You always need to be proving your business model—it’s not something that’s one and done. If we sold to a hundred customers, can we sell to a thousand? And then ten thousand? If we have sold into ten distributors, can we target a hundred?
Going back to the story of Facebook, they proved their concept by selling first at Harvard, then launching into other colleges, then into other cities, then into other countries, every step of the way proving they could grow in those markets (Campbell, 2023).
Every market has its own culture, and you have to really dig in to understand the needs of the new market culture you’re about to enter. When Hostopia came to the US, one of the big differences between us and our competitors was that we were already set up with a dual-language platform because in Canada, the law required us to be able to serve both English and French speakers (Campbell, 2023).
Speaking of other cultures, this also allowed us to tweak our platform to go into Brazil by adding in Portuguese. In the end, we included more than ten languages as we scaled to new markets, proving ourselves each time, which eventually set us up for our IPO.
It’s easy for your market research to look only at bottom-line issues like projected costs to acquire new customers, overhead, distribution, and so on. While all those are important, it’s more important to understand the cultural preferences of your market: “How do they like to pay for things? What language are they most comfortable in? What are their expectations for communicating problems?” (Campbell, 2023).
As we discussed in Start, you don’t want to go into a new market expecting a change in the human behavior there. Instead, you need to adapt and mold your business practices to meet the preferences of that market. The more you can culturize your product to your new market, the better success you’ll have at scaling.
For example, when we set up Paw.com, we originally designed it as a US-based business, even though the founder and I are Canadian. When it came time to scale, it was only natural for us to look north to our homeland. But simply buying up ads in Canada and adding Canadian distribution was not going to be enough to make it successful there in the same way that it was in the US.
Sometimes this need to prove your concept again and again in new markets is the reason entrepreneurs stop scaling and get comfortable with the market they already have. Launching into a new market and proving it can be as stressful as launching the company itself.
“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
And that’s a lifestyle choice—because once again, to prove yourself over and over is a deep price. But if you fail to continue proving, you stop learning valuable lessons that can help you be prepared for the unexpected.
Success in one market does not guarantee success in another. Don’t assume culture, language, or consumer behavior will translate directly. Prove it. Again and again. That’s how you scale responsibly and sustainably.
In Chapter 21, we’ll explore how to build a world-class sales team—from incentive structures to playbooks that scale with you.
If you know someone preparing to take their product global, share this post. Cultural insight could be their secret edge.
For real-world reflections and actionable business tools, follow the full Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. blog series.