Perspectives on building a global company from India

The team at Accel has now spent over 15 years with entrepreneurs that have built global companies from India.

These include some names that you might recognize – MuSigma, Virident, Freshworks, Chargebee, BrowserStack, Mindtickle, CleverTap, Zenoti, FalconX and several others. This has given us a bit of an inside view into these journeys and many of the thrilling times when things worked well, as well as some frustrating stretches when inevitably they sometimes didn’t.  We’ll try to distill some of our observations, specific to cross-border companies, in the hope that they can help you as you embark on your own endeavors to create global impact.

We’ll break down the journey of ‘crossing the oceans’ into five phases: 

• Getting a good Start
• Mapping the Terrain
• Preparing for Launch
• Landing ‘abroad’
• Building Momemtum

The Start: Think global and find your local advantage

Perhaps the most common and significant mistake founders make is to first build a local company and then morph it into a global one. While this might be the right choice in some cases, for most, it’s not. One can focus on the global opportunity from day one, and it’s no longer as prohibitively expensive as it once used to be.

Building a global business demands global thinking and founders must infuse it into decision-making early in the organization. One can start with the basics: the incorporation structure of the business, the equity plans and employee agreements, banking partners, etc. Make all the choices in favor of operating as a global company – you won’t regret it!

Next, it’s important to spend time to figure out how to use your local presence to create a global advantage. Yes, you can always try to compete with every other team around the world, but often you can find ways to create a competitive edge. Here are some dimensions that are worth thinking about:

• Mobile-first experiences: Most established global companies struggle to create good mobile-centric experiences since they can’t ignore their users that have gotten used to their desktop products. And yet, as more young people enter the workforce, they will rapidly adopt strong mobile experiences without concern for legacy. This creates an opportunity for mobile-first enterprise experiences. India now has a lot of mobile-first product thinkers and builders – we can certainly reimagine many enterprise workflows of the future!
• Full lifecycle products: Building a deeper and integrated full-lifecycle product can also be an advantage. In addition to the core features, the product includes capabilities that allow customers to on-board themselves, accomplish quick wins through pre-built templates, learn how to use advanced features, experience and upgrade to premium layers, and so on. Being able to invest in more engineering up front can be translated into strong customer perception in the market.
• Heavy MVPs: While the world gets seduced by small and quick MVPs, it might make sense to look in the other direction! Don’t just solve a tiny piece, tackle a more complex problem that might need more product building before it can be useful. This can create a leg-up on the competitive landscape.

There are similar advantages one can create by looking at industry-specific problems that require vertical expertise (something that is abundant in India because of the vibrant professional services we offer to support the globe’s largest vertical companies), or solutions that require deep integration into existing ecosystems (experience that is again very available).

The Terrain: Map your landscape

It is critical to develop a deep understanding of the landscape that you want to operate it. While building for a global market while operating from India, it can sometimes feel overwhelming and even impossible to do this. Let’s break this down. 

First, let us focus on a few questions you need to answer for yourself. 

• What market categories do you belong to?
• What is the main value proposition offered to customers within each category?
• Who are the current market leaders in each of them and what makes them strong?
• Are there companies that have failed to thrive in these categories? 
• What are the reasons behind them failing?
• What are some of the trends that people strongly believe in?
• Are there less obvious trends that you strongly believe in?

The last two questions are crucial because the answer to them will help you find the advantage or differentiation you’re looking for.

Obviously, one must use all the online research resources one can to answer these. Review sites like G2 and Capterra are becoming richer in terms of the amount of customer feedback they capture. However, it is also essential to have actual conversations with your audience. This is where it’s important to put it a lot of effort as well as some investment. At the lower end, one can use online databases like ZoomInfo and LinkedIn, with survey tools like SurveyMonkey, to get simpler feedback on specific questions. 

Open-ended discovery conversations will need you to very actively mine your network and tap into resources like GLG, Tegus, etc. to truly start getting into the minds of your customers. These will seem expensive and extravagant, but please just bite the bullet and make the investment!

