 Hi, my name is Jillian Girvich and I advise high tech startups on commercialization at MTech Ventures and I manage the Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund, both of which are at the University of Maryland. Thank you for joining us today. I'll be your moderator for today's global innovation through science and technology or just Tech Connect conversation on developing customers abroad. For many startups to scale and grow, they will need to enter new markets that are outside of their city, region, or even country. However, identifying and developing a customer base abroad requires a deep understanding of socioeconomic nuances, market conditions, competitors, and potential customer segments. Remember, you can join the conversation by sending us your questions and comments through the chat space next to the video player or through Twitter at hashtag just Tech Connect. Let me begin by welcoming our panel of experts. Joining us today in the studio is Mike Malloy, Program Director of the Halcyon Incubator, a non-profit incubator helping social entrepreneurs transform audacious ideas into scalable and sustainable ventures. Thank you, Mike. Joining us online is Kevin Barrow, the founder and CEO of Mark Labs, which delivers enterprise grade impact intelligence applications that provide deep, regular, and reliable insight into an organization's social impact. We are also joined by Rhonda Schrader, the Executive Director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Center, where she leads entrepreneurship initiatives for Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Thank you all for joining me today. As we wait for viewers to send us their questions, I'd like to kick off the discussion by asking you what are some key considerations that entrepreneurs should consider when conducting customer discovery? Mike, if you don't mind, let's start with you. Sure, that's a great question. I think one of the first things to keep in mind during the customer discovery phase is to not fall in love with your solution, but to fall in love with your customers and their problem and pain point. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs who, in their head, they've got the best idea and it's going to be great and think everyone will love it, but they haven't actually talked to the customers and the people who will be buying the product or service to understand, hey, is this solving a real problem or a pain point that they face on a consistent basis? Absolutely. I think that that's the number one failure point of startups is building something that no one wants, and so the process of customer discovery is really important to get to the bottom of what do your customers need. Rhonda, you work with early stage startups from across the globe. What are some strategies you've seen them use to expand into new markets? I do. Well, building on what both of you said, you were 100 percent right, and in dealing with startups outside of your home country, I think you need to be prepared to be surprised. What you think, your hypothesis about what your customers need and want could be very different, so prepare to hear an answer that's unexpected and act on that accordingly. Absolutely. Kevin, you are currently working on expanding your startup into new markets. What advice would you give startups trying to develop new customer segments abroad? The first advice I would give is to make no assumptions. Do not assume that you actually understand other markets. I think I'd say, currently, we are doing work in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Africa as well. In each of these markets, we see that functions that we would make for a platform in the US or Europe, definitely understand that there are stakeholder groups that have been taken into account, and so we definitely need to learn from your customers perspective. Absolutely. At the University of Maryland, I work with a variety of high-tech startups as they try to commercialize their technologies and reach their first customers. To echo what all of our panelists have already said, the thing that I advise them of the most strongly is to take the opportunity of doing customer discovery to really check your bias at the door because you walk into a conversation with a potential customer wanting to sell them what you are making and wanting to hear that they want what you are potentially providing. This is really an opportunity for you to listen and hear and try to understand what do they need and not what do you want to provide for them. So please remember to continue to post your questions in the chat space or through Twitter at hashtag just tech connect. And now let's take some questions from our online viewers. So the viewing group from IRC Windhoek Namibia has asked, what advice would you give for a startup to competitively price their products or services in a foreign market? Rhonda, let's start with you there. Well, pricing is always about value. What is the value you're bringing to your customers? So I think understanding and getting a strong grasp of what value you're bringing will help you in your pricing. Absolutely. And I would just add to that that value is not necessarily how much money you are saving them. It could be something that you're making easier for them. It could be the value of not going with another alternative. And so I would encourage all of our viewers to think about value really broadly. So the next question is, how can you identify customer segments abroad? And Kevin, let's go to you on this one. Absolutely. Well, this starts off with how we began the conversation, thinking about customer discovery. But I think more than that is understanding the value of opposition of your platform and thinking about where you would either save money, create a settlement of speed or ease the lives of your stakeholders in a country that you are contemplating. What's important is that the point that's being addressed must be so urgent that customers are willing to get capital. That's something which we're going through in multiple countries. And what we found is that just hitting it home is that there are no assumptions can be made. Yeah, that's a great point. And so, Mike, this is a question for you. How would you suggest our viewers connect with potential customers abroad to set up a customer discovery interview? Yeah, I think the best way to connect is to leverage your network and think about people that you know in those countries or in those markets. If you know zero people in South Africa, that's probably not the best place to go next. Think about either former colleagues or classmates or people you've done business with that are in these markets that you could reach out to, potentially to do an interview with them, but more specifically to ask for referrals and to make it