Internet has been instrumental in leveling the playing field for past 20 years. With the world becoming flat, companies are increasingly trying to go global.
Going global and succeeding require making a set of classical business choices - ‘whether to build vs. buy’ and/or ‘whether to focus on becoming a local champion before expanding to different geographies’. Further, the external strategy needs to be internally aligned to functions such as whether to hire a sales force or build an inside sales team or build a marketing team, whether to build a product that suit local or global taste. etc. Finally, building the organization will need resources. How, from where and when should the entrepreneur raise money?
Thankfully, we have many examples of companies that were successfully able to go global such as Skype, Dropbox, Altassian, Rovio among many others. Today we will speak to Sameer Gandhi, Partner Accel Partners, about a local champion Groupon in the US - choosing to expand through acquisitions. Also, we learn from Naveen - Founder, CEO of InMobi, one Indian company that was able to scale without becoming a local champion.
