Image Credit: Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock
The United States is a fantastic market for startups, with its huge single market, open-minded buyers, access to fantastic tech talent from the world’s greatest universities, and the holy grail of venture capital.
But many foreign startups think they have to start in the United States, which is wrong. Perhaps America is not even the ideal place to incubate your startup idea. Sound strange? Let’s go through some reasons to start your idea abroad first and then scale it here after reaching product/market fit.
1. U.S. wages aren’t startup friendly
Tech salaries in New York and Silicon Valley are off the charts. A young back-end developer there costs around $100K, while a guy in Munich with the same qualifications and experience costs around $60K.
2. The U.S. advertising market is saturated
While there surely are some modestly priced advertising markets hidden in the United States, it is also home to the most expensive advertising market in the world. Even reaching students as customers is hard, as every startup is aiming for the “Facebook effect,” attempting to go viral with colleges, and there is not one week where a startup isn’t launching at some U.S. college.
3. Overseas, you can aim for critical density rather than critical mass
When trying out your initial beta, it is better to aim for a critical density of 10,000 users in a smaller area than 10,000 users scattered around the vast United States.
This will allow you to learn better from them, and the “viral” effect…The post Test your idea abroad before you scale it in America appeared first on FeedBox.