really, really easy for the people in those markets to forward along an email that they can share with two or three or five or ten people that they know to help you schedule those customer interviews. I've found with the entrepreneurs I've worked with, you may have to reach out to a hundred different individuals to get ten interviews. It's kind of a sales funnel there of how do you actually get them to agree to a 30 to 60 minute meeting to extract some knowledge from them. And then at the end of each of those interviews, it's a great practice to then ask for referrals. Who else do you know that I should talk to? Who else do you know that has this problem or pain point? Would you be willing to make a warm introduction? Or could I reach out and say, hey, Jolene told me I should talk to Kevin. And then Kevin's like, oh, you know Jolene? Yeah, of course I'll talk to you. Yeah, I think that that really rings true. And I would encourage everyone, don't get discouraged if you don't get a lot of responses back immediately. It takes, as Mike mentioned, you might have to send out dozens of emails to get back one response. But that doesn't mean that that one response that you get and that interview that will follow won't be really valuable. So definitely continue to sort of push and try to get in contact with potential customers. I'd like to actually ask Rhonda and Kevin the same question. What are some strategies, what are some additional strategies that our viewers might take to set up interviews abroad? Well, I think one of the strategies is to leverage folks who are in place to help you, such as in major cities around the world. There are organizations like Chambers of Commerce, business organizations, consulates, they are very happy to help you start, but you need to make it easy for them to say yes. So make sure that your introduction that you send to them is only two or three lines long, something that they can start sending out to help you get those initial interviews. And then it's like a snowball rolling down the hill. It just becomes bigger and bigger as you go on. So it does get easier. Yep, absolutely. And Kevin, do you have anything to add to that based on your experience? I would say that it is absolutely essential that you establish trust with your early customers in any university that you are looking to expand. So that begins with the way that you engage in your customer recovery. Asking open-ended questions means actually being able to listen to what are the drivers of value for those particular customers and stakeholders that you're doing. And I think that Ronda has responded with absolutely perfect otherwise. Great. So the next question from our audience is what are strategies to learn about a new ecosystem? And Kevin, let's start with you. So I think you actually have to be there, to think if you can start off with Google, that might give you a survey and that's definitely not going to give you the same insights that looking into your customer's eyes, observing the ways that they're suggesting the problems, your platform that your business is designed to address. It's really important that you get local really quickly and that you find out who are the thought leaders, who are the influencers in those markets that you can potentially serve and build relationships with them and learn from those early customers that you want to engage. Great. Ronda, do you have anything to add to that? I do. Kevin was spot on. It's important to get local quickly. But one tool I find really helpful is to actually map it out. Get a piece of paper, get sticky notes, map out your assumptions, your hypotheses about who are the major players, how is the information, how is data, how is money flowing between those, and then go test those assumptions. We teach this in all of our classes and for me it's fundamental because I can't keep all these things in my head. And Mike, you work with students at the Halcyon Incubator. What strategies have you advised them to take when trying to learn about a new ecosystem abroad? Yeah, I think to learn about an ecosystem you want to understand who are the super connectors, who are the people that have lots and lots of different nodes and people that they work with, whether it's funders or entrepreneurs, incubators, co-working spaces, service providers, law firms can actually be great connectors if they're well connected in kind of the industry that you're working in. We work with lawyers from Arnold and Porter and Bracewell that know lots of different startups, as well as investors and even potential customers or potential customer discovery interview participants that they can introduce you to. Yeah, absolutely. So the next question from our audience is, do you recommend attending conferences in different markets to meet potential customers? And I'll sort of speak to this really quickly and then we'll throw it out to the panelists, but definitely when we have teams doing customer discovery, we definitely advise them to go to conferences in that market because that's sort of a hub for lots of folks in a specific industry or in an area to congregate and you really sort of get a lot of bang for your for your dollar and you get to meet hundreds of people just by attending one event for several days. And so in my experience working with startups, attending conferences has been really beneficial in in developing relationships and developing new new customers. But let's let's go back to Mike on this one. Do you recommend conferences? What's your experience with that? I definitely recommend conferences to Kevin's point meeting people in person is incredibly valuable. They also create a very dense space where there are lots of smart people that you want to interact with. And so, you know, as molecules in a tight space, you're going to collide with lots of different people and therefore be able to meet folks that you had no idea you needed to or wanted to meet. And then they can turn out to be some of the best advocates or connectors as you look to grow in that market. Yeah, definitely. And Rhonda and Kevin, do you have anything any sort of standout experiences that have happened at conferences or any any super connections that you've made by attending a conference that have really come to bear fruit over the years? Well, I have some examples of actually not being able to attend a conference, but of using the conference programs, which are usually published online. If you can't afford to attend the conference or you can't get there for whatever reason, use that as a launchpad as a jumping off point for connecting with people. And if you, you know, say, I'm so sorry I missed your presentation at X conference, but I'd really like to talk to you about why people are very flattered that you notice them and you crack them down and they're