German Accelerator

STRATEGY AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

German Accelerator is sharing its mentor- and Internet sources that are most crucial to launching your startup successfully in the U.S. market.

We have divided the launch into six areas:
Strategy and Business Development; [will jump to other pages]
Sales for SaaS; Marketing;
Fundraising and Finance;
HR/Team;
Legal/Administrative/Organizations.

In addition to providing this overview and FREE ongoing workshops, German Accelerator’s mentors have supported 280 startups with a survival rate of 92% — benefit from our lessons learned!

WHERE

Are you ready to launch in the U.S.?

The U.S. is the world’s largest consumer market consisting of 328 million people and a GDP of $21 trillion. U.S. household spending is the highest in the world, accounting for more than a quarter of global household consumption.

Although similar to an expansion strategy in your home market, expansion in the U.S. market asks you to uncover new insights from market research, strategize a solid go-to-market, partner with the right U.S. entities, and attract the best business development person helping you launch into the world’s largest market.

When you expand to the U.S., you will face accelerated learning strengthening your products and services. Apart from accessing a vast market, it creates additional shareholder value and a stronger company foundation.

Understand your new market:

Market Research

Official data related American economy and demographics
https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html

Data on wide variety of topics including science, technology, public opinion, social media, policy
https://www.pewresearch.org/

A social media listening tool that aggregates information from over 100 social media services
https://www.socialmention.com/

Also created by Pew Charitable Trusts, Living Facts provides data on topics including demographics, health, money, trends
https://www.livingfacts.org/

WHY

Business Development is strategic and relationship-driven — sales more replicable and scalable. Startups should have figured out Business Development — at least one distribution channel where your products have a unique selling proposition (USP) — before deciding and building the most appropriate sales channel.

Determine your product or service fit in the market, then uncover repeatable use cases where your product solves a pain point or creates value are key.

Gennaro Cuafano also offers a business strategy overview
https://fourweekmba.com/business-strategy/

Joshua Gans and Erin L. Scott on an entrepreneurial startup compass: four go-to-market strategies
https://hbr.org/2018/05/strategy-for-start-ups?

Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, and Hemant Taneja, managing director of General Catalyst on building a lasting startup
https://hbr.org/2019/07/building-a-startup-that-will-last

HOW

Go-To-Market (GTM)

How will you deliver your service or product to your customer?

Go-to-market is an ongoing process realized with your customer in mind. A lot has been written about Go-To-Market, most importantly it is figuring out your product/market fit, target audience, competition and demand, and distribution.

The above findings will clarify who will benefit most from your product/service, your unique selling proposition, and direct you to the following sales strategies:

Self-Service – customer makes their own purchases easily via a website.

Inside Sales – sales representative supports prospective buyers.

Field Sales – sales team closing services and products deals that typically require longer sales cycles and more customer customization and integration.

Channel – an external partner aligned with your services and products already selling into your desired customer base.

More in the German Accelerator Sales theme – next up in our series.

Enterprise Go-To-Market Playbook

• Identify potential market opportunities by industry and use case based on home country experience
• For each industry, define ideal target customer based on USPs and use cases
• Determine whether market is best served directly or through partnerships
• May be helpful to connect with an industry expert, such as mentors from the German Accelerator’s network, in the new market as a sounding board
• Assess USPs against competitors in the new market and focus on audience targeting, clear offers, and excel at serving the needs of customers
• Leverage industry expert or partners to approach friendly targets for market research and product feedback
• Provide performance based proposal with evaluation based on customer needs
• Once you have identified a repeatable use case with product-market fit and standard agreements, hire mid-level, scrappy, self starter, sales person to grow the specific use case
• Business development lead finds additional use cases or same use cases in a new industry

Andreas Hofmann, Ralf Hirt, and Stefan Groschupf offer their insight into COVID-related changes to B2B go-to-market strategies
https://www.germanaccelerator.com/blog/b2b-go-to-market-strategies-in-2020/

Stefan Groschupf shares his experience in developing a go-to-market strategy
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/gtm-strategy

Pardeep Kullar shares the major components of a go-to market strategy and 10 examples of how companies did go-to-market
https://blog.upscope.io/10-companies-show-you-their-go-to-market-strategy/

Peter Lauten and Martin Casado offer insight to Growth+Sales Enterprise go-to-market
https://a16z.com/2020/07/29/growthsales-the-new-era-of-enterprise-go-to-market/

WHO

The Right Talent Approach

We’ve seen companies take many different approaches when it comes to business development. Many successful startups have founders who have strong business development skills. Americans generally give entrepreneurs a lot of credit for starting new businesses and creating jobs, hence people and organizations are quite approachable. Since business development is all about forming, building, and unleashing the power of partnerships to access a new market or industry, you will need connectors with a growth mindset, those who already have a network of your ideal customers in place.

