Chang (CK) Kim’s Post

I often meet international founders who have built a product with traction and revenue in their local market, and now want to take the product global. The problem is, as soon as they try to go global, many of the founders realize their product doesn’t work for the global market. This is not surprising. Software products are built for users (either consumers or companies), and users’ desires and needs are different in different markets. (This can be a different story for packaged goods.) Now you’re in a predicament: - You can’t give up on going global: Unless you’re in China, going global isn’t really a choice; you’ll hit the growth ceiling pretty soon if you’re operating only in your local market - You can’t give up on existing users and revenue: Any revenue is good revenue, especially for small startups, so giving up users, traction, and revenue isn’t a smart move - You can’t afford to have two different products: Forking your product to build a “global version” means managing two different products in a small company, which is often a suicidal move Then what do you do? Ideally, you would have developed a global product from day one, but you can’t go back now. In my opinion, the only way to pull this off is by building a “global one build”: - Keep operating in the local market with the existing product. Meanwhile, start building a new “global one build” product in the background. This might require fresh funding and 6-12 months of development time - Not every feature in your current local product might make it to the global one build (some might survive as local-only extensions or plugins) - Once the global one build is launched, port your local users over to the global one build. For your local users, this will feel like a major product update. Now, you’re not a local product anymore; you’re a global product that momentarily happens to have a lot of users in a specific local market. These are very different things. It’s imperative you communicate the plan and roadmap transparently and involve the entire team. Make sure no one feels like they’re second-class citizens or doing throwaway work (“We’ll focus on the global market as a company. Now, you two will do the maintenance work for this local client.”). I’ve also seen some founders take on this global project as their personal 20% project. That approach almost always fails. Generally speaking, when the CEO’s interest isn’t aligned with the rest of the team’s, it just introduces a lot of confusion. By the way, if your product hasn’t reached success in your local market yet, all of this is a moot point; go find the PMF first.

Founders, watch out for “gravity-defying pen development” projects. We know the story: NASA spent a significant budget developing a pen that astronauts could use in zero-gravity space, while the Russians used pencils. Your team might be spending time on the wrong things, thinking they’re dutifully working on your important requirements. You should constantly monitor teams to ensure they are not spending time on the wrong things. To do so, founders must define the areas that need elegant solutions versus those that can use duct tape solutions, as long as the business objectives are met (such as “being able to write in space”).

Great words of wisdom by Christine Tsai

Recently, Webtoon went public (Nasdaq: WBTN). I want to sincerely congratulate them on their successful IPO. My previous company was a competitor to Webtoon. They were much bigger than us, but we packed a punch, especially in content monetization and building a creator community. They had good financial backing from their parent company, while we were an independent startup that raised less than $15M in lifetime funding. Anyway, the interesting story here is that, in hindsight, a pretty significant part of our success came from Webtoon. - Strategy: They constantly pushed us to think about differentiation and focus. - Users: They aggressively tried to expand their user base, and some of their users also downloaded our app to consume different content, helping us gain new users. - Acquisition: They acquired Wattpad, which indirectly influenced Kakao’s decision to acquire our company, as Kakao wanted to directly compete against Webtoon in the US market. Companies rarely go down because of their competitors; they usually falter due to their own problems. Competitors might even help you grow, especially in a new market where it’s not winner-takes-all. So, focus on your users and product more than anything, instead of being obsessed with your competitor’s every small move.

We'll host another epic AMA with Christie Marchese, at 12pm PT, July 3! Christie is the founder and CEO of Kinema, a global film distribution and exhibition platform that leverages the power of community and social interaction to screen and stream films, opening up new opportunities to reach audiences and maximize revenue. Sign up for free now!

This is a product that I needed the most when I was the CEO of a 200+ people company. Honored to be a small part of their journey! Please help upvote on Product Hunt if the mission resonates with you too!

I was recently chatting with a founder whose first company didn’t work out, and now he wants to start another new company. In terms of deciding what to build next, my recommendation to him was: forget about your personal passion and optimize around the market this time. Why? - Technically, the founder didn’t prove his ability to build something that not only he, but many other people, also wanted or needed - With the unproven ability to spot a big market problem, if the founder again builds something he needs or wants but there’s not enough market demand, and therefore fails again, it will be a major confidence hit. I really don’t want him to swing and miss twice in a row. Optimizing around the market generally has a higher chance of success. Just get some success under the belt; one can always go back and build what he wants to build, maybe as the next project - But startups are a hard journey, and entrepreneurs need lots of passion to keep going even for a day, right? Turns out, growth and success can bring lots of passion, especially for the founders whose first company didn’t work out. I know a founder who stares at the Slack channel connected to Stripe revenue notifications literally all day long :) - Fixing customers’ problems also brings joy and passion. Who is born naturally excited about supply chains or insurance? But those are huge industries that have problems affecting lots and lots of people. Be the tech person that finally brings solutions to their problems, and you might enjoy the Jesus second coming moment

🚨👉🏽 Special Guest Alert: Tejes Srivalsan 👈🏽🚨 We’ve been hosting a series of AMAs to capture lessons and inspirations from early stage founders (thank you, Will Drewery and Gaurav Seth!) Our next guest is Tejes Srivalsan, who: - Is barely 20  - Started Poppin, a leading social networking app for IRL gatherings around college campuses  - Successfully raised VC funding, while being in what's arguably the toughest sector in all of tech, namely consumer social  - Is brainy enough to get into UCLA and bold enough to quit school to do business full time (I wonder how his Asian parents feel about this :-) Poppin has a lofty vision - “get people off their phones by facilitating a seamless event discovery experience”. +1 for getting people off their phones! Guarantee you won’t regret investing 40 minutes of your time in this AMA. Register now for free!