework I'd seen actually looked at four different access, right?
Because you can expand as you're right, you said you can have a geographical expansion into new countries. You should also think about. Product expansion. Are there adjacent products which are, which require probably similar, uh, eventual customer base, which your existing customers might benefit from, so maybe you had product.
The third lens could just be segments you mentioned the middle stand and looking at different parts in the Germany. If you are an enterprise player versus a small business player versus mid-market, where can you really go, go, go deeper? And I think that part is one which quite often we miss. Um, and the fourth one is almost even the how you reach out, right?
Which is do you have different channels through which you can go off? And [00:08:00] again, we've, KU and I have been talking a lot about, uh, the channel play within, within our own company right now. There's a lot to do, do there. So I would look at maybe more, more indexes of what this is to look at, uh, expansion.
Toni: When, when I talk to CROs and they, they kind of. Trying to make that decision. Uh uh. I wanna say that the TAM expansion in terms of region, always seems like the easiest one to them. You know what I mean? And, um, because ooh, you know, we've already tried those different channels and we're kind of kept there and ooh, you know, going to Enterprise and SMB, we don't wanna do that.
And, you know, adding another product, oh, this, you know, this product market fit thing, that's kind of scary. Why don't we just translate the whole thing and do it in France? It, it seems so much easier to everyone. Right? And I think this is where sometimes this, um. This problem is probably finding its root, right?
But I mean, Nu kind of, kind of really asking about this specifically, right? So it's like, um, people know about product market fit. They [00:09:00] know about go to market fit, you know, especially if they've listened to this show for like. Two episodes or something. But, um, but how, how do you think about this sometimes?
Product Geo Fit
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Shantanu: Yeah, I would, I would almost add a third phrasing there, which is almost like a product geo fit. And I, I'll take that from a more practical lens, right? So if I go back to even when I, you mentioned I was at Gong and, uh, gong was pretty much, I think a massive, um, uh. Player and logo in in the US Soon after it launched.
It took, it took a few, it took a few minutes for people to understand we can actually record calls and hold people accountable to getting intelligence from those conversations. Uh, and then back when I joined, um, we were saying, you know, let's just focus on the uk. And again, to your point, as we were trying to find, do we have a geography, which is in a way parallel or similar.
To what it was in the us similar language, similar challenges, similar pursuit, almost like, okay, we have a product localized to a certain extent where you kind of [00:10:00] get product geo fitt, if I, if I use that phrase. Mm-hmm. And then we were very, very, um, methodical about when we would launch and go into other markets outside of the uk, within Europe, and then similarly in APAC now.
So a large part of my journey there was going through that and we looked at multiple, multiple things around what I might call the ability to win. So you're looking at. You might have a massive market. Everyone who comes to to Europe from an American company says, we need to get France right? We need to get Germany.
Right, right. Because UK is step one, step two, step three is France. In Germany, once you look at France and Germany, you have to really understand regulations are very different. The way consumers react to products which are not local is very different. So there's a different approach, and I think we spend a lot of time making sure not only do we get the basic technicalities, but everything from the product.
To work, but also are we, are we ready for the geography? Do we have the right amount of branding there? Does the marketing message really resonate? Do you have the right presence? Are you reaching the right, um, [00:11:00] influencers, not just within the companies you're trying to, but for the industry as a whole. So that, I think, takes a bit of a.
Very planned and methodical approach, and we went deep into that.
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Visit evergrowth.com. And now back to the show.
Localized Market Strategies
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Toni: [00:12:00] This problem from a gong perspective seems to be. I think in other industries and verticals, you would call it, um, digital maturity, um, related primarily. Right, because I mean, come on. It's, it's a, it's a meeting recorder. Come on. How, how, how, how localized does it need to be?
Right. But flipping this on, its can
Koen: across borders. That's true. Yeah.
Toni: Yeah, exactly. But flipping on its head, um, with Personio, right. Which is, which is you, you know, both of your current gigs, but maybe Kun, you kind of talked to that a little bit. I mean, this was a. Predominantly German play in the beginning.
They're very quickly into, you know, well pan-European, I wanna say. Yeah. And, um, and it's in the HR space. So HR spaces, you know, this is, let's just say to a degree, regulated, they're local laws around that stuff. You can't just do the same thing that you do in Germany, you know, one-to-one in, in, in Holland and Netherlands, for example.
So what were, what were the [00:13:00] considerations there? Kind of talk a little bit about the. Uh, that product geo fit that PIO has to go through or, or still is undergoing?
Koen: Yeah. Uh, and again, like I think regardless if you are a gong and you have maybe a product which you can ship across borders easier than a HR tool or a more a local compliant tool, I think the first thought of many founders or CROs is still a need.