usually very willing to talk with you. Yeah, that's that's a really great point. Kevin, is there anything that you'd like to add? Absolutely. One thing that's really exciting that I've observed lately is that many conferences, which can be incredibly expensive, have started to offer scholarships for young people, for women, for traditionally excluded communities, people who are coming from more diverse backgrounds, to participate. And so never be shy to look for those opportunities. And if you don't see them explicitly, actually reach out to those conferences and ask if you might be able to purchase it. This is especially good for students who for many times, I know when I was a student, you know, conferences would typically waive the price, which could have been in the hundreds or some instances, even for thousands of dollars. Yeah, that's a great point. And I'll just all, I'll reiterate that just because it's so important. Definitely, if attending a conference is a financial decision, definitely email the organizers to see if there is a way that they could subsidize your ticket price or if there's some arrangement that you can work out because many times conference organizers are very flexible. And so the viewing group from Wind Hook Namibia asks, what are a few things that a startup should consider when deciding to expand abroad? Rhonda, let's start with you there. Well, I think the biggest thing goes back to the fundamentals. Do people in the country or market you're thinking about expanding to have the problem you're looking to solve? And I have a really good example of this. We recently worked with a company that had a sensor for diapers. Now, in their home country, parents loved getting updates, pings and notifications about the activity going on. When they came to the US, they quickly found within 15 interviews, parents didn't want that here. And they became very discouraged and said Americans don't care about their babies, which is not quite true. It just wasn't a problem here that needed to be solved. So I would keep that in mind, prepare to be surprised, but really try to validate quickly. Do people in this market have the problem you're trying to solve? Yeah, that's a great point and really illustrative example. You definitely don't want to try to enter a market that doesn't need your solution. And so this customer discovery process is really a way of validating that before you put in all of the time and money and effort into launching in a new market. Kevin, is there anything that you'd like to add in what startups should consider when they're deciding to expand abroad? Yes, I think it's particularly important that we also look at the political, the economic, the social, the non-technological, legal, and environmental implications. I'd like to give an example of social implications. There is a company which tried to offer refrigeration services, boxes to women in India. And there were rural women that, and the idea here, that they wanted to women had several days of supplies at home, but it didn't go off. And the idea that they have to go out into the market every day, which would take quite a bit of time if they were able to have a schooling box. But the company failed to realize that there was a really powerful social consideration about going out every day to fight vegetables. That was many times the only time that women could get out of the house and be able to supplies with repair. So really understanding that there are multiple things to take into account, many of which are the obvious and outside of perspective. Yeah, absolutely. So it's not just about what is that problem that you could be solving for your potential customers, but also what are the factors that are involved in the situation at hand? Are there other drivers that would prevent your product or your startup from being successful in this market? Mike, is there anything else that you'd like to add? Yeah, I would just add that thing about your supply chain and the ability to import or export goods into this new market. There's different freight forwarding services. There's different taxes that you might or might not be prepared to pay. And then the other variable, I think, is time zones. And how big is your team? And can you handle diversifying one hour away is not that big a deal. But if you're going 12 hours away on the other side of the world, do you want to be having meetings at midnight and staying up late to coordinate with the folks on the ground in those markets? And if you're a solo founder or a small team of one or two, it's really hard to be in several different geographic areas at one time. And I'd encourage you to think about scaling and meeting the demand at home before you think about going to 17 different countries, maybe prioritizing based on the results of your customer discovery in few different markets. Okay, which market do we want to go to next? Because there's clearly a demand there. Yeah, and that's a great point about the time zones is, you know, for startups where maybe the domestic market isn't so large to think about other markets sort of in the same time zone or in a sort of nearby geographical region so that it makes it a little bit easier to actually conduct operations on a day to day basis. So the next question that we have from the audience is what are key legal and trade considerations you should keep in mind when expanding to a new market? Kevin, let's start with you. Key legal and trade considerations. Well, making sure that you understand the regulatory market is incredibly important. And we're focusing on technological innovation and whether you're in the biomedical space and financial services and making sure you understand and appreciate local regulations and how governments and it might be compliance issues that around the service or product that you're hoping to provide to the market is incredibly essential. Are there some strategies that you would advise our viewers to take when trying to learn about these legal and trade regulations? Absolutely. Early research is something which you can definitely begin on your own, but I highly advise that you consult a professional, a legal professional. Many times, accountants are very good in terms of being able to provide this. This is especially important if you're dealing with data, a data privacy consideration, policies like GDPR in Europe, results in significant fines or liabilities if you're not being proactive in the way you manage and handle control data. As an example, they're just making sure that you are aware of any legal considerations that could potentially come directly or indirectly from the operations essential. That's a great point. Ronda, are there some other legal and trade considerations that you have seen startups tackle as they've entered new markets? I think Kevin