How do you scale across markets and geographies?

1 Understand your target markets

Before you enter a new market or geography, you need to understand its characteristics, opportunities, and risks. You need to conduct market research to identify the size, demand, trends, and competition in your target market. You also need to analyze the cultural, legal, political, and economic factors that may affect your business. For example, you may need to adjust your pricing, branding, or distribution channels to suit the local preferences and regulations. You may also need to consider the language, communication, and etiquette differences that may influence your customer relationships and marketing strategies.

2 Validate your product-market fit

Once you have a clear picture of your target market, you need to validate your product-market fit. This means ensuring that your product or service solves a real problem or meets a real need for your potential customers. You can use various methods to test your product-market fit, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, landing pages, or beta testing. You should aim to collect feedback from your target audience and measure their willingness to pay, satisfaction, retention, and referrals. You should also compare your value proposition and differentiation with your competitors and identify your unique selling points.

3 Choose your entry strategy

After you have validated your product-market fit, you need to choose your entry strategy. This means deciding how you will launch, distribute, and promote your product or service in your target market. You have several options to choose from, such as exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, partnerships, or direct investment. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages in terms of costs, risks, control, and scalability. You should weigh the pros and cons of each option and select the one that best suits your goals, resources, and capabilities.

4 Build your local team

One of the key factors for scaling across markets and geographies is building your local team. You need to recruit, train, and manage people who can help you execute your entry strategy and grow your business in your target market. You should look for people who have the skills, experience, and knowledge of the local market and culture. You should also consider the legal and practical aspects of hiring and retaining employees in different countries, such as contracts, taxes, benefits, and visas. You should also establish clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations for your local team and communicate regularly with them.

5 Adapt and iterate

Finally, you need to adapt and iterate your product or service, as well as your business model and processes, based on the feedback and data you collect from your target market. You should monitor your key performance indicators, such as sales, revenue, profit, market share, customer satisfaction, and retention. You should also listen to your customers, partners, and employees and learn from their insights and suggestions. You should be willing to make changes and improvements to your product or service, as well as your pricing, marketing, or operations, to better serve your target market and achieve your growth objectives.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?