Like, ah, but let's go spread quickly because then we, then we see where it sticks and, and, and there we, we are, yeah, we will put maybe some extra money, but I think so. Uh, from, from, I mean, I'm now three years at Perio, so also back in the days, I mean, um, I, I, I, I dare to say that we had a wider spread of, of focus, which is the right word, but like on the different countries, which we thought we could really, really penetrate deeply in.
But I think what we've learned across the years, and let's be honest, that's not only for personas for all the companies, whether you are funded externally or you're a footstep, because I think that's also very important. The [00:14:00] times are different there. We don't even, even even companies like ourselves who are really well funded, I think we working with a lot of really, really experienced and nice investors, but we also need to be more cautious on where we spend and how much we can spend.
And I think that's, that's for, for, for any company regardless. Also for person or in 2025, but even more in 2026. Super important. Back in the Days Gong or any of the bigger companies, they had the monies. To quickly expand and see what, because it was also allowed to have a higher cac, right? The cost of acquisition.
I think regardless if you have a lot of external, external money, you need to be very cautious on where you can spend and eventually you need to expand deeper in the market. So you need to have deeper pockets to, to, to, to really be sustainable. So, but that's more an overall picture, right? So I think also for person perspective and not only for person, I see this mainly for a lot of European companies, whether indeed.
Person started in Germany. My previous, one of my previous companies started in Belgium. So from Belgium, you quickly, [00:15:00] and I was among other responsible for our international expansion. We quite quickly, obviously expanded to Holland, Germany, um, uh, Spain, France, um, um, Italy. But of course. The quickness of expanding requires directly a lot from your local teams, from your central teams.
Not only localized, of course, your ads and your content. There's so much more, and mainly, and I think that's also why we forget. We are a product. We are a technology company, right? I mean, we do the go to market, but that is to to to, to, to, to, um, to speed up our overall technology product, which we bring to help our customers.
I think that's also a really big misunderstanding and I think. What we've learned is indeed those nuances. So we, uh, with personnel, we are in the HR space, but it means as well, I mean, we register all the different mutations from an employee on a monthly basis for our customers and eventually we have a very important function.
Everything, what change on [00:16:00] a monthly basis for all the people who are in, um, uh, employed at a company. Eventually at the end of the month, they want to have the paycheck. So we need to provide that information eventually into a payroll system so it can be payroll process. So we have a very important function.
That means as well, that indeed, if you are an HR player, you need to be locally really well, uh, compliant, but also functionality wise. So we are able to understand all those local nuances. And I think, Toni, to your point, regardless of ERHR, I think there are many more, um, industries or products which eventually really are.
Really differentiated locally. And it's not that easy to now say, ah, but we have ai so AI can figure out and we can easily spread all the, the features into the different companies. I think their, their, their lies a, a big challenge. And also to our, to, to our point for persona, we also learned that. So if we really want to penetrate, and also for myself the last three years in the Netherlands, in, in, in Benelux, you truly, truly need to understand that local market [00:17:00] and, and to the, uh, to the fact of geo market fit.
Maybe our go-to market to go towards a geo, like the Benelux is slightly different than how we went to market in to, in, into Germany is slightly different. How we think about Spain or how we think about the uk. And I think, yeah, those nuances not only from a product, um, but also definitely from, from go to market.
Especially now with cost of acquisition and, and, and sustainable growth. Super important, and everyone really, regardless of external funding, really need to take that into consideration.
Toni: Let me attach there actually, kind of, you mentioned the whole cost of acquisition CAC to LTV CAC payback. Um, I think, uh, a healthy way to think about if you give it a name and let's give it the name product geo Fit, um, it's, it's really healthy to think about this as, as a typical scur, right?
In the beginning it's, you know, you're gonna put in. Same salaries as, as you will need to later on. But the impact of this will be very [00:18:00] low, right? As, as you know, for a while, you won't see the return of investment there. Um, and, and this has to do with many different things because to a degree, and yes, it will probably be a, a spa up process, you need to basically go through product market fit and go to market fit, you know, in their geography.
Just by yourself. Right. And kind of, you already talked about like some of the go-to market tactics that worked in Germany for person, maybe they didn't work as well in the UX or in 'cause also's a good,
Koen: your point like, and we call it actually, uh, I always like it in our company. Hey Kun, you are the mini CEO of the Benelux.
I actually put that one on my title on LinkedIn Mini CEO. But no, but like to your point, like when we started out, and it's typically for a lot of companies, when you started out a journey, we are now existing for 10 years. 10 years ago. Totally different age of SaaS, of the, even of the entire global economy, right?