had some great points about being proactive, talking with experts, doing your research to understand the context. The only other thing I would recommend is to stay on top of the news and really understand the political situation as well. Is this something where regulation is going to increase or decrease and really try to have some hypothesis, test those through your understanding of reading the news and keeping up and also test them with folks on the ground. Yeah, that's great. Mike, so we're based here in DC and so very close to all of the policies that are being made in the States. Are there any other sort of strategies or recommendations that you would make to our viewers on entering a new market when it comes to legal and trade? Yeah, I would talk to other entrepreneurs who've gone before you. Who do you know that started in the US or started in your home country and are now doing business? It doesn't have to be the same industry or direct competitor. It could be a friend who's selling a very different product, but you've seen their business significantly scale and their distribution increase by going to this new country X, ask them what did they expect when they started sign there and what were things that they had no idea and hadn't planned for and hey, this costs an extra $100,000 that we hadn't budgeted. Be prepared that you have to do X, Y, and Z to successfully get the business off the ground and perhaps market the product or service in the new country. Yeah, definitely going and talking to people who have done this before and gone before you can be a really valuable tool. So for those of you who are just joining us, you're watching the GIST Tech Connect conversation on developing customers abroad. I'm Jolene Gervic and I'm joined by panelists Mike Malloy, Rhonda Schrader, and Kevin Barrow and we are currently taking live questions from viewers so you can submit your questions through the chat space next to this video or on Twitter using hashtag GIST Tech Connect. So here's a question that I have for you. What are some common mistakes that you've seen startups make when trying to expand abroad? Mike, let's start with you. Yeah, so I've made some of these mistakes on my own as an entrepreneur and CEO of Waveborn Sunglasses of trying to expand internationally too quickly before you have both the capital and the team to be able to support again working in different time zones as well as handling different currencies. There are some challenges of understanding the price you sell for in one country or market might be drastically different than what customers in a new market are used to paying for that type of product or service which is why customer discovery is so important and instead of asking somebody in a new market, hey would you be willing to spend $200 on this instead of looking backwards, how much money have you spent in the last 12 months to solve this problem? And historically they'll tell you what they're actually spending as opposed to sometimes being nice and be like oh yeah I'd spend 200 bucks on that when in reality they're used to spending $20 and there's no way that they would spend 10 times as much on what you're doing. Absolutely. I think that a really effective way of asking some of these customer discovery questions is exactly the way that Mike just phrased it. Here are all the characteristics of my product and so how does this sound to you? Would this be useful? Instead asking so what have you done in the past to solve this problem or how much money have you spent on this problem in the past and that will give you a much more realistic understanding of what the threshold is for your potential customers. And so Rhonda what do you think? What are some mistakes that startups make as they expand into new markets? Not being willing to change after conditions change. As entrepreneurs and I'm speaking back from my not so distant past we become very enamored of our solutions and just because something works during one time period once conditions change doesn't mean we should double down on that strategy and do more of what worked in the past. You have to be flexible to change and I've learned this the hard way several times as an entrepreneur. Yeah that's a great point. The situation is always changing and if you want to be successful as a startup you have to adapt with that change. Kevin is there anything that you'd like to add? Both answers before were brilliant the only thing I would add is undervaluing the power of both effective mentorship from parties in country and effective partnership. Those could be really incredible tools for both gaining access reducing their customer acquisition costs and making sure that you minimize many of the mistakes that they're doing. Yeah that's a great point. So let's go back to some questions from our online participants. How should you focus your resources on entering a new market without hurting your operations in an existing market? So Mike it sounds like you have some firsthand experience with this. Let's let's start with you. Yeah I think it can be really challenging and it comes down to prioritizing sometimes what's urgent versus important and oftentimes getting into a new market is a big high-level strategy that's important but maybe not something that has to happen in the next 24 hours where if you have a customer in your current market who's really upset their order was messed up or you need to do some triage to help that customer I would say that is more important than kind of the bigger expansion into the new market. Another way to do it is by blocking off time on your calendar and saying hey for this four-hour block on Tuesdays I'm going to focus on market X and for this four-hour block on Wednesdays I'm focused on a different market and kind of compartmentalizing where you're working it can be really complicated and mentally draining to context switch back and forth especially if you're doing things in different languages or different currencies so to try to go deep in one market for a few hours do some deep work there and then come out and look at where you need to go next. Yeah Rhonda do you have any experience with this in your prior prior life as an entrepreneur how do you focus your resources on entering a new market without hurting your existing operations? Yeah Mike's answer was great and I would build on that by saying that you need to get clarity very quickly about what the market size is that you're addressing when you expand you can have hypothesis about it being one size but if it is really something if it's a smaller market you need to be very clear on that quickly so that you can prioritize accordingly. Yeah absolutely and Kevin is there anything else that you've experienced or any strategies that you've taken as you've expanded abroad about sort of still