Whether you are thinking to expand your business abroad or whether you are already preparing for it, you will find answers in this article and the video at the end.
Internationalizing your business requires preparation, discipline and internal organisation which put together will lead you to incredible results.
In our daily work at weGrow we often get asked, how can you - as a founder of a potentially fast-growing company - best expand into new markets: Where to go next? How to structure this process? And how to best approach these expansion steps?
To make it simpler on how to look at this process, weGrow has developed a founder journey towards internationalization.
Firstly, it is important to know which market(s) to go.
Germany? France? Belgium? Or directly to the USA? With a structured approach of both quantitative data and qualitative insights, the answer is not so far off. Ideally, clear market prioritization is in place. If all stakeholders also agree on it, even better.
Secondly, you need to critically evaluate whether you are ready as an organization - or not. If not, what needs to be put in place in terms of resources, product improvements or team structures for example.
Once you determined where to go next and which roadblocks internally still need to be taken care of, it is time to hit the action button. But wait - hold your horses just for a short moment: Let's make a go-to-market plan. It is so much easier with this in place.
Working with many multi-national clients in more than 12 countries, we can only confirm how important it is to take local business culture into consideration for this step. Do you need to localize your product? Your marketing channels? Your proposition? Most probably. At least a little bit.
Now it is time to roll out your market and get results fast. With the right team structure and organizational setup in place, this will be easier and more sustainable. Promised. Keep a good eye on your internal company culture in this phase. It will make (or break) the success for international expansions, that's what we see often enough in real life.
Okay, and now the last step - quite often neglected but potentially adding long-term value: Train your organizational, internal muscle-memory. Capture learnings, let others in on mistakes done, create playbooks out it. Why? Because scaling and repeating this expansion steps will become so much easier. We love doing this step together with companies because then we know: Here we got a potential unicorn.
weGrow helps businesses to grow internationally and unlocking all of their potential in the markets in which founders wish to expand, how? By connecting the right expertise to every problem, creating opportunities that are unseen at first sight and making businesses reach results sometimes equal to 700% growth.
We work with 50+ international growth experts all over Europe, Israel, and the USA.
Do you want to stay updated with all the other steps of our founder's journey? Let us know on our LinkedIn post by leaving comments below!
Start your next international journey or if you are facing problems on the way.
We are open to answer any of your questions with one of our experts in the field!
⬇️ Watch our 1st video to learn what are you need to have in place to start thinking ⬇️ in expanding your business internationally. (or via this post)