Um, then we started out five years ago in the Benelux, but where the Benelux is was five years ago. Where it is right now is also significantly changed from them. [00:19:00] So also the starting point, if you go abroad, if you internationally expand, is typically that the first couple of years you're staying in your home and then moving towards other geos.
At that point in time, the market can be, especially now with AI and everything significantly changed. Even if you start, uh, two years ago, you start now expanding internationally, it can be totally different, like going back towards geo fit.
Cost and Investment in New Markets
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Toni: Let me, let me play the ball to Shantanu for a second. So, from a, from a Rev ops perspective, right, what is the.
What are the, what are the top three worries you have when someone comes to you and is like, Hey, Nu, let's do the US now. Right. I'm, I'm just waiting for that announcement that Bisoni says, we figured it out, us is next. Uh, like what is, what is the first, you know, three things you're gonna do after, you know, throwing your laptop against the wall, but like, what's, what's gonna happen there?
Shantanu: Yeah. So first, by the way, and before, just so your listeners don't get this wrong, we are not announcing anything here. We're definitely not talking about that person on you right now. [00:20:00] Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not us to announce that and, but yeah. But if I go into your point there, I think I was thinking of three things, which becomes very important, right?
And whether it's going into new market, expanding into international even, and even to be fair, even sustaining what's already investing in international is three things which are very important. Number one, just the opportunity cost. We just talked a lot about lifetime value and customer acquisition cost.
The moment you think about, okay, how much money do we need to put to get. Someone in, in seed there to be hired to be, to have actually processes behind it. Even things like do we go, do we set up an entity? Do we get, do we go through an, uh, employee of record, which you can now also do for persona by the way, but there's so many different op options to think about and get that initial set up, number one, uh, second, and, and I think the opportunity cost is.
Instead of putting in into that market, could you have instead gone into your core and really optimized another part? So that's, that's, that's the first question. Uh, second, I think [00:21:00] you don't really get economies of scale, and that's, that's the part where everyone has to be aware about. You're investing now, not for the short term, but the long term.
So it has to be, you have to be very, very. Confident about why you are investing in international markets. And that's why it's a very thoughtful decision to be made. Um, and, and I'll give you an example is, um, let's say you're, and I'm not, I'm not gonna say us. Let's say we're launching in a new market, let's say Norway, right?
I'm just making an example here.
Toni: Oh, yeah. You're going to Norway now.
Shantanu: Just say, Denmark, Denmark, Denmark, Denmark. You'll even, you'll be even happier now, Toni. So we'll go to Denmark. Yeah. And, and let's say we wanna hire, we are gonna hire Toni there as an ae. Um, do we know what the right. Quotas or how do we, how do we, how do we benchmark?
Is it, is it based on, 'cause again, like you said, there's so many different variables, right? From the product market fit to the actual customer base. What are the, what are the different competitors? What is the over overall overarching framework for everything from external, internal [00:22:00] factors? So you might have, and again, in the past we've done something like you might have a 10%, 15% lower target, but again, you have to hire people at an OTE, which is con.
In line with the market. So when you bring that in, your, your mechanics don't really, uh, sound, sound in, in, in, in comparison to the core market or the mothership, if you wanna call it that. The numbers suddenly seem off, so you have to spend a lot of time justifying why that's different. And the third part, and Assem one of, if I just go back to what Rev ops.
Is trying to drive across consistency, across systems, processes, and data. There's gonna be so many inconsistencies in, in just building that up, which you have to be okay with, but you need to then prepare people for the fact that, look, now your lead routing used to go X, Y, Z, it'll break. This used to work in a certain way, this will break.
So we just then create that and, and quite often you are doing that. With a sense of conviction that, you know, and again, in this example, let's say we know that Denmark is gonna be so big three years down the line, five [00:23:00] years down the line, but building that entire story together is very important to be able to define that.
Toni: Let me linger on one of the things you said there for a little bit, which really was the, um, you know, the cost of the incremental dollar going into this new geo. Which is one, one of the concepts we have used, uh, previously to shut down a lot of ideas about going to other geos, by the way. Um, and it's, it's dangerous also.
It's like, you know, it's, it is a short term versus long term kind of gamble here. Um, but let's just take this from a, uh, maybe a gong perspective and I'm not sure how much you can talk or speak to that, but, um, whenever I talk to, you know, s founder CEOs in Europe. They're thinking about the next market. I don't need to think about it.
It's the US like obviously that's, I'm sorry. That's what you're gonna do. Right? Especially if you're venture capital fund it, you know, obviously there's some caveats, don't get me wrong, but that's an, that's an immediate go there because like, yes, the long term terms, stories just so [00:24:00] solid. Um, but going from the US to arguably many fractured, smaller markets.