protecting your existing business? Absolutely expanding abroad is a huge company decision that would take up time resources and it's almost always much more difficult and expensive than it was beforehand so an important way to address this is regardless of whether you have a 3 or 30 making sure that your team is fully on board and ready willing and able to rise to the challenge. Yeah you bring up a great point is getting that buy-in from your team is so important because they are going to be the ones on the ground doing the work and if they are not fully supportive and if they don't think that it's a good strategy then it might it's you know it's just going to be a lot of a lot of work for them and it's going to be very challenging. So an online viewer asks a potential customer is asking me if my product has a patent is my patent a mandatory request in order to export? Kevin let's go let's go to you on this one. Absolutely not I do not believe that a patent it would be an it would be an necessary prerequisite for you to export however I do think it is important that you investigate whether you have IP which should be protected. If it is the case understand that filing for intellectual property rights in your home country does not provide you with property rights its actual property rights in other jurisdictions. So really speaking here within legal counts and understanding how intellectual property works and the extent to which you would need to potentially protect your IP when going to certain jurisdictions and one of the considerations you might need to have is incredibly essential. It's also important that you re-use it by contracts if it's the case that there's either sharing or potentially collaboration building out that application of your technology to a new market that might actually result in ownership in your product being co-oped by your partner. So making sure that you're really clear in terms of understanding what your industry is pointing to that statement as well as the nature of the partnership or the relationship being explored. Yeah. And Rhonda do you have any stories or experience with IP protection as a company expands abroad? I don't but what Kevin just said was a one-minute master class in everything you need to know so I would encourage the participants to rewind and watch that again and again that was perfect. Kevin yes that was really very informative. I think Mike has a story about IP protection abroad. So one of the companies that I mentored through the Georgetown summer launch program was originally named Cineva Super Coffee and it's kind of a high protein with coconut oil ready to drink coffee product. They found that as they looked to expand outside the US Cineva was also the name of a marijuana distribution company in Canada and had a few other products in Europe. So they worked with their lawyers and some distribution partners to rebrand and change their name to Kitu, K-I-T-U Super Coffee. They searched every country in the world. Kitu is not a thing anywhere else so in any market they wanted to expand to over time they could introduce their product wouldn't have to worry about any conflicts there and it's also that hard K sound similar to Coke which is another four-letter drink that's done pretty well selling around the world is kind of how they're looking to scale and be prepared with their name and their branding and their logo. Kitu also sounds like the K-I-T-U, Kitu diet that a lot of people are a big fan of these days so you know finding things that your naming and branding sounds like but doesn't contradict or won't bring up future issues I think is important as you look to expand in new markets. Yeah definitely I'll echo that just with thinking about the name of your company and the name of your brand you know not only are patents important to protect the technology but it's important that you're not sending the wrong message with the name of your company and so to do a little bit of research before you expand abroad into what the if there are any alternate interpretations of your brand name or your company name abroad is really important to do. So we have a question from our viewing group in Windhoek Namibia and they've asked how accurate and effective is online market research in understanding the opportunity in a new market. Rhonda let's start with you. Well I think it's a good starting point but there is no substitute for customer discovery you have to actually talk to the folks who may have the problem you want to solve you need to understand everything about them and you just simply can't get that by looking at resources online. You may get some ideas about the market size but again no substitute for customer discovery. Thank you Rhonda. Kevin what are what's your experience been with with online market research has it been helpful has it been effective? Where online market research is incredibly effective is helping you to understand what is that first iteration of questions that I might want to ask and validate. The reality is that the moment that online research marketing research is published is either obsolescent and in many circumstances for rapidly changing markets obsolete. So you want to make sure that you take that frame so that you might be able to understand but then delve really deep on the potential customers. That's great thank you. Mike have you experienced you know positive or negative on on market research? I think to kind of agree with Rhonda's point it's a starting place it's maybe the first 20% of the work to understand hey is it even worth trying to talk to people in this market or should I go somewhere else once you understand hey there is a big enough market there then you really need to go into the customer discovery mode and talking with individuals and potential customers on the ground there you know who can validate your hypotheses. So much of what you're doing in the early stages here is as a scientist having a hypothesis going out and testing it coming back analyzing the data reviewing your notes ideally with a colleague or two to you know see hey does this make sense you know this is what I heard being able to kind of paraphrase and play things back to the person during the interview can really hone in on valid answers that can support what it is that you're hoping to do there. Yeah these are all really great points so in summary online market research is a place to start but there's really nothing that can compare to being in a market in person and talking to your customers in person. So thank you thank you to our panelists. We have a question from our online viewer Muhammad in Kurdistan and he's asked how can an entrepreneur identify and connect with investors in a foreign market. Mike let's start with you. I think Angel List is a great place to go Angel.co to see who are