Before hiring people in the U.S., explore potential partners to gain industry and market insights. Aligned partnerships can market your services and products; offering product collaboration and accelerating growth and boost reputation. Figuring out what the partner would like to see in return is critical for the success and longevity of your relationship, align your goals and KPIs such as monthly customer growth and retention, customer satisfaction, recurring revenue, and cost impact.

“ Mentors make introductions, open doors, share experiences.
A valuable asset. ”

Startups mentored by Ralf Hirt

Hoss
furniture supply chain partnered with Wayfair.com providing access to 20M active customers 

quantilope
market research SaaS business model
original interview with Thomas Fandrich, co-founder and managing director USA

Wisefood
sustainable edible straws
original interview with Philipp Silbernagel, co-founder and CEO

Ralf Hirt
Ralf Hirt is the founder and CEO of 8W8 Global Business Builders, New York City. 8w8 provides the Bauhaus platform and the Compound Value Creator Quotient assessment (CovQ) to empower founders and business owners delivering on the full potential of their enterprises.

Ralf worked in executive roles at companies such as DoubleClick/Google, Harri, TUNE, and Mode in NYC, Munich, Hong Kong, Sydney, and London. He also held board, mentor, and advisor roles in various tech companies of all stages.

German Accelerator’s in-depth programs are free of charge, we don’t take any fees or equity. There are no strings attached. German Accelerator is a program funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Energy (BMWi).

German Accelerator has worked with hundreds of startups expanding to the U.S. We have found that the people you know — the network you are part of — is paramount. Entrepreneurs with experiences launching products and companies are often your best guide, contact German Accelerator to be connected to one of our mentors. 

Connect with one of the 300+ German Accelerator’s mentors for startup specific support:

[email protected]

Strategy and Business Development
Internet sources

Market Research

Official data related American economy and demographics
https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html

Data on wide variety of topics including science, technology, public opinion, social media, policy
https://www.pewresearch.org/

A social media listening tool that aggregates information from over 100 social media services
https://www.socialmention.com/

Also created by Pew Charitable Trusts, Living Facts provides data on topics including  demographics, health, money, trends
https://www.livingfacts.org/

Strategy

Joshua Gans and Erin L. Scott on an entrepreneurial startup compass: four go-to-market strategies
https://hbr.org/2018/05/strategy-for-start-ups?

Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, and Hemant Taneja, managing director of General Catalyst on building a lasting startup
https://hbr.org/2019/07/building-a-startup-that-will-last

Go-To-Market

Andreas Hofmann, Ralf Hirt, and Stefan Groschupf offer their insight into COVID-related changes to B2B go-to-market strategies
https://www.germanaccelerator.com/blog/b2b-go-to-market-strategies-in-2020/

Stefan Groschupf shares his experience in developing a go-to-market strategy
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/gtm-strategy

Pardeep Kullar shares the major components of a go-to market strategy and 10 examples of how companies did go-to-market
https://blog.upscope.io/10-companies-show-you-their-go-to-market-strategy/

Peter Lauten and Martin Casado offer insight to Growth+Sales Enterprise go-to-market
https://a16z.com/2020/07/29/growthsales-the-new-era-of-enterprise-go-to-market/

Channel Sales

Daniel Nilsson shares 14 steps to build a reseller channel program
https://www.daniel-one.com/create-reseller-channel-partner-program

A comprehensive guide for channel sales by OpenView
https://bit.ly/369fpqB

Olivia Garrett shares 30 of the Best SaaS partner programs
https://bit.ly/3hGmuDS

Business Development

Gennaro Cuafano offers a detailed guide to business development
https://fourweekmba.com/business-development/

Lucia Pissedu also offers a detailed business development guide
https://thebdschool.com/business-development-guide/

German Accelerator mentor Ralf Hirt’s Top Three Startup Sources and One Podcast:

Ycombinator’s archive for startup founders
www.ycombinator.com/library

Archive of any business topic
www.investopedia.com/business-4689640

Data-driven insights for startups
https://startupgenome.com/all-reports

One of Ralf’s favorite Podcast: The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-prof-g-show-with-scott-galloway/id1498802610

Add to German Accelerator’s startup resources?
[email protected]