Top 10 Ways to Take an European Company Global
We are now only a couple of weeks away from the BIG European conference LeWeb3 organised in Paris by my fellow Frenchman Loic Le Meur from SixApart.
I’ll participate to a discussion called “Can European companies go global?”. The answer is obviously “yes” but what’s more interesting is to figure out “how”. I will of course draw some conclusions from our own experience at AllPeers and in preparation for my talk here are my top 10 strategies an entrepreneur from a small European startup should follow:
1- Solve a global problem. At AllPeers we are addressing the issue of easily sharing large (quantity of) files with Friends, Family, Colleagues. Email was invented for text, FTP is for uber-geeks and web-based offers require uploading your private files to the cloud.
2- Target a global niche/community. Of course in our case, this is the very active Firefox community. Be the indisputable leader in your niche before trying to reach outside of it.
3- Release early, often, incorporate feedback from your early users and then launch. This is what we are doing indeed since the very first private beta in March of this year and the feedback we are receiving is extremely valuable as we are building the product to a level we feel it is ready for mass adoption.
4- Run a corporate blog in English. Be open about your progress. Thanks to this blog, we were picked up by TechCrunch and then everybody else.
5- Keep your costs down. Even if there is a bubble, even if money seems to grow on trees these days, have a culture for keeping your costs as low as possible until you start accumulating revenues. Having our development center in Central Europe is one of our biggest asset.
6- Plan localization from day one. The last thing you want to do is to have to rewrite your basic code to be able to go outside of your home market.
7- Build a multi-cultural team. Out of 14 people, we have 7 different nationalities in the team allowing us to compare and challenge how certain markets will react to certain messages.
8- Be original. Don’t import an existing concept. Sorry but this is just too lame.
9- Communicate on the US market. Journalists from other countries are reading the US news too and they will contact you directly.
10- Aim big. Be ambitious. The more difficult the task is, the more rewarding it is when it’s a success. I guess this is about self-esteem.
Extra bonus point: keep your sense of humor, it’s the universal language!
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Great post, Cédric! Spot on!
Comment by Tristan — 11/30/2006 @ 12:39 am
*blush* thanks. Looking forward to seeing you again in Paris!
Comment by Cedric — 11/30/2006 @ 10:41 am
Good points ! wich you the best luck with everything ! allpeers is great ! i love it!
Comment by Ben Borges — 11/30/2006 @ 1:53 pm