the investors in that market that are investing in companies in your industry. I also think the best way is to talk to other entrepreneurs that that investor has invested in and build a relationship with them and then ask them for a warm introduction to the investor. Most investors don't necessarily reply to cold emails so having somebody that either they've co-invested in deals with or someone that they've invested in their company directly making that introduction is a much better way to get that them to basically pick up the phone and talk to you. I also think when you're pitching or when you want to set up the meeting with the investor saying hey we're looking to come to your country we know you're one of the best investors in this industry for us to be successful we think you know partnering with you and with the network that they have whether it's distribution channels or you know customers that other invested the other companies in their portfolio sell to that they can kind of piggyback and have some channel partnerships there can be really valuable. I also think if you go to an investor and say hey you know a $250,000 investor or investment gets us Kenya like we can go into Kenya with a quarter of a million dollars that's something tangible they feel like they can buy or like that their money will make a scalable and real impact in the business's growth. Yeah that's a great point. Rhonda do you have anything to add to that? Well I think also those were great answers and great suggestions. I would also think about going to incubators and accelerators and talking about who they work with. Those folks are going to be able to give you some local context and again it's all going back to the fundamentals. Any investor that you talk to you want to understand what their strategic goals are what the size of the check is they're writing and also something that often gets overlooked where they are in the life cycle of that fund. If someone is almost at the end of a fund you need to understand how much money they have left or if you can get any sort of read on that that's going to be a very different conversation than if someone is at the beginning of a life cycle of a fund and they have a big pot of money so really try to understand those dynamics when you go to talk to investors. Absolutely that's a really great point. Kevin is there anything that has really worked well for you when trying to connect with investors in a foreign country? I would say also start with your network at home and see whether they might be able to help create bridges to investors in your target country and outside of investors at home and people within your network I would also look at domestic companies companies in your home country and may have significant operations in your target country for which your product or service might be complementary or add some sort of value. That's a really great way of being able to access capital through corporate VCs. The final thing that I would advise is especially if you're in the social impact space it might be interesting for you to look at the family offices. Family offices are the private investment houses of extremely wealthy people in the respective country and here it's often times easier to access family offices or it can be easier to access family offices than venture capitalists and if you're doing something that has a social benefit or is advancing the UN sustainable development goals that typically the types of projects that family offices love to support. That's a great point on family offices and one thing that I'll add to the conversation is most investors at least in the US have a very strong presence on Twitter and so Twitter can be a really valuable tool for getting in touch with investors for for sort of learning what they're thinking about what markets are thinking about what companies they're excited about and even connecting with other companies that investors have funded. Twitter, LinkedIn, social media can be a really valuable tool to kind of get in touch with these people and build relationships with them. So we have a question from our viewing group in L-Space Tunisia and it is what are a few strategies for finding key partners and distributors in foreign markets? Rhonda, do you have any thoughts on this? I think this is one of those times when you actually do go back to Google and you do your online research to understand who is doing what where. So we want to, excuse me, we want to use customer discovery in person to understand the needs of our customers but when trying to identify people to reach out to we want to use Google and the internet and our connections. Mike is there anything that you'd like to add to that? Yeah I might add talking to people in your home country that are importing things into that market and asking who do they use. If you're a beverage company and there's other beverages that are being distributed, who are the biggest beverage distributors and then a little LinkedIn research to find who works there, who's a buyer or account manager, do you know any mutual connections or can you just reach out especially if you're planning a trip to go to that market that's a great way to also create a sense of urgency of hey I'm in town for three days, I'd love to get 30 minutes on the books, I can come to you on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and then I'm gone and we're going to the next market. I think there's a great opportunity, stroke a little bit of their ego and say we know you're the biggest, it'd be so huge for our company if we could partner with you in order to get that meeting and make sure that your product aligns with their distribution and who they're selling to so if they've got a network of 1,000 pharmacies and you're in healthcare that's great but if they have a network of 1,000 pharmacies and you're a sporting wear company that's probably not the right fit so again making sure that it kind of aligns with the channel distribution strategy you have for the new market. Yep I would absolutely echo that, it's really important and can be very helpful sometimes once you've identified the people that you want to talk to to actually plan a trip to that country or if you have one coming up get in touch with those folks and say hey we're going to be in town, we have three days, we'd love to talk to you that can be really really effective because people will sort of respond to that a little bit more eagerly if they know that there's a deadline. So we have a question from our viewing group in Barrie Tech Lebanon and they have asked what stage should a start up start considering to expand abroad? Kevin what are your thoughts on this? The question is only when it is appropriate. There is no rule for when companies should expand abroad. For my company we decided to launch