In this article, we look at the steps high growth European startups should go through when budgeting for internationalisation efforts
Budgeting for international expansion is simple. Make a sensible plan, then triple the cost and triple the time required…
This is actually one of the toughest questions our companies face. Given 18-24 months cash runway it is hard to decide how much precious cash to invest in new markets which may or may not work, without moving too slowly and letting competitors build a lead.
In this post, I give my preferred approach for a company which is aiming to be reasonably capital-efficient. A more aggressive, big-spending approach can also work in some instances (see Uber, some Rocket Internet ventures), assuming fundraising markets remain supportive and the core business works well.
The articles in this Internationalisation playbook:
Part 1: When should your fast-growth European startup expand into international markets?
Part 2: Where should your fast-growth European startup expand internationally?
Part 3: We take a look at 94 European and US venture-backed companies worth over a billion dollars to see where, and when, they expanded internationally.
Part 4: Internationalisation — how to budget. (This article.)
Part 5: Your geo-expansion playbook, from guest author Pranav Sood of GoCardless