Extract of the presentation done in Porto Alegre about how to go international as a digital startup.

1. DO’s & DON’Ts
for startups going
international
Sébastien Flury seb@startupolic.com
@sebastienflury +41 78 822 96 47
Swiss ICT Week
October 29th, 2015

2. ABOUT ME
Entrepreneur
(founder & CEO of Coteries)
Blogger
(startupolic.com)
Program Director
(Fintech FUSION)
34, Married, 3
children
Master in Management
(HEC Lausanne & TH Karlsruhe)

3. DON’Ts

4. Be naive
Don’t…

5. Do it remotely
Don’t…

6. Do it alone
Don’t…

7. Forget
customer
services
Don’t…

8. Run out of
money
Don’t…

9. DO’s

10. Think global
from day 1
Do…

11. Market
Researches
Do…

12. FOCUS:
country by
country
Do…

13. Test your
assumptions
Do…

14. Set objectives
Do…

15. Close
partnerships
Do…

16. Adapt your
offering
Do…

17. Become
(G)LOCAL
Do…

18. The reasons
to go
international

19. Customer sale

20. Partnership

21. Strategy

22. Strategies
1. No exporting
2. Via local agent
3. Joint-Venture
4. Owned subsidiary

23. No exporting - DeinDeal

24. No exporting - QoQa

25. No exporting – Ricardo

26. Local agent - Doodle

27. Joint-Venture - Homepad

28. Subsidiary - FuelRod

29. How to do it?

30. INTROSPECTION
List your
internal assets

31. Global vision from day 1?
Do the founders have
• international experience?
• international business
network?
Which languages do your team
master?

32. MARKET
Define your targeted country
/ region

33. Understand the market structure,
strengths & weaknesses of the
players (SWOT)
Research the legal framework

34. Understand customer behaviors
Does the location of your servers
matter?

35. CULTURE
Understand & respect it!

36. Read about the history of the
country
How do people react to your
country of origin?

37. Which languages are spoken?
Attitudes toward languages?
Visit it as a tourist!

38. What does “Awesome” really mean
in USA?
Beware slang issues
Take off your shoes in Japan!

39. CUSTOMERS
Define target customers

40. Distributors
vs
End-customers

41. Sales cycle
(timeframe, cost,
process, #interactions)

42. Define 10 customers
Meet at least 3
Be agile!
Listen, learn, adapt

43. RECRUIT
Hire a local team

44. Hire experienced people
(best: entrepreneurs!)
Give autonomy

45. Be supportive, responsive
and present
BUT:
Don’t micro-manage

46. REPLICATE
Which country next?

47. Transferrable knowledge
(documents, etc.)
Experiential knowledge
(culture similarities)

48. SWISS CULTURE

49. Cold attitude (first impression)
Conscientious, serious
Don’t like “show-offs”
Hard-working
Skepticism

50. SOME (bad)
EXAMPLES

51. Vistaprint
Supplied from Germany (taxes)

52. Amazon
Not even a Swiss website!

53. eBay
Website only in German

54. A (good)
EXAMPLE

55. Zalando
https://youtu.be/QouDGhMB78c
English ad with subtitles, but linking to
Swiss cities

56. STARTUP
STRATEGIES

57. Kickstarter to go
California
Dacuda.com: $500k
Neeo.com: $1.5M

58. Hiring international trainees
Trainees

59. Hiring
53 people in 40 cities
Team spread across the globe
Ultimate of internationalization?

60. Switzerland on European
map

61. ADVANTAGES

62. Multi-languages
(German, French, Italian, English, Portuguese, Spanish)
Multi-cultural
(24% foreigners, 50% of the population coming from
immigration)

63. Political stability
(rules don’t change often, “survivable” bureaucracy, etc.)
Multinational companies
(Nestle, Novartis, Roche, Merck-Serono, Google,
Evernote, Disney Research, IBM, Microsoft, Intel,
Logitech, ABB, Rolex, Swatch, Adecco, 50 international
sport organizations, etc.)

64. Top research institutes
(EFPL, ETHZ, CERN, CSEM, Idiap, etc.)
#ComputerGraphics #ComputerVision
#AugmentedReality
#Computing #BigData
#Cybersecurity
#ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning

65. 3 international airports
(1h from London, Berlin, Paris, Roma)
Close to everything
(2h30 drive from Geneva to Zürich)

66. INCONVENIENCES

67. Cost of living
(but comparable to San Francisco or New York)
Small domestic market
(only 8M inhabitants)

68. ENTER SWITZERLAND
BEFORE…
1. … Germany
2. … France
3. … Italy

69. STRATEGIES TO
ENTER
SWITZERLAND
AS A STARTUP

70. Cooperate with a tech
institute
Get Swiss DNA
(hire Swiss people)

71. Inform yourself on
www.startupolic.com www.startupticker.ch
Or contact me ;-) !
seb@startupolic.com
+41 78 822 96 47