in London and the reason for that was because in London we were able to access financial services, governments, NGOs, and we were able to access services, governments, NGOs, and large corporations all in one market without needing to get on a plane or even get in a car. I could literally get on a bus or get on the train and be able to be anyone I wanted to do to engage in the customer validation that I needed to prove that my product mattered. What's more is that London had a very international exposure so I was able to test it in multiple geographies including my own home by speaking to companies and saying well what is the Popeye proposition back home? But for other companies as Mike said earlier it might be best to stay in your home market and really seize the opportunity there before expanding into other markets. Absolutely. Rhonda is there anything that you'd like to add to that? No I think that's a great answer and I would also say only after exploration. Personally for one of my companies I hadn't thought about expanding abroad because I thought there was a big enough market within the US. However I was getting multiple signals from Asia and I decided to explore those and found two other markets that ended up being really good for me. So listen to the signals that you're getting but there is no hard and fast rule about when and where. That's very helpful yeah. So we have a question from our viewing group in Namibia and they have asked what are some creative ways through social media, paid advertising or other tools to market your product or service to foreign customers? Mike we'll start with you. Yeah I think one way to leverage social media is to partner with key influencers and folks who have massive followings on social media. Some of them you might need to pay them a little bit of money but a lot of them if you send them a free product and say hey will you you know try this thing out we love it if you post on social media if you genuinely love the product and if you write sample tweets or Facebook posts and literally give them the script of hey here's how you describe this product here's the key features and benefits I wouldn't necessarily leave it up to them to write the message. You know you want to control the narrative about your product and the value and benefit it's bringing to this market I think finding people in that country who lots of citizens and customers in that market already are following connected to is a great way to build awareness and develop marketing efforts when they see a familiar face someone who looks like them talks like them they've seen on tv shows or in sporting events whatever it might be you know that's a great way to generate interest in people who want to be like that person and they say hey if I buy this product then I'll be more like so and so so building building sort of an online following using social media influencers is is what you're saying can be really helpful so that can definitely be really helpful especially with consumer facing products but Rhonda do you have any any thoughts on how to gain gain some market traction in a foreign country with with a product that is not necessarily consumer facing well for b2b it's it's really a function of trying to narrow down on who that exact customer is going to be and I think one tool that you can use effectively and often relatively cheaply um facebook ads and google google adwords and again it's just a function of making hypotheses and testing yeah definitely so with google adwords you're trying to identify well what are what my potential customer who I I know what their interests are I know what their what their sort of job function is what their goals are what would they possibly be searching in google um when they are looking for something to solve the problem that my product solves and then you would buy google adwords for those searches uh kevin is there anything that you'd like to add based on your experience absolutely so we work in the b2b space I would say here that leveraging the power of white papers and testimonials are incredibly powerful a white paper is just a very brief document that explains the value proposition in depth just a little case study uh it would be another way of referring to it um for your come for your customers this is a way of celebrating and the idea here is not to focus so much on your platform or your technology but rather how did your customer benefit make the customer the hero of the exercise and share that because that is going to allow their pair group to read themselves into that hero's narrative and uh and and seek out your platform absolutely so there's there's a there's a level there of of seeing yourself in this story if this great benefit could um could happen to one of your competitors or one of your peers perhaps you could also take advantage of this so we have a viewer in alexandria egypt and they have asked how can we overcome customers fear of unknown vendors from an unfamiliar country and kevin let's start with you so one way we address this is uh through partnering with bringing our technology partners and our law firm and other groups um into the narratives for instance we partnered with amazon web services everyone has heard of amazon web services so if you make sure that amazon has gone through your technology stack or a service provider like amazon with their credibility has gone through your service your products act and has really stress test your technology they are willing to join you in meetings with large customers because your success ultimately is their success we've also lovers our lawyers our um accountants and other uh partners um to that same extent the other thing is making sure that in your anchor customers again that you have the the proof points um through your pilots and um early adventures that help the to make this accessible um for your potential customers the final thing that would point out is start with a bite-sized um engagement then you're out the way to take whatever it is that you're trying to uh sell your customers and present it in a way which is de-risk and uh many times that makes it a segue to sell much easier yep absolutely so so whether that's a that's a pilot or that's a you know you just want to do one one small example of what you can do um that's a way to kind of get your foot in the door um and and build into a bigger contract ronda what's been your experience with uh with overcoming customers fear um of a of a vendor from another country right well two things number one small wins first um and it's always important um as an entrepreneur and a new vendor is to under promise and over deliver that builds trust um but also being willing to change your behavior based on the needs of your customers so um for example if you always ship things by FedEx but your