The Global Expansion Checklist Hiro Maeda / Angel Investor #SVFT

1. The
Global Expansion
Checklist
by Hiro maeda

2. Portfolios (30+ Companies)
Giftee Qiita
A service with which you can
send small gifts via Twitter
and email.
Anyperk
Sassor WHILL Viibar Fril
http://giftee.co
Dreampass
http://dreampass.jp
On-demand service for movie
screening at theaters.
http://qiita.com/
Knowledge sharing
platform for
programmers
http://anyperk.com/
AnyPerk offers great perks as
employee perks.
Electricity-consumption
management tool for homes.
http://sassor.jp
Next generation personal
mobility.
http://whill.jp
Crowdsourced video production
platform
http://viibar.com/
Marketplace
for women
http://www.fril.jp

4. Advise Against
Global from Day 1
• The world is complex.
• Need to focus.
• Maximize Leverage.
• Pick one market to dominate.

6. Phase
• Product/Market Fit?
• Should be on track to dominating your local
market.
• Example: 10M downloads where the
break down is 20% USA, 10% Japan, and
10 other countries with less than 5% is not
dominating a market.
• BUT! if they are all engineers than you are
dominating.

7. Phase (Scoring)
• (5 points) - Product/Market fit with clear path to
dominating your local market.
• (3 points) - Product/Market fit no clear path yet.
• (0 points) - no Product/Market fit

8. Language / Culture
• Do you speak their language?
• Do you understand culture and nuances?

9. • (5 points) - Native Speaker, lived in the country.
• (3 points) - Speaks well enough, immersed in
the culture
• (2 points) - Me No Understand
Language / Culture (scoring)

10. Talent
• Need to be able to hire the best talent in the
market you enter.
• Execution is everything.
• Not enough due diligence on the country
manager.
• Need to treat it liking adding a cofounder.
• They need to live and breath your
company culture.
• They need to be share the same passion,
mission, vision.
• need a lot of coaching

11. • (5 points) - We have the A-Team, The Furious 5,
The Avengers.
• (3 points) - Subpar team.
• (0 points) - meh.
Talent (scoring)

12. Landscape
• Competitive
• Is there competition?
• Need to assess the competition
rigorously. Can you really win?
• Funding Environment (IE. Grab Taxi
($250M), Didi Kuaidi ($1.5B), Delivery
Hero ($110M)
• Market & Cultural Landscape
• Alternative solutions, cultural fit.

13. • (5 points) - We can beat competitor, out
execute, out capitalize, and there is market and
cultural fit for your product.
• (3 points) - There is market and cultural fit, but
beating competitor might be a challenge.
• (0 points) - no market and cultural fit.
Landscape (scoring)

14. Network Effects
• Definition: “Effect that a single person using a
good or a service has on the total perceived
value of that product or service for others. The
more who use the product or service, the higher
it's value becomes to the group”
• Is it a “Cross Border Network Effect?”
Meaning, Does the network effects from one
country, affect users to the other country?
• Examples with services with cross
border network effect (Instagram,
AirBnB.
• Example with little or no cross border
effect (Food Delivery, content sites)

15. • (5 points) - Very strong cross border network
effects. Every additional user or content will
benefit the users from anywhere in the world.
• (3 points) - Some or little cross border network
effect.
• (2 points) - no network effects.
Network Effects (scoring)

16. Scoring!
• Phase
• Language / Culture
• Talent
• Landscape
• Network Effects

17. Results
• (25 Points) - Go! Go! Go!
• (15 Points~) - And didn't score ‘0’ in any
category then you should consider, but with
caution.
• (Below 15 Points) Don’t even consider.

18. Simply A Reference