METRO Xcel (Accelerator) alumni, tsenso test their solution with METRO
tsenso tests their solution in METRO CC in Dussledorf
On the 1st and 2nd of December 2020, the Xcel team held its first virtual "Digital Xcellence Forum". The two afternoons focused on Internationalisation and Investment/Fundraising respectively. As part of the internationalisation topic on Day 1 we held a panel on "Scaling Through to IPO and Beyond" together with thought leaders in the space including Karl Josef Seilern from Sezzle, Sophie Freres, co-founder of LiSA and Johanna Campion long time investor and mentor.
Here's what we learned:
There are two very different poles when it comes to strategy in scaling;
As a CEO it is important to understand the range between the two strategies and balance these two poles.
Ideal is to first enter the market with your core product and to understand when you have hit the product market fit. It is very hard to jump into a market and innovate from the outset. It is therefore better to stick to what you know and when you crack the market, only then to improve the last 15-20% of the product.
"You need to focus to be meaningful. The discipline to do that is very important." - Sophie Freres
Once the concept is proven and you have scaled in your home market successfully, it is time to look to other markets, if they have similar conditions to your own the recommendation is to internationalise directly rather than expand on your product vertically (with new features etc.). It will be easier to enter a new market with a proven model than it will be to over innovate your product in the current market. The key is to expand rather sooner than later as, most businesses are dominated by size.
“More often than not startups tend to expand a bit too late.” – Karl Josef Seilern
If your solution is new or young, it is likely that you are completely tied to customer cycles. In that instance, rather than doing a typical demo, start with interviews on why the potential customer is interested in your product; whether it be to increase sales, increase engagement, community building etc. Identifying this will help to cater the demo accordingly. In addition, ask questions around what resources and infrastructure the customer already has in place to implement your solution. All of this information will ultimately help to provide a demo that is highly valuable to the customer.
It is advisable to set up a dedicated product team that is not centralized and dependent on the prioritization with in the HQ. It is important to have a separate team that works under its own tech stack.
Key hires will have a huge impact on whether scaling into a new market will be a success or not. If you hire talented people they will hire and grow talent in return. A tip here is to not rely solely on recruitment agencies; good people are usually not on the market, it’s rather about identifying them and poaching them.
That said, as soon as you have a good understanding of how a given market works and know who the specialized recruiters are, it might be helpful to use such an agency. Keep in mind, recruitment also changes according to the stage your product is in, each phase requires different deep skills.
Due to COVID, customer acquisition, onboarding, and deployment have all been done digitally. As a result of not needing to travel, sales have become much easier and more efficient.
“Moving forward, a flexible model will be applied, at the moment we are planning to set up teams that have access to co-working. This way of working will definitely increase the recruitment pool.” -Karl Josef Seilern