customer wants to receive things by DHL even if that's a huge hassle for you you just gut it out and do it you do what meets the needs of your customer yep that's a great point and always worth reiterating customer is is is the boss in this situation and you really just want to make sure they're happy especially if you're trying to build a network of customers in a new country because word of mouth is really powerful and so you want to build advocates and evangelists for yourself um as you move into a new market mike uh can you tell us a little bit about your experience um overcoming some fears moving into a new market or advising startups as they do that yeah so when we first started waveborn sunglasses we reached out to a number of different vendors and manufacturers around the world uh to get quotes to get product samples and one of the biggest deciding factors was who could write an email and spell words correctly and use grammar and punctuation uh I think it seems a lot less legitimate if the periods are all out of place and words are misspelled um versus if you can write it in English or whatever the native language is maybe have somebody proofread it to make sure that it you're not saying something you didn't mean to say or you're you know decreasing the trust right off the bat in that first email you want to be building trust as Kevin mentioned earlier so any act you can do that demonstrates trust including proper communication in the home language I think uh can be very valuable yep that's definitely definitely true um and and worth sort of mentioning again if you're reaching out to customers in a in a foreign country um do your best to communicate in a way that will convey your credibility and your experience and and why they should be working with you and the trust that they should have for you so it looks like we have time for one more question from our viewing audience um and we have a viewing group in Barry Tech Lebanon and they have asked when entering a new market what are the best ways to find the right suppliers that can support us and Rhonda let's go to you on this one oh that's it that's a tough one and I think it just builds on the answers that we've been hearing all morning deal with local experts law firms accountants do your research up front make hypothesis talk to other people are her doing the thing that you want to talk to folks even in your home country who may have relationships um it really is just the capstone of all we've been talking about this morning yep absolutely Kevin is there anything that you'd like to add no I think Rhonda answered that perfectly Mike yeah great job Rhonda um I'll also add to that Rhonda that was a great answer I will add to that that maybe um consider the fact that you might not need a local supplier you might be able to use um an existing supplier in in your home country um you might not necessarily need to recreate your whole supply chain in a new country if if that is your business model um so just something to consider well it looks like we're almost out of time but before we conclude I just like to ask each of our panelists um you know what would you say are the most important takeaways for our viewers and Mike let's start with you yeah I think really investing in the customer discovery process not being attached to your solutions you know starting with hypotheses and going out and testing them having good scripts of questions uh one resource I'd recommend is a ebook on Amazon called Mastering Customer Interviews for Entrepreneurs by John Jabara it is you can read about 30 minutes uh and it has a ton of great scripts and sample questions and even advises you on how to send good thank you notes afterwards you know anybody who you do a customer interview with say thanks whether it's an email if you can hand write a note that goes a long way especially if you want to circle back in a few months with an updated version of your product or service to have them kind of give additional feedback uh and again fall in love with your customer's problem and your customer's pain point don't fall in love with your solution yep those are great takeaways uh ronda what are what are the takeaways that you hope our viewers leave today's session with uh the very same thing that mike said and just keep focusing on the fundamentals there there is no magic wand uh there's no magical solution you've got to focus on the fundamentals but that's the good news is that those can be once you learn those skills they can be repeated and they work anywhere in the world absolutely kevin any last words for our viewers absolutely just make sure that it makes sense for you for your team for your company make sure you've brought other invest other stakeholders like your investors and your advisors into the decision making make sure that you have spent time on the ground and that you've gotten to learn the local market the ecosystem the power brokers and the influencers in that market and make sure that you're testing your assumptions constantly along the way customer discovery is not something that you do once and then go into your market it is an ongoing process of continuously refining your understanding of your customers and their and their needs that's how you maintain a company which is relevant and one which is loved absolutely words to live by um so just in summary um customer discovery can be really hard and really challenging but it's the way that you build a successful business and you really um it's very important to kind of just listen to the customers um treat everything that they say as um as just another data point you don't want to put your bias into you don't want to interpret their answers through your bias um and and and don't give up it's hard work but but you can do it so thank you to the three of you for joining us and a special thank you to everyone viewing today especially the hosts of the viewing groups around the globe for bringing entrepreneurs together to be a part of this conversation we've had audiences at benjamin franklin public library and cultural center in san Pedro Sula Honduras walt Whitman american centers in quetzalcanango and Guatemala city Guatemala the u.s. embassy in gabarone bozzana american cultural center in windhoek namibia american corner in walvis bay namibia americ martin luther king jr american corner in namibia berry tech from bay root lebanon l space from tunis tunisia youth network for reform from monrovia liberia and lead africa from johannesburg south africa ice alex from alexandria egypt and please continue the conversation on twitter at hashtag gist tech connect and check back here on gistnetwork.org for information about other upcoming gist events including programs like this i hope that you enjoyed our discussion today and thank you again for joining us goodbye