5 Key Insights from Foriba: Scaling an Enterprise Product in a Regulated Industry
Glocal is a podcast on locally incubated global startup success stories.
Foriba (featured in Ep.3) is an extensive e-invoicing solution with enterprise capabilities that has grown to $20M+ in ARR in 10 countries.
1- Platform play
Foriba's team had unique experience on SAP integrations and they decided to levarage on that after the Turkish government passed the e-invoicing regulation. With seamless SAP integrations, Foriba managed to acquire most -if not all- large SAP customers in Turkey. Foriba still pursues this platform strategy to reach large enterprises and further differentiate its offering.
2- Expansion playbook
Surprisingly, Turkey was already a very mature market in electronic invoicing and that helped Foriba get to a sophisticated and extensive product while still operating domestically. As the e-invoicing regulation passed in different geographies, Foriba acted fast to become an early entrant in those markets and followed a similar SAP centered enterprise startegy.
3- Multinationals
Foriba levaraged on its existing multinational customers while expanding to different countries. Strongly recommended to other regional subsidiaries, Foriba got its initial international customer introductions from its existing customer base in Turkey. These multinational enterprises became the main driver of growth and expansion.
4- Re-seller partners and network projects
As the consulting companies recommended the product to their customers, they became natural Foriba re-sellers. Foriba also partnered up with more than 200 accounting softwares to reach SME customers more effectively with a very low touch sales model. The company also developed network projects with big platform players like Uber (auto e-invoicing for drivers) and Shell (auto e-invoicing for dealers).
5- Horizontal product growth
Foriba built further defensibility through different products around its core e-invoicing solution. These include electronic ledger, electronic archive, electronic records solutions etc. The company is working on a supply chain financing product, that would take its potential to a whole new level!
Bonus: Market consolidation
Foriba acquired its largest competitor in Turkey to fully own the market. Given the regulation heavy and local dynamics of the model, Foriba aims to continue to acquire companies in different geographies and become the dominant global player.
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