The second geography
Companies that succeed in one market routinely assume the second one needs introductions rather than a strategy. The competitive set is different, the buying process is different, and in Europe the regulatory and sovereignty requirements are frequently the binding constraint. This plays out over quarters, which is why it belongs at board level.
The plan is familiar. We own our home market, the product travels, we need a country manager and some introductions.
What is usually underestimated is not the effort. It is the assumption that the competitive set travels with the product. It rarely does. The incumbent in the second market is often a local company nobody in the deck has heard of, with fifteen years of relationships, native-language support, and a compliance posture built for that jurisdiction. Being better on features is not the contest.
Where the second market actually differs
The buying process. Procurement thresholds, tender requirements, approval chains and the role of consultants and resellers vary enormously across European markets. A motion built for direct sales into mid-market companies in one country can meet a market where the same segment buys through integrators, and the entire pipeline model has to be rebuilt rather than translated.
Data protection and residency. GDPR is uniform in principle and not in practice, because supervisory authorities differ in emphasis and enforcement, and sectoral rules layer on top. Public sector and regulated buyers increasingly require data residency in-country or in-region, which is an infrastructure commitment before it is a sales question.
Sovereignty requirements, which have moved from preference to specification in parts of the European public sector and in regulated industries. A vendor without a credible answer on where data sits, who operates the infrastructure and under whose jurisdiction, is often disqualified before the product is evaluated.
Language and support coverage, which sounds trivial and shows up in win rates.
Why this is a board conversation
Because it fails slowly. A geographic expansion does not collapse in a quarter. It produces a plausible pipeline, a country manager, encouraging early conversations, and then a second year in which nothing closes and everyone has a reason. By the time it is unambiguous, two years of investment are gone and the opportunity cost is larger than the spend.
The questions that catch it early are simple and have to be asked on a cadence. Who are we actually losing to in this market, by name. What is the win rate here against the win rate at home. How long is the cycle here against the cycle at home. What did the last five losses have in common. Is the pipeline being built by the country manager’s own network, and what happens to it when that network is exhausted.
None of these are hard questions. They just have to be asked by someone whose job is to ask them every quarter, and who was in the room when the expansion case was originally made.
More teardowns
Nobody can state the ROI, so nobody can defend the price
A company that cannot express what its product is worth in the customer's own numbers will discount under pressure, lose renewals it should win, and never raise prices. This is one of the most tractable problems in the first hundred days after an acquisition.
Pricing built before the market changed
Most software companies at this size price per seat, on a model set years ago. Buyers increasingly want to pay for consumption or for outcomes, and investors increasingly prefer it. Moving is valuable and moving carelessly transfers real risk onto the vendor.
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