Finding the Right International Leader
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Toni: You, you, you must be looking at this whole thing and Sure. It's gonna be labeled international and there's gonna be VP International and so forth. But everyone knows it's, it's not the same thing. You know, I guess maybe UK feels a little bit cozy to the us, uh, but latest Germany, and then definitely France is gonna break that picture really quickly.
Right. So how, how, how is the US company even thinking about going international in, in that context? It almost doesn't make any sense.
Shantanu: Yes. And I, and I think that's, that's a very good, good point. I think the, there's two important things to get there. I think number one, you need to have. A very strong international leader, just like we now have Kon for persona, you need to find the right person.
More Kon. More Kon like. It's, yeah. But, but I think it's, it's, that's, it's crazy how important that first leader becomes. I can think of so many examples of companies who've done it right. Um, similarly, I think Gong had found a [00:25:00] very good international leader at that point, uh, to, to kickstart the campaign, but finding the right person, because then that person will be able to understand what the nuances of the markets are really.
Be able to almost be the eyes and ears for the company in that satellite office, if you wanna call it that. Um, and the second part, which becomes very important, and again, we, I think we did that well at Gong, was um. Almost thinking about how do you ramp up investment, right? Which is, we talked about how the mechanics of investment don't look so good on, on a, on a pure p and l sheet or, or, or a view on what, what is the actual cac?
But you might be like, this would win Good. Dude in the first six months, if this bears out, this will over the next six months. Having that entire plan of what are those milestones and leading indicators to get right, because if you, if you don't have that, you don't really have an assessment of what's working.
So get the right person and the right metrics planned out in, in the future.
Practical Approaches to Market Entry
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Toni: Moving us a little bit along to, we've been talking a lot about, you know, why it's a better idea what the issues are. [00:26:00] Um, let's flip this around and, and basically help people listening to benefit from our collective scar tissue here, right?
Kind of, we've, we've been through the ringer on this a couple times now. Um, so let's, let's flip the, to the, to the solution side here just a little bit and, and I would, you know, want us to break this down probably in like two, three different. Maybe chapters one is more on the strategic considerations. I think we talked about this already a little bit.
Let's, let's dive a little bit deeper into there. So in order to C-level folks kind of go, go about it in the right way. The next one would actually be team and culture and people. It's something that's usually underappreciated, I'm gonna say. And then let's spend some good time on the execution, which I think all of us can really much, uh, nicely talk to.
Um, but, but Kun kicking us off here on the strategic consideration side, kind of how. How you actually making, how should people be making the decision to open up a new geo? Right? How, how, or market or region, however they wanna define it. How, how would [00:27:00] you say should they be going about this?
Koen: I, I think also there, it, it always depends like in how, how fast you want to grow, but I think I've also seen different examples.
So I've seen, for instance, in, in this Belgium company where we were, we were really practical of nature. There are also the CEOs that, hey, we had to use a small budget, which we allocate in directly experimenting from the headquarters into new region. So quickly what we did there is like we just hired one growth marketer.
We made sure, like very basic, I don't say this is the approach, but like, hey, we just translate the basics. Just, we have the basic set, um, and the domain, and we just hire one growth marketeer. He's sitting in our headquarters and we start with some advertising. Um, and, and just to see if it sticks, just to see if it sticks, starts to have the first quality code demo.
That's a very practical approach. Which, which, which can be consideration, I think. There, we saw this was a method which could be working, but I think you need to do some proper analysis first, right? You need to [00:28:00] really, 'cause you can do this, but like, come on. You need to really understand the dynamics of the market.
Like it's how weird, but always like this, uh, old school SWAT analysis, like. Who is there currently, who is in the market? What is this ecosystem? What kind of partners are there? Have the first conversation. I think what we do a lot wrong is just assuming, let's go to France, Germany, or UK because of the big markets or the us, but just really start to understand that market and you can make a lot of assumptions in your spreadsheet.
Dear CVO. Why not pick like for a week or two weeks, go into that market, have the conversations, and, and, and, and I think to my example as well, when I came in three years ago for, for the Benelux and, and, and, and for context, we focused first years really in the Netherlands. I went out and went really talking to customers, talking to, to the partners, and talking to competitors, understanding where they are at.
Why are they positioning? What are their struggles? So I think [00:29:00] having those quality, uh, insights really helps next towards obviously do your deeper analysis, understanding where the market is, understand what the potential is, understand where, yeah, where you need to focus and where potentially what what you currently have can be, um, a fit for that type of the market.
And I think. At some point, also at this team leader stage in this company, we really had a thoroughly assessment. So we have, uh, I think it was back in the days, our chief of Starr, CEO who really had a team who did deep, deep research. Really a weeks and months of research to understand like, Hey, does it make sense to really spend $1?
