tech-companySo I have this awesome app that me and a couple of friends have been working on for four years or so. It’s approaching a state of being finished and is well received by our users.
Now we’re working on making the whole thing profitable. Hopefully it’ll all go well. The problem is that we’re from a fairly small country (Sweden) and our app is kind of bound to country-level markets, so we’re considering expanding.
Technically it’s fairly easy to release in another country. Shouldn’t be more than a weeks work or so. But feels almost pointless if we don’t have knowledge of the players on the market and someone local to develop business relations, sign partnership contracts etc.
So, my question is: How do you come into contact with a business developer in another country?
We’re primarily interested in targeting the US or a large European country such as UK or Germany.
With international expansion, as with most things, the rule is to outsource what you understand.
So you need to start by asking two questions:
1. Do you have a detailed map of how it’s working in Sweden?
2. Do you know that what you have under (1) can, on principle, be replicated in another country?
3. Is there a clear business model for the app itself, and a clear and objective way of valuing the contribution of a business developer?
If your answer to any of these is “no,” you’re probably not ready to do a deal that you can be confident in, though that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start building relationships.
If everything is a nice ringing “yes,” then I would suggest you do some preliminary work to select your next target market. Is there a way you can quickly characterise the opportunity, the competitive landscape, the work required to get started, and the operational implications? Because you only have a first new market once, invest time up-front so you know, during the near-inevitable period when it’s taking all of your time for no reward, that it’s worth pressing ahead.
So now you have a framework for a workplan and a deal, and a target country. Now it’s time to reach out. By definition, jobbing business developers should be easy to find, but they may be hard to prequalify. So you should do two things.
First, work your network. LinkedIn is made precisely to help you to reach out into and out from your network, and to get some rounded perspective on people you don’t know.
Second, work out how to make a non-exclusive deal that’s no regrets for both parties. There’s a good chance you won’t connect with the right person first off, so work out a deal shape that you can, if you need to, offer to more than one person. A great business developer is going to argue you out of this, but so is a lousy one, so you need to think through how to negotiate. Great business developers want to keep their networks to themselves, so trading some exclusivity (e.g. for a particular type of partner, or in a particular geography, for a set period) for activity reporting and associated targets is a way of finding a win/win compromise.
Now you have the deal ready, push its headlines out through your networks, have something with a little more detail to send people who express interest, then screen and interview in exactly the way you would if you were hiring. You don’t just need someone who’s good, you need someone who’s good for your team, and who you will be happy to represent your company and your propositions in a country that’s remote from you.
That’s me done with the straight answer. There’s another totally different strategy I’ve seen work out pretty well for some people.
If there’s a market that is really a natural for your app, chances are that there’s an accelerator that would love to hear from you. It’s often easier to outsource looking after your home market (or for part of the team to stay put), while you locate yourself where you want to be next. You don’t have to do this via an accelerator, of course, but even the application process will help you focus, lead you into new relationships, and potentially offer a great way to de-risk without giving up too much in the process.
I’m not sure what exactly you have, but if you can share then I can see about it in VN/Asea. I also have a bit experience in the international business. Good luck. Viet Anh
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