The Launch: Establish trust and de-risk your customer

The product is taking shape, the initial messaging seems to resonate, and you are now ready to make the leap across the ocean and get your product in front of prospects. 

One important thing to consider is whether you can make yourself more trustworthy. Most customers that chose to work with a startup’s product are already taking a risk. When that startup happens to be mostly located on the other side of the globe in an emerging country, that customer is being asked to take even more risk in their decision. So, we should do what it takes to help alleviate their concerns and earn their trust. This can often come through building affiliations with entities or individuals that our customers are likely to get a sense of comfort from. 

One set to consider is top-tier incubators like YC, Techstars, Alchemist. Even though you might not need the money, being a part of programs like this does give you an additional stamp of legitimacy. There are also industry-specific programs like those run by Mastercard, Unilever, Maersk, etc. that can serve a similar purpose.

Another interesting category is your angels and advisors. If a well-known angel is an investor, or a respected industry veteran is on your advisory board, it can do wonders for your credibility. 

Also, make sure that your digital presence – your web site and the first few search results when someone looks you up – are also respectable and world-class! 

You are now ready to go hunt for your early customers. Once again, it is important to empathize with your customer. Since they are betting on an unknown company from a lesser-known part of the world, you need to help mitigate their risk. Make sure they can look at your product as a “win only, no loss” proposition. What does that mean? If your product works, they will look good. But if for some reason your product doesn’t work, it doesn’t create an embarrassment for them. So, if things were to fail, your customer should feel that they would be no worse than they were before. 

No one wants to get fired for betting on you! This plays a big role into how you package and position your initial product. If the buyer has to risk a critical part of their business to try out your product, you’ve made your life a lot harder. 

The Landing: Avoid sticker shock and start your global team

Many Indian entrepreneurs are frugal by nature. However, you must realize that when you start operating in a different market, the financial and economic quotient is going to look very different. Talent cost isn’t flat globally. If you’re trying to create a US presence, you have to hire the right talent to help you bring value to the market - the pay for local talent will certainly be higher than you are used to. 

One of the most critical elements of building a global company from India is the first few hires you make outside India. There are a couple of things we would recommend against.

First, it’s very tempting to recruit “in-network” – so you end up hiring people you might have known in the past (“my friend from kindergarten”) or those that know someone you know (“my old college room-mate’s brother-in-law”). Hiring, especially if you are doing it remotely, is very tough. But these kinds of compromises can hurt significantly in the long run. Make sure you are able to spend time in the new geography and are able to invest time in getting to know candidates and finding the best you can. Also, good recruiters cost good money, but it’s important to invest in them. 

While it might be more convenient and even more effective to hire folks with the same ethnic background, to work with your team in India, you are again creating massive long-term damage. Focus on building a very diverse and talented team from the get-go, and don’t be afraid to pay what the market demands. 

Secondly, we tend to start hiring for specific roles, and often, we think that the first hire should be a good salesperson. This often is not the right choice. It is important to hire folks with strong outbound skills, who can talk to prospects, but can also listen to and interpret their responses. We don’t yet have a scalable sales motion – we need people who can help us discover those. Look to hire folks that can be almost like co-founders, doing what it takes to get us to the next stage. 

The Momentum: focus on scale and embrace your cross-border nature

Once you’ve established a foothold in the global market, you have to pursue the search for repeatability and scalability, like any other company. For a cross-border company, this requires trusting and empowering the go-to-market team, which might, by now, have a heavier presence outside of India. 

As your team starts growing in a second location, it is very important to make sure that no location or functional group feels like an “outsider”. Founders and early employees have to play a critical role in constantly breaking down circles that might get naturally formed based on the location and time of hiring. 

In the end, your company will succeed only because a large number of very talented people share the same goals and commitment to making something significant happen. The sooner you can assemble a talented global team, the faster your path to success!

To wrap up

As a founder, building a cross-border company might seem intimidating at first, but don’t let that dampen your enthusiasm. Embrace your ambition to build an international organization, act global from the start, find strengths in your localness, be resourceful in covering your bases and building your strengths, and never for a moment feel that your origins are a handicap. Here's wishing you success as you go on your journey to build a global business from your home country.