But again, I think it's also important to, to, to, to think from context. 'Cause some companies, let's say now the AI native companies, they don't have time for this. They need to speed up, right? But if you are a, a, a bootstrap or a seat, or a Series E, a company or founder, please do also [00:30:00] really do due diligence and don't, I would almost say, uh, put it on people, but you.
You as a CEO really need to be involved. I think what we typically see, and I think shnu, we know of course, uh, the guys from trumpet, I mean, we are working with trumpet, really cool company. Um, they want to, I mean they already at traction in the us but what is Nick doing? One of the co-founders, he's moving to Boston.
Of course they did the proper research all along, but. Typically what you see if you are CEO, you go from Europe to the us you are moving to the US and I have more some feeling that a CEO in a European company actually kind of put someone else in place to figure this out. No, you should treat it as being, hey, you are the CEO.
You need to kind of go in with that mindset of being a CEO for a new region and figure this out. And I think that's more already a practical way of, of, of approaching it from a strategic point of view.
Toni: I very much love the. You know, almost, you know, I started this I with, oh, it's, think about, you know, what are the strategic considerations?
And then it's like, oh, it's very much [00:31:00] hands-on and, and experimental. But I think that's actually what it is. It's, it's really getting that firsthand information. For example, the, uh, the plan day folks, uh, that, you know, before I joined, when they had made the decision to expand from Denmark to Germany, uh, the two founders went on a two weeks spree.
Uh, going from city to city. And talking to, you know, walking to restaurants and talking with them about their, their struggles, right? I mean, firsthand information that kind of went there and tried to get as much real life data, um, out of the market as possible. Order then to figure out, well, what kind of profile do we need to hire?
Even kind of, is there an opportunity? Does this work? Um, and sure, I think. You know, when someone says deep research and context, everyone's, oh, this is, there's probably an AI way to kind of do this. And yes, I think it can help you. I think it can, it can get you quite far with some of these things, but it's not gonna replace the the hard earned experiences that you kind of get on the ground.[00:32:00]
They get way deeper into your thinking and into your how to enable you to make better decisions. I, I, I totally, um, I totally, um, agree with that.
Viewing Expansion as a Bet
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Toni: I think one, one other thing that I want to add before I hand it over to you, Shantanu, if, if you have something, but one thing that I want to add is also to, you know, view those expansions as a bet.
You know, view those as, as a bat and it needs to, um, you need to be able to not be bankrupt, uh, if the bat doesn't turn out in your favor. Right? Kind of. So, you know, current team I'm working with, they want to go to the us. Um, it's clear by now. Back then when I did this, it was like a million a year to even get started.
Now it's more like $2 million a year to get started. Um, if you cannot afford $2 million to be potentially wasted. You should, you should triple think about doing it. Like seriously, right? Yes. And, and I also feel there are cheaper markets to do, at least in Europe, to do the expansion by the way. Kind of.
You don't need to spend that much money, but if it is the US that's [00:33:00] what it is, right? And, and being able to, um, support that bat, uh, and not get called feed immediately after three months, six months when things aren't turning out that great. That that's like a really important piece. Be before you even should be jumping into this, but
Koen: Yeah.
Yeah. But to, you pointed then not go to shelter because actually sh mentioned earlier a very important point. Yes. Bets. You need to have very clear milestones. When you are, you're putting the extra dollar on that. A, we've hit the first milestone in the time or maybe, okay, we unlock the next level. It's like kind of Nintendo game Ray, Mario game.
Like we go to the next level because you need to do this systematic. And I think that's also where it goes wrong. We go to, towards new countries, we, we say it's a bad deal. I mean it figure out, but maybe not. I mean, say that to the investors. That's not how you're going to play. Right? So think I need to be a systematic play on how you unlock the next level of investments.
I mean, ante knows how, how, how, how. Yeah.
Shantanu: Surpris think it's fine. I, I like the, I like the better analogy because if, if, if you're a poker player, uh, you obviously you only be hand when you know what's coming. You [00:34:00] obviously, you, you, you have, you have couple of cards in your hand. You have a couple of cards in your hand, a couple of cards in the table, and you're trying to figure out the, the right permutation combination.
So to me, the, the one thing I would add to what you both said already is you have. Potential in the market. You hopefully have enough money to spend, but you then you do need to look at your, if you wanna call it, ability to win your path to execution. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How do you really start ensuring that if you are putting a million dollars, $2 million, whatever in there, you're giving yourself the best opportunity to succeed and you have to bet on your maybe one to just focus.
Very, very focused bet is what I would say is important.
Toni: Yeah. Kind of staying there for a second. Right. So I think the, the. The next issue. Sure. Maybe you go to the US or the US goes to Europe. Yes. Strategic. All of that makes sense.
Team and Culture Considerations
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Toni: But then there's usually another component that I feel is overlooked is, is sometimes the team and the culture components.
Yes. And Chato. Yes. And maybe, maybe you're [00:35:00] the best one to talk about that for a second. Yes. Because yes, both in Gong and LinkedIn, you will like the link to Europe. Yes. And now with sio, you're still the link to Europe. So tell us a little bit about that actually. Kind of how does the whole Yes. Uh, culture and team and almost the personal, private component, uh, get into this.
It's a good one.
Shantanu: So I think, and I, I think I, I like the, the link part because culture is so important and can often be overlooked, right? Um. I mentioned in the beginning about the, the first leader is so important. I would almost say the landing team is very important. Right. And the reason why I call it that landing team, um, I'll give you the gong example.
Lydon is a little while back, so I won't, uh, go into that in that detail. But if I think about the Gong culture, and I think it was important for, um, the way. The brand of being very much with the sales teams that the company's selling to came with the culture that when Gong hired here, um, we got our first two AEs from the us.
The top performing AEs [00:36:00] actually came here, uh, with the landing team. And that made such a big difference. And not just AEs, we also had a CSM and SDR. So literally across the, across the core team, there were people who were doing really well in the us And why that was so important was, um, it ensured that.
These are, there's two, three things which are almost like the unspoken norms. I know every company has, these are our culture and values, but there's so many things you live out that are the unspoken norms of what makes a con company succeed. And I think that was really, really, really strong there. Nice.
It's almost like transplanting culture from one to the other.
Koen: That's actually, actually, actually interesting one because we like, uh, I was just thinking back in the days, like when we grew quite quickly in Europe, like team leaders, Belgium company, and we had six officers. So we had like a quite decentralized strategy.
And again, this is just a approach, but we, back then, I didn't put it on my league team. Like I, I, I was named SIL champion. I mean, for the folks who worked at the company, everyone started letting, oh, you were a champion. But actually what we did were very, was kind of a liaison. So we had like marketing, we had sales, and we had cs.
We had three [00:37:00] international leaders who came from, let's say the local operations from headquarters was the Netherlands or Belgium. And we flew through the countries every, I mean, let's say every two weeks or so, just to inject. Like our knowledge, our best practices, the frameworks, of course, always with the cultural nuances.
But to your point, how, how, how important it is just to, to keep capturing that culture because that's also can be a really big danger of, Hey, let's just open up a satellite and leave them alone and do the thing. No, they're really part of your company and otherwise it will never go, uh, never going to work.
Leadership Advice for International Expansion
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Toni: Do you have some leadership advice on this actually being, what is your. You're the, the head of international. What's your, what's your, what's your exact title right now? Kun. Oh, doesn't matter. I forgot. Boss. It's good. Mini, mini. CEO of international. You know. Wait for the announcement. Wait for the announcement.
Um, no, but Kun, I mean, in, in terms of leadership advice, you, you mentioned kind of a couple of different cultures here. Anything that stands out where you say like, you know, Hey. Don't make this mistake or go rather in this direction.
Koen: I mean now, now [00:38:00] for myself, so I'm two, two months in, in my new role, um, the last three years I was only in the ux.
The biggest danger I can do is, ah, let's copy everything. It works in the Netherlands and Belgium and let's just go to that in the UKI in Spain. So, no, I mean, I think for myself, and, and, and that comes back towards a CEO or a company wants to expand like. Go to that region. To your point, Toni, go there and spend two weeks with the people.
Start having conversations, understand the nuances and, and don't think, ah, I'm going to change everything. No. Understand what works and trying to amplify that. Try to like that. That's the only thing you can do. And I think that's also just an example. I just came back from Dublin. Like two weeks ago, I was hoping to meet CH but he didn't want to meet with me, unfortunately.
But we, we, we saw each other in, in Munich. No, but again, I was sat down with the local teams, with the SDR leadership, with the AE leadership, with marketing, with the ICS on the floor. We sat down with customers we just invited, was not me as actually our country manager out of nothing said like super important.
That's invited [00:39:00] customers. Let's have a dinner so you understand our, in this case, Irish customers. Have those conversations that you understand what's going on and that goes beyond like, oh, how happy are you? What is your quota attainment? No. It's really to understand the person behind and why on that role.
So I think that's also for any leader, I think you, you, whether you are CO or CEO, you directly want to get into the weeds. No, it's about the reading, understanding, so that these, for me, always worked. Um, and I think it's also very important. Like yourself, building a team, understanding the culture, um, and obviously bringing some of your lessons learned what you know works and trying to show them, hey.
If you don't know how to quite towards the next level, this is what we did here. Let's see in, in, in, in, in, in something which fits in your way that we can also try this as an experiment because it's always the worst thing as a leader, C-O-C-E-O, whatever, just to push things like, uh, let's go to this country and we do all the same things.
That just doesn't work.
Shantanu: And [00:40:00] one thing, which I think is, is, and what I caught onto the one thing, which is very unique. To international and being in an international leadership role, right, is right now what Kon has to juggle. You have to think about what's happening from a global execution standpoint and trying to balance that part while you're also trying to make sure, because in an international you, you have almost an entrepreneurial setup within the big company as well.
Right. If I think about the balance between trying to create the. Culture of a startup really drive incubation while at the same time being able to balance. But that's, that's really, really important. And, and I'll give you an example. Like right now in persona, um, one of the things that Kon and I have been talking about is, uh, how do we think about our overarching partnership strategy?
And again, as most companies, we are obviously in a, in B2B SaaS, we work in different ways. One of the things really work on, on, on partnerships. And to be fair, I think. International is taking the lead in in our, in, in our partnership strategy. So we are spending a lot of time with K and team while also looking [00:41:00] at what we can do in the global partnership strategies.
That's like really, really, yeah. A very unique role that international has deployed.
Koen: Yeah, and the only thing I want to add before to Toni, what I found really important when I learned as well, and I think I learned among others by working with Sean, of course, ship with Philippe, et cetera, is like what a regional leader, so, um, let's say myself is now like international regional leader, whatever.
I mean, I'm still there for the company, so I still, I'm still there to execute our global centralized strategy. And I think that's also something, even to your point, yes, I need to be entrepreneurial because I need to find different ways of growth because we are, I mean, not, I mean I always call this the satellite, but I need to understand that I'm here for the company globally.
And then I think that's still what a lot of leaders who are appointed, ah, but we are the, the regional where you're new, we are doing things really differently. I think. You need to find there the right balance between yes, being entrepreneurial, but come on, we have central processes. We have this central [00:42:00] company, which we are, and we need to, and I need to make sure that I represent that company and not like, ha and let's be like, um, going all myself with the, with the different local, uh, regional leaders.
I think that's also a very important nuance to understand,
Toni: I think. Um, and, and maybe just shortly on this, um. Number one, I think if you go to a new region, you should be hiring a leader also from that region, there's a bunch of things. For example, when we went to the us. Hiring in the US works differently.
Like every, every US person you talk to feels like 10 x the talent that any European person, but they just interview a lot better. Right. And, and you wanna have an, you know, a US leader to, to, to sort out the bullshit, right? But at the same time, and this is what you just mentioned, Kon, which is, which also happened to us actually back then, was there was this, you know, you know, us versus them culture growing kind of, we are in the US we need to, you know, stick together.
It's actually kind of short term, good, long-term toxic, right? [00:43:00] Um, and you kind of need to balance this out, um, and, and try and kind of nip it in, in the bud as, as, as soon as possible. But I also wanna move on, even though I would love to keep talking here, but I wanna, you know, keep it to the two of you here.
Balancing Global and Local Needs
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Toni: Um, moving on a little bit more to. Some more maybe real life examples. Right. And Kun, you kind of mentioned already you are, um, representing the global company, but also need to filter it down to your, the, the local constituents. If, if I wanna say it like this and for me, this usually has to do, um, you know, local leaders always struggle with, they have some kind of different product requirements than the others.
Um, and product resources are central. So you know, you're the small market buy. And the same might be with other central resources like marketing, for example. Yeah. Yes. Some pods will be sent, uh, um, distributed, but still. Right. How do you, how do you balance this split role of you optimizing for the overall company, but [00:44:00] also want to make your own reps happy that, you know, you know, how do you, how do you balance that?
Koen: Yeah, but I, I think it also comes again, back towards, yeah, the alignment and the understanding because, uh. Like first for my role as what I did before in the alux. Like you even in, in, in the Benelux team, I have a new sales team which report into me and I have an existing business team or reporting into me.
The existing business team from a product perspective, most likely wants different stuff than a new business team. 'cause new business team doesn't actually know what like their, the, the true customers actually really need, uh, because they're selling like, it's different. Um, the first thing, what I did in, in my, in, in my first three years is, Hey, team, what are your new business?
What are your marketing? What are your existing business? We need to talk with one voice. We need to really understand because we can ask a lot, but we also need to be realistic. We won't get everything we, we can't deliver everything. 'cause that's, that's lunatic to think. So we need to at least speed at one voice, I think, because then your chances to get what you need is significantly larger.
[00:45:00] That's only really regional in this case. Skill for what I'm now trying to do when it comes to, um, international for the different regions is also align there. Once again, hey. We have a true understanding of what we think has the biggest impact, which is for us in this international setup. But we need to understand, does this align?
And I have a practical example here, um, with what maybe our German or dark colleagues also need because it, the closer we align it with their problems and, and we have the biggest benefit. We will, most likely, it's a way more realistic ask. So I think that that again comes back towards do have a proper understanding as one team, what you need, what we will move to the biggest needle.
And again, any country has nuances. There is something, for instance, if you look at hr, which Spain needs, um, a else than the UK or in the Netherlands, but you need to align those things on the biggest species. And for instance, for ourselves also, uh, as person moving more apart, it, it is one of, one part of the strategy, but [00:46:00] then we need to understand how does this align with ACH and, and, and, uh, and putting those things more on, uh, on our requests from products and the more local nuances.
Yeah, maybe we need to also make our bad stars. So I think be smart on what do you think realistically you will get, so that's bringing those together. List it. Being smart on your asks. Um, which is not everyone, because typically, you know, a regional leader, you really wanna defend your region and like, oh, I need everything, otherwise you can't perform.
No, that's not the way it works against, again, towards this alignment with global, which is super
Toni: important. I think that's the reality of, um, working in international context. Right. Um, it is usually, or it has usually to do with, yes. As a leader you're obviously talking about a global story and we as a company to be successful, but for the personal.
Destiny for someone on your team, it sometimes means well, uh, be happy for the rest, but you're gonna get screwed over a little bit. And I think this is a difficult, [00:47:00] difficult situation to manage as a leader, by the way. But maybe kind of look at this from a, from a revels perspective, Hannu kind of how. Um, you know, have you run into some of those conflicts too?
How have you, from, uh, from your, and yet different roles and than only rev ops too, right? I mean, you've been a go-to market leader in, in, in your own sake too, right? Kind of. Do you have some, some advice for people on how to navigate that, that super tight spot?
Shantanu: Yeah.
Navigating Complexity in International Operations
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Shantanu: I would say, I would say the, the most important thing when you come to think about international is you have to navigate complexity.
And I think that's the one thing which, um, I know everyone talks about. Rev Ops is all about dealing with ambiguity and making signals from the noise. But when it comes to doing international, and I'll take an example. So now for instance, um. When I think international, I have to remember that when I talk to Kon, he's also talking, I have talked to him about new business, existing business, the account management team, the customer success team.
With all of that. Quite often when companies create the international piece, you have, you centralize everything [00:48:00] into one, one role. While when I talk to Koon's counterparts on the German team, for example, I would talk to one person only about new business, one person only about customer success and so on.
So that's one, one piece that you also then have to remember. And again, I've been on both sides of the equation in the, in the mothership and in the satellite office, if I use that phrase. Um, when you're in the satellite office, you have to actually remind your counterparts quite often about why to include them.
And when you're, and when you're in the mothership, as in rev ops, it's important to ensure, oh yeah, did I actually go around, get all the inputs? Maybe I forgot this specific input from international. So that's, that's a very important, uh, context to keep in the second part. And I mentioned, um, mentioned complexity is, uh, quite often.
Because of the fact that national has those nuances we talked about. Having very clear path or role for different inputs to come in. And I'm talking about whether we do the annual planning process that's, that's front and mind right now. Or if you're doing something like how do you give books, [00:49:00] maybe the, the number of accounts a rep in.
Your co-market versus an international market should be different. And why? And then again, when is the, when is again, milestone. Milestone for when there'll be some consistency? Just being so, being comfortable, number one with complexity and second, some inconsistency, but inconsistency not for the sake of being inconsist, but for the, with the clarity and parts to when we will get to consistency.
Toni: I think this is a good point to also wrap it actually. Nu and, and, and Kuni, I think we discussed. Sure, from a very much high level perspective, CAC to LTV, we discussed some opportunity costs and all of that stuff. But I think when you break it down to execution, um, really the, the drag from complexity is starting to raise head a lot, right?
Both from a leadership perspective, from a systems perspective, from a plant, you know, resource distribution, product building, different languages, different cultures. Um. And I [00:50:00] think that's hidden complexity kind of, that's we humans are really shit with, you know, foreseeing how, how terrible that complexity will be.
Um, I think this is probably one of the top reasons why people, uh, think just the, just the tam expansion might actually be the easiest thing to do. Right. Um. I wanna thank the two of you for spending some time here. For everyone who's listening and wants to hear the two of you talk again, just send me an email and maybe I'll set something up here again.
But, uh, nu thanks. Thanks a bunch for your time.
Shantanu: Pleasure. Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having us. Let's continue planning.
Toni: Cheers.