The Global Expansion

Checklist

by Hiro maeda

Portfolios (30+ Companies)

Giftee Qiita

A service with which you can

send small gifts via Twitter

and email.

Anyperk

Sassor WHILL Viibar Fril

http://giftee.coDreampasshttp://dreampass.jp

On-demand service for movie

screening at theaters.

http://qiita.com/

Knowledge sharing

platform for

programmers

http://anyperk.com/

AnyPerk offers great perks as

employee perks.

Electricity-consumption

management tool for homes.

http://sassor.jpNext generation personal

mobility. 

http://whill.jp

Crowdsourced video production

platform

http://viibar.com/

Marketplace

for women

http://www.fril.jp

Advise Against Global from Day 1

• The world is complex. • Need to focus. • Maximize Leverage. • Pick one market to dominate.

Phase

• Product/Market Fit? • Should be on track to dominating your local

market. • Example: 10M downloads where the

break down is 20% USA, 10% Japan, and 10 other countries with less than 5% is not dominating a market.

• BUT! if they are all engineers than you are dominating.

Phase (Scoring)

• (5 points) - Product/Market fit with clear path to dominating your local market.

• (3 points) - Product/Market fit no clear path yet.

• (0 points) - no Product/Market fit

Language / Culture

• Do you speak their language? • Do you understand culture and nuances?

• (5 points) - Native Speaker, lived in the country.

• (3 points) - Speaks well enough, immersed in the culture

• (2 points) - Me No Understand

Language / Culture (scoring)

Talent• Need to be able to hire the best talent in the

market you enter. • Execution is everything.

• Not enough due diligence on the country manager.

• Need to treat it liking adding a cofounder. • They need to live and breath your

company culture. • They need to be share the same passion,

mission, vision. • need a lot of coaching

• (5 points) - We have the A-Team, The Furious 5, The Avengers.

• (3 points) - Subpar team.

• (0 points) - meh.

Talent (scoring)

Landscape

• Competitive • Is there competition?

• Need to assess the competition rigorously. Can you really win?

• Funding Environment (IE. Grab Taxi ($250M), Didi Kuaidi ($1.5B), Delivery Hero ($110M)

• Market & Cultural Landscape • Alternative solutions, cultural fit.

• (5 points) - We can beat competitor, out execute, out capitalize, and there is market and cultural fit for your product.

• (3 points) - There is market and cultural fit, but beating competitor might be a challenge.

• (0 points) - no market and cultural fit.

Landscape (scoring)

Network Effects• Definition: “Effect that a single person using a

good or a service has on the total perceived value of that product or service for others. The more who use the product or service, the higher it's value becomes to the group”

• Is it a “Cross Border Network Effect?” Meaning, Does the network effects from one country, affect users to the other country?

• Examples with services with cross border network effect (Instagram, AirBnB.

• Example with little or no cross border effect (Food Delivery, content sites)

• (5 points) - Very strong cross border network effects. Every additional user or content will benefit the users from anywhere in the world.

• (3 points) - Some or little cross border network effect.

• (2 points) - no network effects.

Network Effects (scoring)

Scoring!

• Phase • Language / Culture • Talent • Landscape • Network Effects

Results

• (25 Points) - Go! Go! Go! • (15 Points~) - And didn't score ‘0’ in any

category then you should consider, but with caution.

• (Below 15 Points) Don’t even consider.

Simply A Reference