A founder's guide to global expansion

With market dynamics shifting and funding environments tightening, founders are looking beyond their home markets for growth. As investors, we’re seeing more companies turn to global expansion earlier in their journey — but expansion is a sharp learning curve, even for experienced SaaS founders.

What questions do you have about scaling internationally? Let us know in the comments ??

In fact, almost every aspect of running your company could be different in another market, from pricing and sales to marketing and regulation (hence why we've spoken at length about navigating international expansion for Europe-based founders and India-based founders).

Turning to the expertise of Insight's investors, Onsite experts, and successful portfolio companies, we curated the seven steps to a successful international expansion:

1?? Decide which market to enter

Focus on geographies with inbound interest, similarities to your home market, or neighboring countries. Then, look for positive signals like customer demand, competitor presence, and a large total addressable market (TAM). Avoid high-cost-of-living cities and localize carefully to overcome cultural barriers.

2?? Understand legal and regulatory frameworks

Decide whether to form a local subsidiary or use an employer of record. Use local advisers to navigate local requirements (e.g., data privacy, licensing) and ensure legal compliance. Understand federal and state laws, employment rules, and tax complexities for U.S. expansion, particularly for regulated industries and tech companies.

3?? Localize product and pricing

Reconfirm product-market fit (PMF) for your new market, and change your product if you need to. Test your pricing depending on local willingness to pay (WTP), which is typically highest in the U.S. In other markets, consider entry-level tiers or discounting.

4?? Establish sales motion with local partnerships

Work with resellers, distributors, and advisers to build market presence. Channel partners can help you localize, access customers, and navigate on-the-ground nuances before your sales team is fully operational. Treat early partners like gold to create a flywheel that strengthens your local foothold.

5?? Build local teams and support

Seek out hires with experience working in international businesses, prioritising go-to-market (GTM) roles. Attract them by communicating your commitment to the new market, using local recruiters, events, and partnerships. Promote a global identity by focusing on clear communication, cross-office collaboration, and cross-cultural education.

To decide which market to expand into, establish a cross-functional project team to work together and make an informed decision. The team should include representatives from key departments such as tech, legal, finance, people, operations and executive leadership, and must consider the perspectives and expertise of each department.

6?? Tailor marketing strategies

Adapt marketing for each region. Start with localized content and SEO to refine your messaging before investing in paid digital. Avoid overspending early, and focus on buyer research to understand what works. A layered, measured approach will promote sustainable pipeline growth while aligning with regional buyer expectations.

7?? Optimize infrastructure and measure success

Ensure your infrastructure, including data centers and customer support, can sustain international growth. Set metrics to track success, starting with pipeline generation, active opportunities, and closed deals. Over time, shift focus to measurable revenue contribution. If you don't have momentum by year two, re-evaluate market fit or adjust your GTM strategy.

Just take it from Templafy and Copado:

Templafy: Rebranding to scale in the U.S. market

Templafy , an AI-powered enterprise document generation platform, faced the challenge of enhancing its brand presence in the competitive U.S. market. With its roots in Copenhagen, Denmark, Templafy’s initial brand image did not resonate with American businesses, limiting its ability to communicate its value and attract new clients.

Templafy partnered with Insight Partners’ Onsite Advisory team to view marketing efforts with a new lens. Through collaborative workshops and strategic planning sessions, Onsite empowered Templafy’s leadership to make decisions that more effectively resonated with their audience.

“The Insight Onsite team provided crucial support throughout Templafy’s rebranding initiative,” says Jesper Theill Eriksen , CEO of Templafy. “The Onsite team worked with us to analyze market trends, refine messaging, and align the brand with U.S. enterprise expectations.”

The rebrand delivered tangible results. Templafy modernized its image, emphasizing innovation and its mission to help enterprises efficiently create revenue-generating documents. The effort significantly boosted visibility, client engagement, and new business opportunities. “The overall impact has been a major increase in brand recognition and growth,” adds Eriksen.

Reflecting on their collaboration with Templafy, Meg Fitzgerald , SVP at Insight Partners, says, “This partnership shows how important the nuances of entering a new market can be. While the same product can bring value to customers in multiple markets, the branding may need to be tweaked to resonate within each new global territory.”

“This partnership shows how important the nuances of entering a new market can be. While the same product can bring value to customers in multiple markets, the branding may need to be tweaked to resonate within each new global territory.” — Meg Fitzgerald

By partnering with Onsite and sharpening its brand identity, Templafy unlocked new opportunities and positioned itself for sustained growth in a key market.

Copado: Finding the optimal monetization strategy

Copado , a DevOps platform that streamlines the software development lifecycle of low-code SaaS applications, prepared to launch its AI capabilities to a new market. But the team faced a critical challenge: developing a clear monetization strategy that aligned its AI capabilities with customer needs, system capabilities, and revenue goals. Without a structured approach to pricing and packaging, Copado risked failing to drive adoption and driving efficient revenue growth.

Partnering with Insight Partners’ Onsite team, Copado leveraged the GenAI Monetization Framework.* The framework is designed to bring structure and focus to the monetization process, while maintaining a revenue focus.

“The most helpful part of the engagement with Onsite was a packaging design workshop, during which we brought in a small cross-functional team to redesign our ‘end state’ packaging structure,” says Ted Elliott , CEO of Copado.

The results were immediate and measurable. “We developed a target end-state that provided a ‘north star’ for our go-to-market and product initiatives. This includes how we attack new business opportunities and drive expansion in our customer base,” adds Elliott.?? Copado was also able to better structure their pricing strategy process, implement a cross-functional roadmap, and set a long-term vision for their packaging strategy.??

“Developing a hypothesis for an end-state monetization model allowed Copado to work backwards to determine how they should evolve their packaging and pricing, knowing there will be many more iterations along the way." — Ethan DeSilva

“Developing a hypothesis for an end-state monetization model allowed Copado to work backwards to determine how they should evolve their packaging and pricing, knowing there will be many more iterations along the way. The Copado team rightly prioritized optimizing adoption, which will give them more optionality for monetization down the line,” says Ethan DeSilva , vice president at Insight Partners.

By achieving clarity on their monetization strategy, Copado successfully launched its AI product while positioning itself for long-term success. *The GenAI Monetization Framework is a proprietary tool Insight Partners’ Onsite team uses to support portfolio companies.

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