This startup founder just raised $28 million after a US expansion - these are his 4 tips for going international
- Beamery, a British recruitment tech startup with offices in London, San Francisco, and Austin has raised $28 million in venture capital funding.
- The funding round, announced on Wednesday, was led by EQT Ventures and Microsoft venture capital arm M12.
- CEO and cofounder Abakar Saidov talked to Business Insider about the lessons he learnt from expanding to the US - and what he'd do differently if he had a second chance.
SAN FRANCISCO - One of the biggest culture shocks when Abakar Saidov relocated to the United States was the bureaucracy.
Saidov is the CEO of Beamery, a British recruitment technology company. Cofounded in 2014 by Saidov, his brother, and a friend, it builds software that lets employers track and manage potential hires and job applicants, similar to how it might handle in-house employee records.
It expanded to the US in 2017 and has landed some big customers including Facebook, VMWare, and Zalando - and announced on Wednesday that it has now netted $28 million in Series B venture capital funding from EQT Ventures, Microsoft VC fund M12, and others.
The CEO of the 100-person startup now splits his time between the US and the UK, hopping back and forth between the firm's London headquarters and its Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, California offices. Business Insider spoke to him about what it's like expanding a startup into the US - and what he wishes he'd known before he started.
There's a whole lot of structural stuff you have to relearn
First up, any international expansion necessarily involves a whole load of foreign red tape you need to get your head around.
"There are some structural things ... you have to learn very quickly about how things like healthcare work," Saidov said. "In the UK you're very used to the NHS [National Health Service], I think we're incredibly lucky to have a service like that, which means you just don't worry about it.
"In the US, you have to learn about all these complexities, and I think the US is generally a very bureaucratic market for anything ... from labour law which is different state-by-state to healthcare, which is again different state-by-state ... it was a lot of work to make sure we're doing the right things."
You need to really commit to the expansion
In retrospect, Saidov said, he would have got more boots on the ground in the US early on.
"One of the things we did initially is we only hired a couple of people in the new location, and I think the lesson there was actually: If you're going to land, land with a sizeable team - 5, 6, 7 people. Because being alone in an outpost is challenging," he said.
"We're very grateful to the people that did that, and it wasn't easy, so creating that camaraderie is important."
Companies need to be clear with employees about what being a global business entails
One factor Beamery prizes in building its company culture is face time, Saidov said: Actually getting employees together periodically under one roof, where they can talk in real life and meet the broader team.
"Starting a new office as a small company is hard, so it's really really important to create that connectivity ... we want to make sure the people in all the different offices very frequently connect with each other, so we fly people between offices a lot. We have global off-sites for the whole company, as well as individual teams.
It's a strategy that lets geographically distant teams work closely, but comes at a cost: Periods of travel, spent away from friends and family. It's an obligation that Saidov said he wished, in retrospect, he could have made clear earlier.
"Some people have young families, kids, and therefore can't travel a lot ... if you're going to be leading a function and you need to be where your people are and yet you're not going to commit to travel and be with those people, things are going to be very hard. So I think I [what] I would do differently is around setting those expectations earlier."
You've got to be aware of different cultures
England and the United States may share a language, but that doesn't mean everything will translate. Different countries - and cities - have different norms and working cultures.
"In San Francisco it's a very early culture," he said. "People are in the office at 7 a.m., but then they leave at a much earlier time. Whereas in London, people don't turn up before 9 or 10, but then they stay pretty late ... you might have your company culture which is global, but you also have to have a local culture which is very different."