One of the hardest things to plan and execute is successfully launching a startup into a foreign country. This is especially true if it was founded outside of the US and you are B2B focused.
As an investor into European software companies that are predominately B2B/enterprise focused, we are not looking for local market winners (ie a French payroll provider or a Nordic focused site optimisation tool that has little chance or motivation to scale outside of their home country). We look for companies that after reaching a local maximum in their initial country are ready to take those learnings to the US — which is still the largest market for enterprise software in the world.
The US is the most natural place for UK based companies to launch first and I posit that it is the first or second most common geo for Continental European startups to launch (many come to London first to get ‘anglicised’).
My partner Krishna and I have supported over 15 startups historically in launching into the US and have learned a lot. The following are the key lessons that we wish we would have known years ago: