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6 Tips and tricks you should know before scaling internationally

By | Geen categorie

Are you planning on going internationally and could you still use some good tips and tricks? And were you not able to join our event last Thursday? Than you missed out on a lot! Isabel Brouwer of DutchBasecamp gave us great advise on how to successfully scale internationally. Fortunately, we took notes to share the info!

First of all, scaling internationally is no exact science. But guess what: entrepreneurship is no exact science. However you have to make choices.
Entrepreneurs often fail because they do not know how to make the right choices, like the right market to fit and the timing to go abroad. They also do not tend to keep in mind that they have to fail first, to become successful afterwards.
That is why it is so important to do the research and find a good fit, starting by creating a top 5 of markets which might be interesting to scale your company to. These 5 markets are the ones to be researched further. When choosing one out of 5, it is very important to keep some things in mind:

– What is the market attractiveness of those 5 markets. It is very important that your attractiveness fits with the crowd, if not, scaling makes no sense.

-What is your business attractiveness? What makes your product stand out amongst the competition if there is any?

-Are you able to create a product/ market fit?

-What is your affordable loss? How much money and time are you willing to lose in the process? If you are not willing to lose a lot, do not pick the biggest markets. Don’t make it as if you’re going backpacking, it does not make sense to go abroad when you do not have the money to do proper follow ups.

Those bullets should be validated. Off course, you can start from home, but is very important to physically visit the market. Do your research and talk to local people. Find the right entrepreneur to share their experience with you and just as important, find your customers and ask what their needs are. Reality is that finding the right locals to talk to can be a challenge. That does not make it less important though.

The bullets will not only be indicators to pick the market, they are also the base of your strategy when you scale to your new market. After you chose your market, it is time to create a strategy fitting to the market. With that comes the budget. Again, the budget will not be exact science, but it is what will get you there.

DutchBasecamp can help you through this process. The coaches are all very experienced with the subject and will coach you through the process, starting with a free master class. There is no recipe for internationalisation, so it is very important to keep talking to other people and learn from each other. Make sure you keep networking.

One other thing you should definitely keep in mind are the cultural differences when you go abroad. Not to worry though: there’s always the books. A good book to read to prepare you before going abroad is ‘The culture map’ of Erin Meyer. As the book says, she had mapped out all the cultural differences you need to keep in mind.

How to get funding

By | News

For a lot of start-ups, creating an innovative idea is not the problem: it is collecting money to execute the idea. Fortunately, there are a lot of creative ways to do so. Sander Waterval has got a lot of experience in the matter, since he executed a lot of his expansive ideas.

Right now, Sander is working on one of his dream projects, the Wikkelboat, on which we have actually organized a barbeque last night after a cruise with Ronald Scholtus on one of the boats of Rotterdamishot. The Wikkelboat project is due in two weeks from now. It’s the first Wikkelboat ever to be made and will be located at the also to be expanded harbour ‘ The Red Apple Marina’ in Rotterdam. This project costs a lot of money as you can imagine and so, you need to be a bit creative funding it:

  • By involving your suppliers and partly paying them after delivery. When the project is done, the Wikkelboat will create turnover because it will be rented out. This money can be used to pay off the suppliers;
  • By involving your clients and let them pay on forehand with an interesting discount;
  • Get some extra cash by leveraging this by the bank;
  • Check for possibilities to get some subsidies.

When going on board with investors, there are some things to keep in mind. The most important lesson of today if you ask me, was to make sure that you are still the chief of your company after the investments. If the investor pays for most of your company, they have a lot of rights to make big decisions as well. Because of this and because quite a few investors do not like to take risks on their own in an early stage startup, it’s a good idea to match investors to fund the company.

After finding the right investor(s) for your company, always make sure you do your research on them and make sure that when they do research on you, which they will, your story will be good! Your story should be the one that makes them go on board with you and the idea of your company should be clear and unique. Doing research about them might seem a bit out of the ordinary, but when you promise someone to spend the rest of your life with them, you want to know them first right? Well guess what… when you choose your investors, you will spend your business life with them! You can ask around for information about the investor in your own network or find someone the investor has worked with or invested in already. Make sure the ideas and goals your investor has, are the same as yours.

Most (angel)investors know each other and are willing to invest in your company together. Know this: they will nog arrange this for you! Be on top of it and make sure to find the right mix of investors for your company.