International Corner International Corner

And… that’s a wrap for Season 1 of the International Corner Podcast !


A few numbers to share:


21 episodes packed with global expansion intel’
Guests coming from more than 12 different countries
More than 1500 listenings
Around 100 hours of editing & topic definition 
The first thing that comes to my mind is a heartfelt thank you.


Thank you to…


… My amazing guests for their insights


… You…My audience… for your feedback and your continuous listening


It’s been an incredible learning journey so far and I’m thrilled to hear how it has helped some of you in your global expansion projects :)


As a wrap-up gift for season 1, I’ve created a special episode that sums up 5 aspects to consider to successfully launch any market.


You’ll hear a computation of pieces of advice from most of the guests I received in this podcast so far.


The 5 aspects we are going to deep dive in today’s episode:

#1 Plan your market expansion 

#2 Focus on People & Culture

#3 Leverage marketing early

#4 Create influence

#5 Leverage partnerships

€3 millions of ARR. A 20-people team. Global expansion from day 1. Bootstrapped.  


I had the pleasure to host Sunny Paris , CEO of NoCrm sharing his secret recipe of how NoCRM used product led-growth to sell internationally.


His best advice on the topic:


Don’t listen to advice and ask yourself if product-led growth is the right strategy for you?
Have a message that is aligned from outside the app to the inside of the app 
Check you onboarding process constantly and perfect it

On top of thesse pieces of advice on product led growth, you can expect to hear about:


acquisition channels they have used to scale in several markets
choices they have made (or not) to prioritize their product roadmap to fit needs of diverse markets
How they started global from day 1 

He moved from Brazil to Denmark and had to find work to pay his bills.


After hundreds of sent applications with unsuccessful results, he stopped with traditional methods.


He focused on content creation instead


He created a blog about business in Brazil.
He published Youtube videos.
He started to have a presence on linkedin
He created a network and founded his first business.

Fast forward to now, Carlos is the CEO of Evolve, his 3rd Venture.


What led him to be successful ? Relationships he created and he leveraged throughout the years.


He was so good about connecting with people that he started to help companies build influence in a new market to generate business.


He shares with us his process to build influence in a new market to scale revenue!


What you can expect to learn:


His 5-step methodology to build a network from scratch in a foreign country
How to leverage local consultants to build influence
Concrete examples of how you can reach out to people to build a network

Quentin Debavelaere, GM UK, Benelux &  Nordics at Malt learnt the secret of how to launch a new market every time faster.



After opening Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and now the UK, he found 2 key aspects to consider to nail your GTM strategy.


No matter the geography.


People and Localization.


If I had 1 tip for each aspect to share with you (from him) it would be these ones :


Don’t wait to hire a local country manager to launch the market (People)
Don’t apply blindly the headquarters GTM strategy, it’s important to trust your employee locally and have people in these markets with entrepreneurial mindset (Localization)

There were many other recommendations, but I’ll let you find out yourself in the episode ;)

Are you looking to launch the German market and struggling?


Well… even though global expansion is a way to grow your business exponentially, let’s not forget that it is NOT an easy road.


When you look out there, there are so many success stories that are highlighted.


But for each success, you have 9 other…”learning” stories.


Shiraz Buelbecker, ex- country launcher Germany for Papernest shares with us why the launch wasn’t successful on the partnership/business development side for 1.5 years.


We go through the whole story of what did not work and the learnings they got from that ride!


what you can expect:


Why outbound outreach did not work as their first lead acquisition channel
The importance of adapting your approach and your product
“Go big or go Home”: invest in people & marketing early to make it work

You’ve launched a new country and closed the first few million dollars. Now how do you scale the business?


It doesn’t require the same skillset, the same plan, the same processes and sometimes even… the same people.


That’s the question Caroline Sauvegrain, CEO UK at Theodo
 

She shares with us the plan she set up 8 months ago when she took over the UK market to set the right foundation to go to the next stage of growth.


Expect to hear:


The mistake she made at the start when she arrived, that 90% of country managers do at the start 😱
Her 2-step plan she has been rolling out to make sure Theodo scales efficiently there
Concrete examples of what her team is doing differently now, that they were not doing in the previous stage of growth