Keynote by Crane Venture Partners with Scott Sage and Andy Leaver, from #SaaStock17, Growth Stage, RDS, Dublin, Ireland. Wednesday 20th September 2017

1. September 2017
BREAK IT TO MAKE IT
INTERNATIONALISING GLOBAL SOFTWARE COMPANIES
Crane Venture Partners / SaaStock Dublin

2. We have internationalised >15 companies as investors
and operators

3. Category Kings are being created across the Globe
Source: Battery Ventures

5. For more than 80% of US companies, London is their
first launch city
Most Common First City Launched for US Headquartered companies
London
57
Dublin
5
Other: Canada, Germany,
Barcelona, New Zealand
5

6. Non-US Companies have a slight preference for the
East Coast to begin with…
Most Common First City Launched for Non-US Headquartered companies
San Francisco
3
Boston
2
New York City
2

7. 75% of companies had total revenues of up to $20m the
year before launching their first international office
Total Revenue’s
$m
Number of
Companies
Companies
<$5m 10 Concur, Demandware, eGain, HortonWorks LivePerson, Marin, MobileIron, Salesforce, Textura, Wix
$5-10m 10
Appdynamics, Channel Advisor, Cornerstone OnDemand, Jive, Medidata, Netsuite, New Relic, Rally,
Talend, Marketo
$10-20m
19
Apigee, Apptio, BazaarVoice, Brightcove, Callidus, Cvent, E2open, Eloqua, Everbridge, Five9, LinkedIn,
MindBody, ProofPoint, Qualys, RingCentral, Tableau, Twilio, Veeva, Workday
$20-30m 2 Coupa, Instructure
1 in 3 of companies had $10m or less in revenue the year before they launched

8. Companies are accelerating the pace of going
international
Average time to launch international*
5.5
yearsMedian time to launch international*
4
year
sCohort
(Year Founded)
Time to
International
(# of Years)
Population
Size
(# of Co’s)
Sample Companies
Pre-1998 10.9 10
1998-2001 5.8 18
2002-2005 4.1 17
2006-2011 3.4 17

9. Companies that are founded outside of the US
internationalize much faster
Key reasons for internationalizing faster:
• In many cases, the local markets are too small and behind in the technology adoption curve
• The US is still the largest market for enterprise software
• But, also in many cases it was because they were pulled into new markets by demand
Year 2 on
average

10. The 4 principals for launching
internationally:
Break it to make it?

11. Achievements
before
launching 1st
international
market
Repeatable
Sales
Execution at
Home
Early
International
Customers
Graduated from
selling to early
adopters
Understanding
of local culture
Operational readiness before launching 1st international
market

12. Grow Fast or Die Slow
In Enterprise Software need to be doubling or
tripling ARR for the first 6 years

13. It all starts with Culture
“Organisations want the commitment of a religion without
offering safe futures or communities, let alone the promise of
afterlife.
It’s perfectly rational to be engaged in one’s work, and
disengaged from the organisation. Harder to be betrayed that
way.”
Gianpiero Petriglieri
Management Professor Insead

14. Be Fanatical Around Customer Success
SaaS must be Success as a Service – this leads
to the three R’s:
Renewals, Referrals and References

15. Strive for a pure single code line
The temptation to bend the product to the will of
the first large customer is strong – you must
resist!

16. Category Kings Take Everything
Find the wedge and change the game –
supersize the category by stealth and let the
mega-vendors validate you.

17. Traditional Selling is Dead
If you are talking MQL’s and SQL’s you are
probably doing it wrong. Use ABM and Social
Selling to produce outsize focused results.

18. Use Speed as a Competitive Weapon
Use the nimbleness and speed of your young
organisation to highlight the bureaucracy of the
mega-vendors.

19. Be in the eye of the Storm
1. ABM and
Social Selling
3. Customer
Success
2. Category
King
Outsized
Growth &
Culture

20. @AndyLeaver
@scott_sage
Thank You!